“The Lost Boys” soundtrack 1987. Just picked up this new-old stock record (still in 80′s shrink-wrap) this week – I had The Lost Boys soundtrack on a dubbed cassette in ‘87 that I listened to fairly obsessively after the movie came out and now I finally have it on vinyl. I loved The Lost Boys; I still do and realized our teen hasn’t seen it yet so that’s on the movie-watching agenda for this weekend. I’ve written about Echo and the Bunnymen’s cover of The Doors’ “People Are Strange” a couple of times before (definitely one of the soundtrack’s highlights); that track appears during the movie’s opening montage, shot in Santa Cruz, CA, and supposedly one of our Wisconsin friends who ran away to California during the summer of ‘86 is one of the punks filmed that were hanging out but I’ve never confirmed this. The other highlight on the soundtrack is “Good Times” by INXS and Jimmy Barnes (in the Australian band Cold Chisel as well as one of the best-selling Australian solo artist of all-time). They also collaborated on “Laying Down the Law,” and it’s OK but not nearly as good as “Good Times.” Roger Daltrey’s cover of Elton John’s “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” is OK but of course Elton’s original is better: Daltrey’s is too 80′s over the top/sax heavy and the heavy metal guitar jam at the end of the song is just plain weird. I kind of guilty-pleasure like Lou Gramm’s (Foreigner) “Lost in the Shadows (The Lost Boys)” but I think I like it mostly because of its association with The Lost Boys and 1987 (a particularly interesting year for me personally). “Cry Little Sister (Theme From The Lost Boys)” by Gerard McMann is just plain creepy. Eddie & the Tide were San Fran/Berkeley area band in the 80′s who had a big club following in Santa Cruz in the 80′s and from what I can tell their main claim to fame was getting included on this soundtrack with “Power Play” – it’s an unremarkable and bland 80′s rock song, with plenty of saxophone, of course. Tim Cappello is remarkable and memorable but mostly for his muscular performance in the film (you remember, the muscly oiled dude playing saxophone), not necessary for his song “I Still Believe.” “Beauty Has Her Way” by Mummy Calls is alright – it’s very 80′s smooth new wave, think Spandau Ballet with Robert Smith hair.