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The Songs That Rocked Far More than the Brat Pack Ever Did
The music was often better than the movies
Because Generation X has reached the age where we gaze back fondly at our youth (nostalgia being more fun than pondering current housing prices and AARP membership), everything 1980s is cool again. The music has never not been cool, but now we’re reaching for the old movies as well, as evidenced by the constant chatter about Andrew McCarthy’s new retrospective on the Brat Pack, Brats. Unsurprisingly, for me this new focus on the Brat Pack films didn’t just make me want to watch the films again, but also reminded me of great songs I’d nearly forgotten.
As a side note (I always have to include one of these), I’ve never liked the term “Brat Pack” for one simple reason. It is an obvious comparison to the 1960s Rat Pack, and there is no way on God’s green earth that Andrew McCarthy, Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, and the rest of the ’80s crew deserve to even be mentioned in the same breath as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, and the rest of the Rat Pack. The Rat Pack was the definition of cool (seriously, look up “cool” in the dictionary…their picture is there).
Anyway, after watching some of the best-known Brat Pack films again (and listening to the soundtracks as well), I have to say that contrary to what I…
