Top 17 outstanding soundtracks from 1980s movies revealed

The top movie soundtrack of the 1980s is…

...Dirty Dancing

Of course it is, Dirty Dancing is a wildly popular movie to this day. The chemistry of stars Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Gray stands the test of time and resonates around the world. Its early 1960s setting for the story is ideal and evocative, also allowing some great music to feature throughout the film.

The film had its first showing at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1987 before making its cinema debut in August of that year. Reviews were mixed and slightly above average at best, it wasn’t an obvious huge hit at first. But it grew at the box office and took around $63 million and then, significantly, continued to grow in popularity via video becoming the first film to sell over 1m copies in that format. 

The soundtrack was overseen by Jimmy Lenner and had a mix of existing songs and music along with several new songs. That included “She’s Like The Wind” cowritten by Swayze a few years earlier and performed by him for the movie, it was a top five hit as a single. “Hungry Eyes” by Eric Carmen was another hit when released as a single. Add in some classics such as “Be My Baby” by The Ronettes, ‘Do You Love Me” by The Contours and “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” by The Shirelles and it's definitely earning its top place. 

Pride of place song wise anyway goes to what has become the signature song for Dirty Dancing - “(I've Had) The Time of My Life" by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes. That song covered the iconic final dance in the film and collected a Grammy, an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award. Quite a shelf full of trophies.

The soundtrack album came out in August 1987 and had enormous success. 14m sales in the US were backed by even more worldwide as the film's success grew. An estimated 32 million sales across the globe make this one of the top selling albums, regardless of soundtracks. As an added clincher for top place here a second album, More Dirty Dancing was released in March 1988 and sold 4 million copies. 

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