Rhino Records, August 2002

Movie soundtracks are easy, right?
I don’t mean the hours upon hours spent deciding which song to use in which scene. I’m just talking about the actual compilation of the movie’s songs into an album; a relatively straightforward process.

This process is harder, however, when the whole point of the movie is to document a specific music scene which bred myriad genres over a 17-year period. Such was the task for the crew of 24 Hour Party People, a movie about the rise and fall of Factory Records, the label responsible for putting Manchester, England on the map and exposing now legendary bands such as Joy Division and Happy Mondays to the world.

The film traces the “Manchester scene” from 1976 (the beginning of punk music) through the post-punk and new wave of the 80s, and ending with the explosion of acid house/rave music in the late 80s/early 90s. Overall, the soundtrack does a good job representing each of these disparate genres, combining legendary bands such as Joy Divison and Happy Mondays with lesser-known names like The Durutti Column and 808 State.

Like the movie, the album opens up with Sex Pistols’ classic “Anarchy in the UK,” which, while not affiliated with the Manchester scene, lays the musical groundwork upon which Factory Records based much of its music on. (Either sonically or on the idea of rebellion through music.)

From the punk-pop of the Buzzcocks’ “Ever Fallen in Love” to the dark, minimalist sound of Joy Division to the Happy Mondays’ fusion of psychedelic rock and dance music, the album comes off as a good mixtape for an era often dismissed in hindsight as simple and cheesy. Two new New Order tracks (the Chemical Brothers-produced “Here to Stay” and their reinterpretation of Joy Division’s “New Dawn Fades” with Moby on vocals) fit in seamlessly with the rest of the album. The only black mark on the album is the inclusion of The Clash’s “Janie Jones” which, while in the movie, does nothing to represent the scene and seems extraneous with the inclusion of “Anarchy in the U.K.”

While it would have been interesting to hear this album chronologically to path the trajectory of the scene, the 24 Hour Party People soundtrack successfully sums up one of the most popular eras in music.

Jason Newman