The Best Movie Soundtracks

Boomerang

The best thing about the Boomerang soundtrack is that it’s the first time the world heard Toni Braxton. Babyface actually wrote her songs for Anita Baker. But when she dropped out, he thought Toni had the pipes to carry Love Shoulda Brought You Home and music history was made.

And that’s just the tip of the good-soundtrack iceberg. The Boomerang soundtrack features a ton of classics like PM Dawn’s Die Without You, Boyz II Men’s End of the Road and Kenny Vaughan’s Feels Like Heaven. It’s impossible not to get nostalgic about Marcus and Angela just listening to it.

Above The Rim

This 1994 soundtrack is so good it might actually out-class the movie and it starred Tupac and Omar Epps.

SWV sang Anything, Lady of Rage debuted Afro Puffs and we still know most of the lyrics to Warren G’s Regulate to this day.

Purple Rain

The soundtrack was so good we almost forget it was a movie. Purple Rain may have been a cult classic but it’s soundtrack is a real-live hit that won an Oscar in 1985 for Best Original Score.

From When Doves Cry to Darling Nikki to Purple Rain, this album is a hit from start to finish. No wonder it sold over 20 million copies.

The Color Purple

See Daddy? Sinners have soul too.

OK, so The Color Purple‘s soundtrack was mostly instrumental. But the few songs it does have hit home. Like when Shug stops singing Sister to join the choir? It’s just one of the moments that make Miss Celie’s Blues (Sister), God Is Trying To Tell You Something and Makidada some of our favorite songs of all time.

Frozen

You know soundtrack is good when you get sick to death of hearing it. We blame the children for wearing out Do You Want to Build A Snowman but we’ve all belted out a few bars of Let It Go in the car on the way to work.

The Little Mermaid

Disney sure does know how to make a soundtrack. Everyone who is sick to death of hearing their kids’ sing Let It Go is just getting a little payback from when they exasperated their parents by singing Under the Sea all day.

The Wiz

Diana Ross and Michael Jackson singing Ease on Down The Road beats Follow The Yellow Brick Road every time.

Grease

Not every song on the Grease soundtrack is a hit. But everyone that was was an instant classic. Ask anyone in America and they can probably sing you a few bars of Summer Nights, You’re The One That I Want or Beauty-School Dropout.

Dreamgirls

Listen is definitely a jam, but nothing compares to Jennifer Hudson singing her heart out to Jamie Foxx. And once you stop listening to And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going on repeat, it’s time to jam One Night Only, Love You I Do and the rest of the retro tracks on this hit Broadway soundtrack.

Love Jones

Say, baby… can I be Your slave? I’ve got to admit girl you’re the shit girl… and I’m digging you like a grave.

The only things cooler than Nina and Darius are the jams on this soundtrack. This album has spoken word, Lauryn Hill’s Sweetest Thing, Maxwell’s Sumthin’ Sumthin’ and so many smooth tracks that you have to listen to it with the lights off.

The Bodyguard

This album is so full of Whitney’s power ballads that you need pretty serious pipes just to sing along. But that never stopped anyone from singing every single word to I Will Always Love You, I Have Nothing and Run To You… or I’m Every Woman (soo many hits).

Lady Sings The Blues

Before big screen biopics were a Hollywood staple, Diana Ross, Billy D. Williams and Richard Pryor made us fall in love with Billie Holiday all over again.

And for the soundtrack, Diana set the biopic bar impossibly high by invoking Billie’s classic sound while keeping her own soulful style. If you love Lady Day and Diana Ross (which is basically everybody) this movie and soundtrack belong in your collection.

The Best Man

Everybody loves The Best Man‘s soundtrack. The Roots, Kenny Lattimore, Lauryn Hill? It’s high-end soul from start to finish.

Crooklyn

Spike Lee must have spent a lot on this soundtrack and it paid off. Just like the movie, it’s a history of life in the 70’s. Released in two volumes it features all the classics from The Staples Singers, Sly & the Family Stone, The Jackson 5, Curtis Mayfield and more.