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Shoplifters of the World: The Film With a Soundtrack That Oscillates Wildly

The Plethora of Pop Movie Music Challenge

Paul Combs
4 min readMar 8, 2023
Image source: RLJE Films

When Buddy Gott issued his Plethora of Pop Movie Music Challenge, I actually considered skipping it. I have written about film soundtracks several times in the past (even including some in a Rate-A-Record installment) and didn’t think I had any more to say about the subject. Then I read a comment by Simon Dillon on an article where I pitted albums against each other, March Madness style.

Even after two years and more than 800 articles in which I managed to always mention Bruce Springsteen’s classic “Born to Run” (the Greatest Song Ever), Simon still chose the Smiths album The Queen is Dead over Born to Run. He may have done this simply to make my head explode, but it is also possible I simply have not preached the Gospel of Bruce fervently enough. As much as I love the Smiths and The Queen is Dead

The Smiths…wait just one minute. There is a film with a soundtrack made up of nothing but Smiths songs, and it’s been almost two years since I mentioned how the soundtrack took what would have been an average film and turned it into a magical bit of nostalgia for those of us who lived through the Smiths’ glory days of the mid-1980s.

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Paul Combs
Paul Combs

Written by Paul Combs

Writer, bookseller, would-be roadie for the E Street Band. My ultimate goal is to make books as popular in Texas as high school football...it may take a while.

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