Top 17 outstanding soundtracks from 1980s movies revealed

Top 1980s movie soundtracks 7 through 5

The Big Chill

One of three soundtrack albums all at 6m sales and together in sixth position on the list. This 1983 comedy drama included the likes of Kevin Kline and Jeff Goldblum in its cast about a reunion 15 years after university. The soundtrack album is another by that well known group Various Artists, with Marvin Gaye, The Temptations and The Rolling Stones among those featured. Perhaps the movie has a slight edge here as a follow up album, More Songs From The Big Chill sold a further 1m copies a year later. 

Flashdance

In case anyone doesn’t know or has forgotten this is the 1983 story of a female welder, who also works as an exotic dancer, but wants to be a professional ballerina. So, yeah a pretty true to life gritty story. Backed by video clips from the movie the soundtrack album did amazingly well. 6 million sales, nine Grammy nominations and three awards. Film music guru Giorgio Moroder was behind the biggest hit sung by Irene Cara - “Flashdance - What A Feeling”. If you want to read a great ranking of the ten songs from the movie we’ve got it covered for you. 

Little Mermaid

Ok, we’ve done well to get this far without a Disney film popping up. The family element to this 1989 animation will no doubt have boosted sales of this fun soundtrack to the 6 million level. It was the beginning of a resurgence in Disney music and films in the coming years. If that bothers you at all, let it go.