Few movies deserve a two-volume soundtrack, but The Wedding Singer is one of those rare exceptions. While Volume 2 is not quite as good as the first album, it still contains some exceedingly good 1980s tracks. This music is not the best the decade produced, but it does represent a good cross-section of styles and sounds.

Several of these songs were also very prominent in the movie -- for example, the movie opens with Adam Sandler singing (sans patch) Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" and closes with Spandau Ballet's slow ballad "True." "Too Shy" by Kajagoogoo is a quintessential '80s song, and anyone who grew up in the '80s can hardly forget the temporarily huge A Flock of Seagulls ("Space Age Love Song"). "Private Idaho" is a typically fun B-52's song.

As hard as it is to admit, Hall & Oates were once a wildly successful duo, and "You Make My Dreams" is one of their better songs. No soundtrack from the '80s would be complete without a track from Madonna, and although "Holiday" is far from her best song, this is the song Robbie Hart (Sandler) chose to sing on his ill-fated return to the stage after having been left standing at the altar.

While the 1980s were about much more than greed, some would probably consider Flying Lizards' "Money (That's What I Want)" a veritable theme song of the decade.

Remarkably, two CDs still do not contain all of the great '80s songs from the movie itself, and we all have some other tracks we wish had been included on the soundtracks, but this is still a great collection of quintessential '80s music.

by Daniel Jolley
Rambles.NET
12 November 2005