When director James Gunn decided to fill the soundtrack for the first Guardians of the Galaxy film with songs from the 1970s and 1980s Marvel Studios thought he was crazy.
They said, “Nobody is going to want to hear this music,” according to Gunn in a new interview with Rolling Stone.
Now, as we sit on the precipice of the sequel to Guardians of the Galaxy being released, that soundtrack that nobody was going to want to hear has sold over a million copies in the U.S. and at one point reached number one on the US Billboard 200 chart.
The songs have always been a way of representing Peter Quill’s mom, Meredith, in the movies, and Gunn has a pretty good sense of her. “She’s a music lover, but she’s completely not elitist,” he says. “If it’s something that’s thought of as goofy and pop, she likes it. If it’s cool or funk, she likes it. She just likes hooks and melodies. She’s a very quirky, young girl who fell in love with, you know, as it ends up, an alien. And falling in love with an alien is right up there in Meredith Quill’s alley. She’s an oddball, like her son.”
Gunn himself has had to listen to the movies’ songs over and over – but he doesn’t mind. “The weird thing is, I’ve never gotten sick of a Guardians song,” says Gunn, fresh from hearing “Mr. Blue Sky” yet again while supervising the film’s sound mix. “Chris Pratt listened to the first album hundreds of times. He said the only song he got sick of was ‘The Piña Colada Song.'”
With a higher budget for the movie’s sequel Gunn was able to infuse Awesome Mix Vol. 2 with a few even bigger names from the past such as George Harrison, Fleetwood Mac and Electric Light Orchestra.
The soundtrack goes on sale on April 21st, a couple of weeks before Guardians 2 hits theaters on May 5th.
Here’s what music both it as well as the movie will contain…
1. “Mr. Blue Sky,” Electric Light Orchestra
2. “Fox on the Run,” Sweet
3. “Lake Shore Drive,” Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah
4. “The Chain,” Fleetwood Mac
5. “Bring it On Home to Me,” Sam Cooke
6. “Southern Nights,” Glen Campbell
7. “My Sweet Lord,” George Harrison
8. “Brandy You’re a Fine Girl,” Looking Glass
9. “Come a Little Bit Closer,” Jay and the Americans
10. “Wham Bang Shang-A-Lang,” Silver
11. “Surrender,” Cheap Trick
12. “Father and Son,” Yusuf / Cat Stevens
13. “Flashlight,” Parliament
14. “Guardians Inferno,” The Sneepers featuring David Hasselhoff