Star Lord soundtrack of all soundtracks

A guardian of the Galaxy (GOTG) is by far ahead of the game when it comes to the collaboration of soundtracks and on screen action. As well as being a awesome movie with a mix of heartbreak, love, comedy and action (pardon the pun) GOTG is famously known for its “Awesome Mix VOL.1” soundtrack which director James Gunn put together himself. The soundtrack features some old school 70’s classics, that have you singing along as if you was in the shower, such as “Hooked on a feeling” and “Ain’t no mountain n high enough” to note a few. James Gunn tweeted he personally selected “every single song myself”. In an interview with Vulture.com Mr. Gunn selected the type of songs he wanted through a careful process of “reading the billboard charts for all of the top hits of the 70’s” and then narrowing the list down to about 120 songs on iTunes. He then went onto say he listened to the songs constantly around the house until he decided which ones fitted best. James Gunn is also a musician as well as a director, which makes perfect sense to why the soundtracks fitted so well to the movie and was like nothing we have seen before.

GOTG has some iconic scenes as well as the type of music it plays in its soundtrack, this is shown in the opening scene when a young Peter Quill is sitting in a hospital hallway listening to “I’m Not In Love” by 10cc. This is one of them songs you listened to in the car when you was a kid and absolutely loved it but didn’t know what it was called. Its very familiar and almost hypnotizing, which makes you, feel spacey, similar to how Peter Quill is acting in the hallway; outside his dying mothers hospital room. It puts us on the same emotional level as Peter, but as an outsider I think its clear to us the soundtrack is a display of how Peter is feeling. This is shown in the lyrics of the song “I’m not in love, so don’t forget it”. Its very clear James Gunn deliberately used this song to show that Peter is in denial about his mother’s condition and when a person is in denial they manage anxiety by distorting and not acknowledging painful events and how this soundtrack is used in the movie is a perfect way of peter reinforcing his denial. This scene pulled on my heart and really caught my emotions because it was very real since it could happen to any of us and has happened to many of us. The scene ends with Peters mom handing him a birthday present to which he freaks out about as her life support machines fails and ends with Peter running and screaming out of the hospital. On a brighter note I found myself singing this song for two weeks straight when I first watched this movie and after re watching it I went through and downloaded the full “Awesome mix VOL.1”!!

This is just the start of how James Gunn enforces the use of Logos, pathos and ethos. He works them along side one another by always having a logical explanation to why he chose a certain song and pathos tends to be to make us feel a certain type of emotion in correspondent to the scene. Ethos plays a big part also since one of the reasons the soundtrack was a huge hit is because of how popular the songs were to all kinds of generations and the ones I didn’t particularly know well, I soon became obsessed.

Another iconic scene in the movie is the closing scene where star lord (Peter Quill) is sitting on his ship after defeating the movies villain. He decides to open his birthday present his mother gives him in the opening scene before she passes away, attached to the present is a letter that reads, she will always be with him. I think a tear was falling from my eyes, as well as peters when watching this scene. Peter then opens the present to see “Awesome mix VOL.2” (exciting right?!) The first song on the track as he plays it is “Aint no mountain high”. Yes the hit from “Remember the titans” I think this was Gunn’s most strategic selection for a soundtrack throughout the whole movie, it gives us a sense of hope and happiness after all the sadness that has a occurred. Its also fitting to the words his mother said about always being with him and that there is literally no mountain high enough that can get in the way of that.

Overall this movie and its soundtrack was without a doubt a hit. The soundtrack was breaking records left right and center. The “Awesome mix VOL 1) is doing this other soundtracks have never done. According to Billboard.com has stormed into the top 200 list, even more impressively was the only album to do without a new single. On a more impressive note Guardians of the Galaxy received a 91% of Rotten Tomatoes, which if you know their history is amazing to get anything over a 50%. Without a doubt I absolutely loved the soundtrack to the movie and could honestly not think of a more perfect choice of songs. 5/5!