And, as weird as this may sound the Shrek 2 soundtrack was arguably just as good, introducing kids everywhere to Pete Yorn, Tom Waits, and Nick Cave. The only real stinker is ' Like Wow!' a bubblegum pop selection from Leslie Carter, sister of Aaron and Nick. (Suck it, The O.C.) The track listing bounces around from ' All Star' to deeper cuts like Eels' ' My Beloved Monster' and a genuinely lovely cover of ' You Belong to Me' by Lifehouse's Jason Wade. Shrek both makes fun of classic Disney musicals and operates like a musical itself, using propulsive cues throughout its running time, all the way from those opening Smash Mouth chords to the use of Rufus Wainwright's version of ' Hallelujah' before it was everywhere. Is the Shrek soundtrack a masterpiece or an abomination? Whether the sounds of 'somebody once told me the world is going to roll me' make you scream with delight or shudder, it's impossible to deny that the creators of this juggernaut were onto something when they decided to mix boomer and Gen X musical sensibilities, and then market it to tweenage millennials. We hope this list of the 50 greatest movie soundtracks of all time will inspire you to discover some music you haven't heard previously, and we apologize in advance for getting 'Footloose' stuck in your head again.

While this list certainly celebrates the pre-Napster 1990s, when the recording industry was flush with cash and setting money aside for music licensing became an essential part of the filmmaking budgeting process, we also aimed to include a wide variety of genres, directors, and eras, including the playlist-obsessed present, and we considered how the overall album holds together, not just whether it includes a monster hit song. After all, movie soundtracks are personal. All of these operating guidelines, especially that third rule, may explain why that one soundtrack you rushed out to buy at Tower Records back in the day isn't on this list. We followed - and, yes, occasionally bent - a handful of self-created rules about what qualifies as a soundtrack: no orchestral movie scores (sorry, Hans Zimmer) no traditional movie musicals (apologies, Grease fans) and only one movie per director (Cameron Crowe was particularly difficult). For the purposes of this list, we consider the movie soundtrack to be a unique art form, one with distinct and complicated ties to the history of popular music.

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