The T2 Trainspot­ting sound­track has been announced

One of the fun­da­men­tal fac­tors that helped Dan­ny Boyle’s 1996 film Trainspot­ting cat­a­pult to infamy upon its release was its amaz­ing sound­track. It per­fect­ly chimed with the zeit­geist of British pop cul­ture, trad­ing on beloved bands such as Blur and Pulp who remain arche­typ­al fig­ures of a quin­tes­sen­tial ​’90s expe­ri­ence that spoke to an entire generation.

That sound you can hear in the mid­dle dis­tance is T2 Trainspot­ting – a belat­ed sequel that has once again been direct­ed by Boyle. The film set to launch in Europe at the Berlin Film Fes­ti­val fol­low­ing its UK release on 27 Jan­u­ary, and it marks almost 20 years since the orig­i­nal cult phe­nom­e­non hit cin­e­mas. This new sto­ry, based on Irvine Welsh’s 2002 nov­el ​‘Porno’, is set 20 years after events con­clud­ed in the orig­i­nal film (rather than the ten year gap in the books).

The premise sees the return of Mark Ren­ton (Ewan McGre­gor) to his home­town in Edin­burgh, who reunites with Spud (Ewen Brem­n­er), Sick Boy (John­ny Lee Miller) and ​‘old flame’ Diane (Kel­ly Mac­don­ald). Ren­ton also faces the chal­lenge of recon­nect­ing with vio­lent mani­ac Beg­bie (Robert Car­lyle) after stitch­ing him up at the end of the first film, all the while attempt­ing to dodge the impend­ing threat of his­to­ry repeat­ing itself.

The list­ing of the T2 sound­track has been announced and we can report that it adheres to the nation­al­is­tic loy­al­ty of the orig­i­nal in choos­ing a quo­ta British artists. Yet, this time around, it does seem like a jum­bled array of songs that are dressed to impress, the quin­tes­sence of a deplet­ed rebel attempt­ing to assim­i­late with the voice of today’s youth and ulti­mate­ly com­ing up dis­con­nect­ed. But hey, that may just be the whole point…

Fea­tur­ing 15 tracks that pro­vide a sub­stan­tial glimpse into the tone of the film, and fran­tic assump­tions and spec­u­la­tions have already been made about the sig­nif­i­cance of the song choic­es. One thing that is clear, deduc­ing from the trail­er, is the mix of the old and the new. Things kick off with the infa­mous ​‘Born Slip­py’ by Under­world – Trainspotting’s trade­mark track – which then segues in to Lon­don-based rock band Wolf Alice’s ​‘Silk’. Direc­tor Dan­ny Boyle is already appeal­ing to our famil­iar­i­ty with the orig­i­nal and then apply­ing that nos­tal­gia into con­tem­po­rary culture.

This strat­e­gy is nowhere more obvi­ous than in the very first track list­ed, the remix­ing of Iggy Pop’s foot-stomp­ing clas­sic ​‘Lust For Life’ by The Prodi­gy. The orig­i­nal was our intro­duc­tion to the world of Trainspot­ting, and the deci­sion to remix it appears as a ham-fist­ed way to sug­gest that this film is mere­ly a re-vamped, remixed ver­sion of the orig­i­nal. And that’s before men­tion­ing that the final Under­world is called ​‘Slow Slip­py’, again trad­ing off of the orig­i­nal film’s spec­tac­u­lar credo.

As for the remain­ing tracks, Boyle trolls through an eclec­tic mix from clas­sic ​’70s rock names like Queen and The Clash, ​’00s rap artists, Run DMC, to con­tem­po­rary alter­na­tive bands such as Edin­burgh-based pop group, Young Fathers, and Peck­ham rock band, Fat White Fam­i­ly. It’s hard not to com­pare these music selec­tions to the mid­dle-aged men that the T2 char­ac­ters have become: they are in a per­pet­u­al state of rem­i­nis­cence while the cul­ture and soci­ety which they used to know changes around – and with­out – them.

Lust For Life (The Prodi­gy Remix) – Iggy Pop
Shot­gun Mouth­wash – High Con­trast
Silk – Wolf Alice
Get Up – Young Fathers
Relax – Frankie Goes to Hol­ly­wood
Even­tu­al­ly But (Spud’s Let­ter to Gail) – Under­world
Only God Knows – Young Fathers
Dad’s Best Friend – The Rub­ber­ban­dits
Dream­ing – Blondie
Radio Ga Ga – Queen
It’s Like That – Run DMC vs Jason Nevins
(White Man) in Ham­mer­smith Palais – The Clash
Rain or Shine – Young Fathers
Whitest Boy On the Beach – Fat White Fam­i­ly
Slow Slip­py – Underworld

T2 Trainspot­ting is released in the UK on 27 January