Customer Reviews

Pulp Fiction: Music From The Motion Picture

5 star:		(46)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The soundtrack to Quentin Tarantino's breakthrough movie Pulp Fiction is arguably one of the best soundtrack albums you'll ever hear. Like Tarantino's other movie soundtracks like Reservoir Dogs and Kill Bill, it combines a few great songs that were past hits with tracks that most music listeners have never heard before. Unlike those soundtracks, Pulp Fiction is great from beginning to end with the more obscure tracks being arguably better than the more established songs.

All of the tracks here that were past hits are very strong. Kool & The Gang's "Jungle Boogie" is one of the best funk jams from the '70s. Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" is '70s soul at its best. Chuck Berry's "You Never Can Tell", Dusty Springfield's "Son Of A Preacher Man", Ricky Nelson's "Lonesome Town", and the Statler Brothers' "Flowers On The Wall" with its catchy chorus are also great tracks. Any movie soundtrack containing these tracks would be pretty good. But what really puts this album over the top are the more obscure tracks or "deep cuts." Dick Dale's "Misirlou" is a killer track that resurrected the surf guitar king's career. Urge Overkill's version of Neil Diamond's "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon" is an outstanding track which is even better than the original. The tracks "Bustin' Surfboards" and "Surf Rider" are also great. But it's the somber acoustic track "If Love Is A Red Dress" with Maria McKee's fantastic vocal performace and whistling hook that steals the show. The snippets from the movie are some of its best moments, especially "Royale With Cheese" and Samuel Jackson's closing "Ezekiel 25:17." The tracks are also sequenced very well, never putting songs from the same genre or mood together. All told, this is a great soundtrack to what was arguably one of the best movies of the '90s. Highly recommended.

I immediately fell in love with Pulp Fiction Soundtrack. In fact, after watching the movie (which, by the way, is excellent, and I would not hesitate to put it higher than 95th in the list of the hundred best movies of the century by the Academy) over six times, I realized that not only Tarantino's authenticity and originality were astonishing, but the music itself was fairly sufficient to call it a masterpiece.

The idea of putting some dialogue in the soundtrack is absolutely phenomenal, for it may make us recall some terrific scenes of the movie, which we could listen to or watch, or both, over and over again.

The unequal terrific thing about that soundtrack is that it covers globally and perfectly the most important parts of the movie. Listening to it carefully and trying to associate the songs with the scenes in which they are heard should be the same, or so, as watching the movie. All the important songs are there, nothing's missing (or at least, it doesn't give you any impression something's missing).

Brilliant was the idea to put the songs in chronological order or almost, for it gives you a very strong feeling you are watching Pulp Fiction itself.

The violent ending of Ezekiel 25:17 will let you in an overwhelming feeling of satisfaction. You will absolutely not regret buying this one... guaranteed!

I will not talk about the movie, you already know it rocks, you already know it's one of the best films ever made, almost everyone agrees with that, a movie masterpiece.
This soundtrack is as good as music as the film was in characters and situations... Tarantino has done an amazing job in this soundtrack.
Even though I'm not much of a fan of music from the 50s, 60s and 70s, this soundtrack just made me love nearly every single song in it. The best songs are: Let's Stay Together, Lonesome Town, Son Of A Preacher Man, You Never Can Tell, Girl You'll Be A Woman Soon and Flowers On The Wall - all of them magnific songs. Not to mention the dialogues and the instrumental music - Misirlou and Surf Riders are movie classics.
Overall, this is a CD everyone should own. Soundtrack collectors, music fans... Everyone. If there was a Top 100 Soundtracks, you could be sure: Pulp Fiction would be in Top 5.

Oh well, nearly every track. I recognise about half of the tracks on this.

There's lots of snippets of dialogue from the movie to start some of the tracks, so you know exactly where they appear in the movie. However, only a couple of these tracks are introduced like this - those being "Misirlou"; "Bullwinkle Part II"; "You Never Can Tell"; and "Comanche". Personally, I couldn't recognise these tracks by THOSE names if I tried - but if I were to tell you: "Pumpkin & Honey Bunny"; "Royale With Cheese"; "Zed's Dead, Baby"; "Jack Rabbit Slims Twist Contest"; and "Bring Out The Gimp, then you're clicking your fingers in recognition right? (Every one but the last one!) Some of the dialogue snippets are pretty much pointless. They need to be short and quick, and some of them are just too long, and you're desperate for the music to start playing.

For anyone who would like to hear Samuel L. Jackson's infamous quote, just before he's going to kill someone, the last track of this is a must for you! (Ezekiel 25:17) Go ahead and learn it off by heart, and then you can spout it to anyone you wish - and scare them witless.

One of the greatest songs on this has to be "Let's Stay Together" by Al Green. This was also featured in Down To You, but ISN'T for some strange reason on the soundtrack to that. (The song that Julia Stiles sings to Freddie Prinz Jnr in the college room)

I was not expecting to find a song by Maria McKee on this! But as with most soundtracks, there is normally a whole mixture of tunes thrown haphazardly in and normally none of them will match!

A great soundtrack to match a great film, and is a definite must-have for any soundtrack fan, or anyone who can't find certain songs on any other CD - this will have them.

I absolutely love the music from "Pulp Fiction." Many of the songs feel so integral to the scenes, such as Bruce Willis singing along to "Flowers on the Wall," just before he runs into the very man he desperately needs to avoid. Hearing Dick Dale's surf-music theme "Misirlou" puts me instantly in the mood to see the movie again, no matter how recently I just watched it. Urge Overkill's rendition of "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon" was phenomenally paired with Uma Thurman's experiments with John Travolta's heroin.

But as much as I love the movie and the music, this collection leaves something to be desired. The "Pulp Fiction" soundtrack contains an interesting mix of lots of fun songs, and is fun to listen to. I would give the collection of music 5 stars, and the organization of the CD (discussed below) 1 star--hence my 4-star compromise.

My biggest objection is that the dialogue snippets just interrupt the flow of the CD. And some of the dialogue selections, in my book, aren't even the most memorable exchanges in the movie. For instance, instead of giving us Samuel L. Jackson's wonderful "Say 'WHAT?' again" exchange before blasting his victim, we get the Jack Rabbit Slim's rather inane dance competition introduction. The Royale with Cheese and the discussion about eating pork work fine. The "Zed's Dead, Baby" discussion, while enjoyable in the movie, doesn't work as well when cut out of context. In reality, if the producers of the soundtrack wanted to include movie dialogue, they could have included the Ezekiel quote at the beginning on the soundtrack, and then left off the rest.

Don't get me wrong. I have enjoyed ways that other soundtracks departed from being a strictly musical experience. Emma Thompson's reading of "Sigh No More" on the "Much Ado About Nothing" soundtrack really sets the tone for the soundtrack, and coming at the beginning of the CD, does not detract from the music.

My other dislike about the soundtrack is that the songs do not appear in the same sequence as in the movie. They aren't chronological for the "true" order of events (as opposed to the sequence-switching that Tarantino did). For me, a movie soundtrack should be a mini experience of the movie. The songs on the soundtrack appear in no discernable order. The organization does not even work aesthetically.

If you have a CD player that enables programming your preferences for a particular CD, however, all of these objections could be resolved. You could omit the excess dialogue and re-order the music in a more appealing sequence.

What I really like about Pulp Fiction is the way the director used rock n' roll to set the tone and mood for each scene. The thumping guitar licks really underscore the violence. What I don't like about the cd is that they left out Link Wray's 'Rumble' and 'Ace of Spades' - some of the best theme riffs of the movie.

It makes sense that when Tarantino was in the grips of his creative writing peak, this unusually attuned song selector would be at his best as well. Stringing together this unusual mix mainly contrasting R&B with Surf but certainly throwing in other classic genre nods as well, Pulp Fiction's distinct sequencing still stands out as one of the hippest soundtracks to emerge.

No movie maker in Hollywood can be more relied on to put together a top quality soundtrack than Quentin Tarantino. Perhaps it is the fact that he hand picks his own songs rather than handing it over to someone in the music world to write a score, that makes them such a powerful part of his films.

What is stunning about this soundtrack, and indeed the film in general, is the coherent fusion of many diametrically opposed styles into one flowing movement. However following in the style of his films, none of these many eclectic forms ever seems out of place. Indeed it is difficult to think of any other soundtrack where 'Son of a Preacher Man', 'Jungle Boogie and 'Misirlou' could all appear and not deprive the collection of its flow.

One of the most interesting parts of this CD is a 16 minute interview with Tarantino himself in which he explains his process for choosing songs for his films, the conflicts he has had when choosing one song or another for certain scenes and what he likes and dislikes in the soundtracks of other films. One of the things that Tarantino believes is that choosing the right song for the right scene is about as cinematic a thing as a director can do. Having seen how this soundtrack is used in 'Pulp Fiction' it is difficult to disagree.

I still enjoy this collection as much as when I first heard them 12 years ago. An incredable balance of many types of music.

i am a fan of quentin tarantino. not a hardcore fan, but a fan nonetheless. i have loved all his movies that he has made the best being Pulp Fiction and then Reservoir Dogs. by getting the soundtrack to Pulp Fiction, and reading the track list for RD, i cam to the assumption that Mr. Tarantino loves old music. I've got one thing to say about this CD: if you like older music like Dick Dale and Dusty Springfield, then you will want this soundtrack and like it. If you want modern music that was inspired by the movie, you're not gonna get it. A bonus of this CD is the inclusion of some of the best dialogue from the movie except the first bit of dialogue which wasn't necessary. BUY THIS CD!