10 "Drive Soundtrack" Style Songs...
Some nice fan art posters to start off...
I've found myself a little obsessed with the music from what is still my favourite movie of the year (unless you count Black Swan which didn't reach UK cinemas til January). The soundtrack of Drive has an 80s-style theme, but all the actual songs are modern. I think the style they adopt might be linked to moves by bands like Crystal Castles to make use of videogame sounds in their music and I'm also reminded of the recent trend to do 8-bit versions of songs (as seen in another recent soundtrack).
In this post I'm going to look at several bands or artists I've come across either from the soundtrack or from searching for similar sounding music. If you loved the Drive soundtrack as much as I did, you might want to check this out...
1. Electric Youth
Anyway, possibly the best example of a song made to sound 80s on the Drive soundtrack is "A Real Hero" by College featuring Electric Youth:
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Having done a bit of digging, I'm inclined to believe that it is Electric Youth, not College, who are the real secret to this song's success. Oddly one of their own songs sounds even more 80s than the one featured on the Drive OST:
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2. Kavinsky
The opening song from the soundtrack, "Night Call", comes from Kavinsky.
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Kavinsky seems to be quite well-known for his work on the soundtrack of at least one of the recent GTA games. Here's one of his more typical songs.
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As you can hear, the 80s aspect in his own work mainly comes from his use of synth. Asides from that it's fairly obvious that this is a modern dance track.
3. Desire
Desire are responsible for my favourite song from the "Drive" soundtrack: "Under Your Spell":
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I must admit that I've found rather less that stood out for me in Desire's other work than I did with Electric Youth and Kavinsky. Still, I was quite impressed with their song "Don't Call".
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Ok so now for some stuff that isn't in the soundtrack....
4. Crystal Castles
Now admittedly this song probably fits the bill mainly because of the inclusion of Robert Smith from The Cure. It's hard to listen to him without thinking 80s to be honest:
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5. Tesla Boy
When I discovered this band this just blew me away. How can a recent band sound this 80s?
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But is this really what 80s music sounded like, or is it just keying in to nostalgia by using a few small elements of some 80s music? When I find a genuine 80s synthy band, it doesn't sound anything like so cool.
6. Anoraak
Another very 80s sounding band. Perhaps rather more clearly owing something to modern dance music, but I can still imagine this is an old 80s song and if they can sound this cool too, then all the better.
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7. Flashworx
This is more in line with Kavinsky's style, but it's rather more clearly aiming for an 80s style. A dreamy synth style with cheesy electric drums which somehow comes together to make something really cool. I mean seriously how is "cool-sounding 80s synth music" even possible? What unholy alchemy is this???
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8. Ladytron
Okay, I'm probably cheating including this band. I don't think they are trying to sound 80s at all. Even so, they're still relatively synthy and I think they just about fit into this list. Plus I love this song.
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9. Spleen United
I saw this being recommended as a Drive soundtrack style song, but actually, from what I can tell, it's probably the only Spleen United song that would fit. (I don't think the lead singer's voice really fits with the style, so perhaps if more of their songs had no lyrics like this one I'd have had a wider choice?)
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10. Daft Punk
To finish, Daft Punk are a band that seems to jump to mind for a lot of people when they consider this style of music. However, listening to their music, I don't think they sound quite right. I guess I just connect Daft Punk too much with the 90s (when they began their career) to view them as 80s style music. Still, here's one of their more recent well-known synthy songs because, why not?
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