Pulp Fiction (Music From The Motion Picture) [Vinyl LP]

Various Artists – Pulp Fiction (Music From The Motion Picture) [Vinyl LP]

Details

• Format: Vinyl LP, Album, Compilation, Stereo, Explicit
• Catalogue Number: 1111031
• Barcode: 008811110314
• Genre: Surf Rock / Soul / Rock & Roll / Soundtrack
• Label: MCA Records / Universal Music
• Originally Released: 27 September 1994
• Condition: New & Sealed

Description

The soundtrack to Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction — winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes 1994 and one of the most culturally seismic films of the decade — is a record like no other in the soundtrack canon. Released by MCA Records on 27 September 1994, it rejects every convention of the film soundtrack genre: there is no composed score, no tie-in pop songs recorded for the occasion, and no attempt to market to a specific demographic. Instead, Tarantino and music supervisor Karyn Rachtman assembled an eclectic and precisely curated selection of American surf music, rock and roll, soul and pop from the 1960s and 70s, interspersed with isolated dialogue extracts from the film itself — creating a listening experience that is as disorienting, funny and emotionally charged as the movie it accompanies.

The opening track establishes the template: a fragment of dialogue between Pumpkin (Tim Roth) and Honey Bunny (Amanda Plummer) segues without pause into Dick Dale & His Del-Tones' ferocious 1962 surf instrumental "Misirlou" — an opening gambit that reintroduced Dale's work to an entirely new generation and made surf music briefly cool again in the mid-1990s. The selection encompasses Al Green's languid "Let's Stay Together", which plays during Vincent and Mia's dinner at Jack Rabbit Slim's; Dusty Springfield's "Son of a Preacher Man", underscoring one of cinema's great slow-burn seductions; Kool & The Gang's "Jungle Boogie"; Chuck Berry's "You Never Can Tell", the source of the film's iconic twist contest; and Urge Overkill's sleek cover of Neil Diamond's "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon" — the song playing when Mia Wallace overdoses, which reached number 59 on the Billboard Hot 100 on the soundtrack's commercial coat-tails.

The album peaked at number 21 on the Billboard 200 and was a genuine crossover commercial success — selling to audiences who had never previously owned a surf record, a 1960s soul compilation, or a Ricky Nelson album. Critically it was recognised as something genuinely new: a soundtrack that functions as a complete artistic statement in its own right, in which the dialogue interludes are as essential to the listening experience as the music itself. Rolling Stone and AllMusic both note that it succeeds where most soundtracks fail — recreating the specific atmosphere of the film rather than simply borrowing its title. Karyn Rachtman received a Grammy nomination for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album at the 1996 Grammy Awards.

This EU pressing on black vinyl is distributed via Universal Music and continues the album's nearly unbroken thirty-year run in print — a testament to a record that has never lost its capacity to introduce Pulp Fiction's world to a new listener for the first time.

Tracklist

Side A

1. Pumpkin and Honey Bunny / Misirlou – Dialogue / Dick Dale & His Del-Tones
2. Royale With Cheese – Dialogue
3. Jungle Boogie – Kool & The Gang
4. Let's Stay Together – Al Green
5. Bustin' Surfboards – The Tornadoes
6. Lonesome Town – Ricky Nelson
7. Son of a Preacher Man – Dusty Springfield
8. Zed's Dead, Baby / Bullwinkle Part II – Dialogue / The Centurions

Side B

1. You Never Can Tell – Chuck Berry
2. Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon – Urge Overkill
3. If Love Is a Red Dress (Hang Me in Rags) – Maria McKee
4. Bring Out the Gimp / Comanche – Dialogue / The Revels
5. Flowers on the Wall – Statler Brothers
6. Jack Rabbit Slim's Twist Contest – Dialogue
7. Surf Rider – The Lively Ones
8. Ezekiel 25:17 – Dialogue

Credits

• Quentin Tarantino – Director, Executive Soundtrack Producer
• Lawrence Bender – Executive Soundtrack Producer
• Karyn Rachtman – Music Supervisor, Executive Soundtrack Producer
• Label – MCA Records / Universal Music