What the Empire Records sound­track taught me about life

In Allan Moyle’s 1995 film, the young employ­ees of the epony­mous inde­pen­dent record store are a clichéd bunch. There’s the good girl, the slut, the goth chick, the art­sy kid, the weirdo, the rock­er, the ston­er and the wannabe. But despite their dif­fer­ences, when the big bad cor­po­rate ​‘Music Town’ tries to buy out Empire Records – over the course of a very event­ful day – they must set aside their dif­fer­ences in order to save their beloved store. Above all else, the sound­track enhances the film’s emo­tion­al raw­ness, speak­ing to teenage view­ers on their own level.

Music is the glue hold­ing every­thing togeth­er here, and the sound­track plays a sig­nif­i­cant part in bring­ing the char­ac­ters to life and mak­ing their strug­gles relat­able. When depressed Deb (Robin Tun­ney) comes to terms with her failed sui­cide attempt, she shaves off all her hair. She per­forms this cathar­tic act to ​‘Free’ by The Mar­ti­nis. It is a puri­fy­ing moment, reit­er­at­ed by the repeat­ed ​“free for the moment” refrain. Lat­er on, the team hold a faux funer­al for Deb, in an attempt to show her how much she would be missed. Music is con­spic­u­ous by its absence dur­ing this ​‘cer­e­mo­ny’, mark­ing it out as a moment for reflec­tion in an oth­er­wise aural­ly over­loaded film. The con­sid­ered use of sound­track enables the film to tack­le heavy themes, with­out feel­ing triv­ial or contrived.

Music is also used through­out the film to rein­force char­ac­ter traits. When flop­py-haired arty type AJ (John­ny Whit­worth) declares his love for good girl Corey (Tyler), ​‘Romeo & Juli­et’ by Dire Straits spins in the back­ground, set­ting up their pre­car­i­ous, amorous des­tiny. Sim­i­lar­ly, when Gina (Zell­weger) decides to live up to her slut­ty girl stereo­type and seduce vis­it­ing pop star Rex Man­ning, Edwyn Collins’ ​‘A Girl Like You’ plays out, con­firm­ing her self-con­fi­dent floozy sta­tus. Lat­er, when Gina ful­fils her dream of singing in a band, ​‘Sug­ar High’ by Coy­ote Shiv­ers – which con­tains the lyrics ​“They all said ​‘she’s just anoth­er groupie slut’ / And I said I thought you’re any­thing but” – is heard. The per­for­mance allows Gina to final­ly shake off her stereotype.

Released the same year as Clue­less, Empire Records couldn’t be fur­ther from Amy Heckerling’s clean cut, prep­py clas­sic. Much like its eclec­tic cast of free-spir­it­ed pro­tag­o­nists, the film holds its own in the face of con­for­mi­ty. One of its endur­ing motifs is Lucas’ (Rory Cochrane) rebel­lious mot­to ​“Damn The Man!”, as allud­ed to in some of the edgi­er sound­track choic­es, most notably ​‘I Don’t Want To Live Today’ by Ape Hang­ers and the iron­ic ​‘Mon­ey (That’s What I Want)’ by The Fly­ing Lizards.

Giv­en that the plot con­cerns the cor­po­rate takeover of a small­town busi­ness, songs of a coun­ter­cul­ture nature are a wel­come addi­tion to the sound­track. But while there is a polit­i­cal edge to pro­ceed­ings, the catchy tunes that accom­pa­ny every mon­tage also serve height­en the sense of youth­ful aban­don and the ner­vous excite­ment that comes with being a teenag­er. The use of The Bug­gles’ ​‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ is espe­cial­ly poignant; just like the vinyl discs which fill the racks, the employ­ees’ sum­mer of lib­er­a­tion can­not last forever.

Empire Records is a film that cap­tures the tran­sient moment between being young and grow­ing up arguably bet­ter than any oth­er film of the era, leav­ing us with the time­less mes­sage that being your­self is all that real­ly matters.