SOUNDTRACK: ‘Pretty in Pink’ With Rob Harvilla

Rob Harvilla joins Yasi to revisit the music of the John Hughes coming-of-age classic ‘Pretty in Pink.’ They discuss the film’s defining mix of new wave and college rock, the eponymous Psychedelic Furs song and its misinterpretation, the ’80s classics that were written specifically for the movie, and why ‘Pretty in Pink’ remains one of the decade’s essential soundtracks. CREDITS:Host: Yasi Salek @yasisalekGuest: Rob Harvilla @harvillaProducer: Rob SundermannEditor: Adrian BridgesAdditional Production Supervision: Justin SaylesTheme Song: Bethany Cosentino Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:27Speaker 01

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• 1:00Speaker 02

  What's with this band anyway? I don't get it. Can you please explain? Wait, like Bandplain?

• 1:12Speaker 02

  Never heard this band in my life. Oh, you haven't? I'd love that. Really? Why? Yeah, I love this song. Oh, I don't know that one. Bandplain, Bandplain, Bandplain. I really hate this band. Whatever, I'm their biggest fan. Bandplain, Bandplain, Bandplain, Bandplain. Bandplain.

• 1:40Yasi Salek?

  Hello and welcome to Bandplain. I am your host, Yasi Salek. This is usually a show where I invite an expert guest on to help me explain a cult band or iconic artist. But today, we are in the midst of our ongoing Best 80s Soundtracks series. And today's episode is about Pretty in Pink. Welcome to another day of higher education. My guest today, you guys, he's still the duck. It's Rob Harvilla. Bobby Harvilla.

• 2:11Speaker 04

  I think we're gonna unpack what that means to be the duck precisely. That's a very loaded term.

• 2:17Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, there's a lot there. I think that we need to get into.

• 2:21Speaker 04

  I'm honored and also concerned to be your duck. I would be glad to, but I don't know if I understand exactly what my role is.

• 2:28Yasi Salek?

  I didn't say you were my duck. I just said you were still the duck.

• 2:32Speaker 04

  The duck. The world. Okay, that's better. That makes more sense.

• 2:36Yasi Salek?

  Um, Rob, I am gonna put on my Sean Fantasy hat, my Sean Fantasy cashmere sweater and say, programming note.

• 2:46Speaker 04

  Get some grill cream.

• 2:46Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:47Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:49Yasi Salek?

  But my programming note is nothing like theirs because I am flying by the seat of my pants as always. So when I say we're in the midst of our 80s soundtrack series, that can mean anything. That can mean this week is an 80s soundtrack and next week is something totally different. Or maybe next week, there'll be another 80s soundtrack. Actually, I'm lying. I know that next week is another 80s soundtrack. It's Times Square. So you guys, for the people that have been grumbling about the lack of guitar rock music on this program, I think this episode should please you, as will Times Square, one of the least known, but I think best, coolest rock soundtracks that we have.

• 3:30Speaker 04

  The rockists are after you. The rockists are tired of all the manufactured pop.

• 3:35Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, they're tired of working girl. They're not allies. They don't believe women should be in the workforce. They don't care for Carly Simon. It's a lot. There's a lot to deal with, you know? But.

• 3:48Speaker 04

  Maybe they just don't like Staten Island. I don't know. There's a lot of that going around too.

• 3:51Yasi Salek?

  There's a local regionalism.

• 3:55Yasi Salek?

  But I think Pretty in Pink is a crowd pleaser. And I was thrilled.

• 3:59Speaker 04

  I would hope so.

• 3:59Yasi Salek?

  I was thrilled that you chose it. We got into a little debate on the episode I did with Chris to for Ryan and Sean about, we tried to sort of make it, I think we failed, honestly. But we tried to make an 80s soundtrack Hall of Fame. And Chris was really lobbying hard for Ferris Bueller's Day Off as the entry, the John Hughes entry. But here's the thing. I think what we landed on is that one didn't really have a commercially released soundtrack. So already a notch against it. And I still kind of think Pretty in Pink's more major.

• 4:37Speaker 04

  I would agree with Chris on the grounds that the single greatest musical moment in a John Hughes film for me is the Ferris Bueller, the instrumental version of Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want. When the kids are going, that's the best.

• 4:52Yasi Salek?

  The Dream Academy, yeah.

• 4:53Speaker 04

  That's right. Yes, that is my favorite musical cue in a John Hughes film. But I think that what Ferris Bueller doesn't have is a Don't You Forget About Me or, you know, the OMD here, or the Pretty in Pink here, for that matter. Like, I understand both sides of that argument. I have a very sentimental attachment to the whole Ferris Bueller soundtrack, but it was less a thing that you bought on CD or tape.

• 5:18Yasi Salek?

  It didn't exist until 2016.

• 5:20Speaker 04

  It didn't exist.

• 5:21Yasi Salek?

  So it's disqualified. But also, we'll get into it. I think.

• 5:26Speaker 04

  We settled it.

• 5:27Yasi Salek?

  We settled it. I think Pretty in Pink is more major. And I think, to be honest and to my own detriment or discredit, I didn't realize until I was sort of deep diving that the bulk of this soundtrack was songs written explicitly and exclusively for this film. Maybe not exclusively, but explicitly. Like, they were original creations by these bands made for this film, which is so fucking cool and so rare and we used to be a proper country, et cetera. Like, you just don't get that that much anymore. I guess you do like one track by a Taylor Swift or whatever. But you don't, you very rarely get an entire soundtrack full of like

• 6:07Yasi Salek?

  new music from bands that are, I don't know. I was very, I was very pleased with that information.

• 6:12Speaker 04

  No, like in a Black Panther or an I Saw the TV Glow was, really struck me in that way. Like, it's a throwback to exactly this 80s or 90s, like bespoke, you know? Till I hear it from you. I don't know if that Gin Blossom song was specifically for them, but you know what I mean?

• 6:29Yasi Salek?

  For Empire Records?

• 6:30Speaker 04

  We know what we mean.

• 6:31Yasi Salek?

  It was.

• 6:33Speaker 04

  Okay, there we go. There we go. But yeah, it's, it's, the music fits really well. Even the old music, even the music that obviously was super pre-existing. Like, it's recontextualized really beautifully by this movie. And it becomes part of this movie. Like, it doesn't feel just thrown together. There's a lot of intention and a lot of logic behind even the pre-existing jams that appear on the soundtrack or not on the soundtrack. Like, you can build an entirely separate soundtrack of like, try a little tenderness, you know, et cetera. Like, there's an entire, there's an entire second string, you know, that wasn't on the tape or whatever, but is just important, as important to the movie as what did make it on the official soundtrack.

• 7:17Yasi Salek?

  I couldn't agree more, Rob Harvilla. And I'm so pleased that we're on the same page.

• 7:21Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 7:22Yasi Salek?

  Because it's Bandplain, you already know I'm going to go ahead and talk about John Hughes's history. But just a light one, because I think that's important. So I won't go all the way back to the ad agencies or whatever. But his film career, I guess, like, so he had done, he had written Vacation, National Lampoon's Family Vacation, but I think it's, you know, often known as Vacation. It was based on a short story he wrote for the National Lampoon, one of the greatest comedies of all time. And also Mr. Mom. But they hadn't, I guess, he had written them, but they hadn't come out yet because they both came out in 83. Also, Mr. Mom, a really great movie.

• 8:04Yasi Salek?

  In 82, that's when he made a deal with A&M Films to direct his script that was like, kind of like working title, The Detention Script, which was about five kids from five different social groups who are confined to the library of Shermer High for a single Saturday. Let's fucking go. Yeah, apparently Shermerville was an area in that Chicago, the Chicagoans are gonna film it, because I don't remember exactly where he actually went to high school, but.

• 8:33Speaker 04

  They're very understanding people, Chicagoans, historically. They don't, they don't mind if you biff the geography of Chicago at all. Very, very laid back.

• 8:41Yasi Salek?

  Great. Well, hence Shermer being the place. And I guess, I thought it was interesting that it got, you know, they were like, we're gonna make this. You have $1 million budget, which is like five cents even back then. And then he was like. What if it's bad? What if that's my one thing that I put out and it's bad? So let me just write one more Shermer story about a teenage girl whose family in the fevered run up to her older sister's wedding forgets all about her 16th birthday. 16 Candles. Um, and that one, they were like, yes, we would like to put that one out. We are excited about that one.

• 9:22Yasi Salek?

  And that is how Molly Ringwald comes into the picture. Cause they were going through headshots looking for, um, Breakfast Club.

• 9:36Yasi Salek?

  You know, actors and John Hughes stopped on Molly Ringwald's picture. And was like, you know what? This is my girl. And that he wrote 16 Candles, looking at her picture, being like, talk about muse-dom.

• 9:52Speaker 04

  Right. And it's not creepy. It has the potential to be creepy, but like,

• 9:57Yasi Salek?

  No.

• 9:57Speaker 04

  I'm sure we will discuss in detail, you know, the intensity of this relationship and sort of the long tail of how we think about these movies and the way Molly Ringwald has sort of grappled with these movies. But there is something fundamentally very sweet about this muse type relationship, which is going to carry over into Pretty in Pink. But it, it, it seems there's something very genuine about it that allows for even like the super awkwardness of just the reality of what this is. This is a dude like, how old is John Hughes? When he's writing?

• 10:28Yasi Salek?

  I mean, they make him sound super old, but I think he's like 35 or something like 32. I don't know. Um, and she's, she's 15.

• 10:36Speaker 04

  She's a teenager. Like what are, how many actual teenagers are in The Breakfast Club? Cause one thing that strikes me about Pretty in Pink is, okay, so everyone else is like in their early twenties as you are.

• 10:49Yasi Salek?

  I think Judd Nelson looked straight up 31 years old, but I don't know how old he was. But yeah, I think it was just, I think it was only Anthony Michael Green and Molly Ringwald, who were like actually 15 years old. And I think the other ones might have been a little bit older. Although I'm not totally sure because I didn't look it up.

• 11:05Speaker 04

  It's all right.

• 11:06Yasi Salek?

  No, it's fine. I'm, we're riffing, babe. We're making, we're making stuff up as we go.

• 11:11Speaker 04

  Magic.

• 11:11Yasi Salek?

  Ally Sheedy is going to write us a letter and be like, excuse me, actually, I was also quite young.

• 11:17Speaker 04

  Shake her dandruff into the.

• 11:19Yasi Salek?

  Into her sandwich. Um, no, she, she was older. She was, she was, um, six years older. So she was already 21, not that old.

• 11:29Speaker 04

  Oh, wow. I would have thought, yeah, just, I'm sure based on The Breakfast Club, her being that much older than Molly Ringwald is very jarring to me. I would have thought of them as, you know, twins. Totally illogically. So yeah, that's, the fun thing about high school movies is the age variance. Of course. He was like 45 at that point, I think. Yeah, he was, he was, he was a grandfather.

• 11:52Yasi Salek?

  Rob, have you ever been the muse for a film?

• 11:58Speaker 04

  Not that I'm aware of.

• 12:00Yasi Salek?

  It could be happening right now. It could be a work in progress.

• 12:02Speaker 04

  It could be happening right now. I've had people who I've dated remark upon my similarity to John Cusack in High Fidelity, which is not a comparison you want made. You know, that's not ideal. That's not a compliment. That's not something to aspire to.

• 12:20Yasi Salek?

  He's a challenging man.

• 12:22Speaker 04

  He is. He's, he's growing up before our eyes, as are we all, as are, as am I still. Not to my knowledge. How about you? I have to, what, what famous movie is actually based on you? Yasi, I'm sure this exists.

• 12:35Yasi Salek?

  Shockingly, none yet. But if filmmakers are out there listening, I'm available for muse-dom and to.

• 12:45Speaker 04

  If anyone in Los Angeles.

• 12:46Yasi Salek?

  Co-star.

• 12:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:48Yasi Salek?

  It's time, it's time for my Hollywood turn. Um, which.

• 12:51Speaker 04

  I, I've been saying that, yeah.

• 12:53Yasi Salek?

  I famously Hollywood is very receptive to 44 year old women on Jemis. So I can't wait for that for me. Well, back to Molly Ringwald, who was not 44, she was 15. They met and they like immediately bonded, her and John Hughes. They have the same exact birthday, February 18th. They're both Aquarius. That is nice. And 16 Candles came out in 1984.

• 13:19Yasi Salek?

  Molly Ringwald said, when they first met, she was like, he was like, unlike any other director I had ever met. He had spiky hair and these crazy sneakers. We really clicked and got along immediately. They bonded over music. Did you read this as well?

• 13:34Speaker 04

  I had the vague sense, yes, that, you know, yes, a little bit. I was aware that, you know, they're trading tapes or whatever. Yeah.

• 13:41Yasi Salek?

  So I guess after The Breakfast Club came out, which was in 1985, also featuring Molly Ringwald, then he wrote Pretty in Pink also for her. To be Andy. And she had been, so she's from California and she's a child actor. So she'd been in LA for a long time. And what we have in LA is a little radio station called K-Rock. And back then.

• 14:05Speaker 04

  Heard of it.

• 14:06Yasi Salek?

  Heard of it, maybe on this program, maybe a billion times. Back then, K-Rock was playing all the coolest English and UK and Irish import bands. Like it was kind of like, that was the vibe, right? Like Depeche Mode. And they were like, kind of early in playing all this stuff. And so she was very into the psychedelic first, particularly the song Pretty in Pink. And she showed that song to John Hughes. And that sort of inspired the title and kind of the concept of her being this like girl who always wore pink. Which I think is very cute.

• 14:43Speaker 04

  I have to say, and maybe you were aware of this, but I was not. That in re-watching the movie for the billionth time, I had never realized Pretty in Pink, the song is pretty mean.

• 14:55Yasi Salek?

  Yes.

• 14:55Speaker 04

  Like it's, it's, I, it's, and I, it's, it's not even a criticism. Like it's just a fact. Like this is a song about a promiscuous woman.

• 15:06Yasi Salek?

  Not, no Nelly Furtado. Yes. I don't think Richard Butler thought it was so cute. I mean, I don't think he hated it, but he was like, this song, I think his, his direct quote was, it's about a girl who sleeps around a lot and feels like she benefits from it. Whereas in reality, people are talking and laughing behind her back.

• 15:30Yasi Salek?

  Not sex positive.

• 15:31Speaker 04

  Pretty in Pink is naked.

• 15:33Yasi Salek?

  Yes.

• 15:33Speaker 04

  Like it's Pretty in Pink in this song means naked.

• 15:36Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 15:36Speaker 04

  And so that there's something very sweet about the fact that Molly Ringwald suggests this song to John Hughes. And John Hughes takes this song, which is a mean song about a promiscuous naked lady and writes a movie for Molly Ringwald called Pretty in Pink, in which she is pretty in pink. Like she, he takes it, it's like a catastrophically literal misinterpretation of like a mean adult song as like a childlike sort of fairy tale song, which, which strikes me as really poignant. Cause like, what is being a teenager if it isn't like not understanding what you're looking at and like everything being over your head?

• 16:18Speaker 04

  Like I, the foundation of this song being a misinterpretation of what the song is and what like being a teenager or an adult is like, it's, it's almost, it's a little, it's beautiful to me. The misunderstanding at the core of this movie. Yeah.

• 16:33Yasi Salek?

  I like that interpretation a lot. And also in, in Molly Ringwald and John Hughes's defense, if you don't like closely read the lyrics, the song is like very romantic and sweet in feeling, you know?

• 16:46Speaker 04

  His voice, right? Exactly.

• 16:48Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 16:49Speaker 04

  Even like the, well, nothing you can touch. Like I, when I listen to it, it sounds sweet. It sounds romantic. It sounds like at the very least, he is sympathetic.

• 17:00Yasi Salek?

  Towards this slutty girl. I, that's what, that's his word. He said, isn't she easy? Isn't she easy?

• 17:09Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's rough. It's rough.

• 17:11Yasi Salek?

  It's rough. It was a different time, I guess. It was okay to write songs like that.

• 17:25Yasi Salek?

  We should mention, John Hughes did not direct Pretty in Pink. Which was kind of, that's the first of this trilogy that he doesn't direct. Cause he did 16 Candles and Pretty, and Breakfast Club himself, right?

• 17:39Speaker 04

  Yes. As a director, do you feel like this film, Pretty in Pink, is visually lacking or just different as a result of this?

• 17:49Yasi Salek?

  I guess I should have re-watched Breakfast Club and, and 16 Candles next to sort of compare.

• 17:57Yasi Salek?

  I, I enjoyed, I enjoyed Pretty in Pink when I re-watched it. I didn't find the directing to be like particularly lacking, but what do you think?

• 18:05Speaker 04

  It's not fancy. I mean, yeah. I mean, I, I don't think, we're not talking about Christopher Nolan here, right? Like I see, just point the cameras at the teenagers or noticeably not teenagers and just roll with it. You know, it's, it's not like, it's not like there's an epic style that is lacking here, but it is interesting. Why didn't he direct it? Do you know why John Hughes did not direct it?

• 18:26Yasi Salek?

  There's like various theories. I mean, one that one might presume, although I didn't dive deep into like the timelines, but didn't Ferris Bueller come out the same year?

• 18:36Speaker 04

  I don't know that for a fact, but this is a very compressed period of time.

• 18:40Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I think so. Ferris Bueller comes out also in 86. So I'm like, maybe he was busy doing that. Also, there was some speculation on Molly Ringwald's part in an interview that because her and Anthony Michael Hall struck up a relationship during Breakfast Club, that perhaps he was put off by that. Not, I mean, I don't think because he had a sexual interest in her, nothing like that, but more like, I mean, her, her, her idea was like that perhaps he wasn't, it's a very funny idea if it's true. And John Hughes died many years ago, but.

• 19:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:14Yasi Salek?

  And she gave this interview after he had passed away, so he had no way to rebut, or rebut? No.

• 19:22Speaker 04

  Rebut?

• 19:23Yasi Salek?

  Rebut.

• 19:24Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 19:25Yasi Salek?

  Rebut is how they say it in France.

• 19:29Yasi Salek?

  That, that he was so attached to his characters and their arcs that he was like upset that it went against what his, like, she ends up with Emilio Estevez's character, like, right? Isn't that, that's the jock and the beauty? Who, who ends up together? No, she ends up with a, sorry, Bender, duh. So, so it's like, he's supposed to be with the bad boy, but she actually, in, in real life, starts dating the nerd. And that was just her speculation. Anyways, we don't know. Either way, Howard Deutsch is who directed Pretty in Pink. He does some kind of wonderful write after. He is the father of the actress Zoe Deutsch. And he-

• 20:04Speaker 04

  Is that true? Wow.

• 20:05Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, that is true. And also-

• 20:07Speaker 04

  And the Celebrity Sex Pass, yeah.

• 20:09Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. In a new film that I've heard is really good, but I haven't seen it. And also the son of the president of United Artists Records at the time, and he would, he started out directing music videos. He did Flesh for Fantasy by Billy Idol, for example.

• 20:25Speaker 04

  Well, that's nice. You're saying he's a nepo baby?

• 20:27Yasi Salek?

  I'm saying he's a bit of a nepo baby. And then has yielded another nepo baby, and that's so fine. If my father-

• 20:33Speaker 04

  That's right, the circle of life.

• 20:33Yasi Salek?

  Was the president of a record label, you can bet your bottom dollar, I would have been doing many things with that availability. My father worked in fire and securities, and not a lot of room for me in that field to shine.

• 20:53Speaker 04

  Did you do like an internship or something? Did you consider it?

• 20:56Yasi Salek?

  No, but I've told this, or anything on the podcast, famously, one time he tricked me into going for a job interview that I thought was a lunch, with my, like, his, like, good friend from college, who's like basically like my aunt, who worked at SoCal Edison. And I showed up, like, ready to go to lunch with my aunt, and she was like, why are you wearing a suit? And I was, because I was wearing like a leather jacket and jeans. And I was like, I'm sorry? And she was like, she was like, have a seat. And then the HR woman came in, and they brought lunch in, and the lady goes, so why do you want to work in energy? And I was like, mm-hmm. And then I just said, you know, I've always been really interested in sustainable resources. And I just had to, like, fucking do theater all the settings. I was like, didn't want to humiliate my aunt.

• 21:39Yasi Salek?

  It was a guerrilla job interview that I was set up on.

• 21:42Speaker 04

  That's really rude of your father. It's like, I don't want to buy anything, sold or processed, I don't want to sell anything, bought or processed. Yeah, like, that's, you don't, a job interview ambush is, is not a thing that works in theory or in practice. Did you get the job?

• 21:56Yasi Salek?

  I didn't, because that job didn't exist. She, but the lady, the HR lady was like, wow, that's like, you know, totally, I hear you. She's like, we don't have any openings in that department right now, they're like, keep that in mind. And then I was like, oh, okay.

• 22:07Speaker 04

  Nice jacket, yeah.

• 22:08Yasi Salek?

  Um, we've digressed. Let's talk about Pretty in Pink in real time. Do, did you see it in the theater? You're like a couple of years older than me. But you would still have been-

• 22:20Speaker 04

  Eighty-six, right?

• 22:21Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I was four, so I didn't see it in the theater.

• 22:23Speaker 04

  I was eight. I don't think so. I do not have a conscious memory of seeing any of these movies in theaters. I think that I was a little too young.

• 22:32Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, same.

• 22:33Speaker 04

  And I think that's actually important to my experience. Like, I understood this to be the high school experience of people older than me. Not much older than me, but just enough that I didn't see them in theaters, and I don't look at these people and, and think that I'm in the same generation as them. I have this crystal clear memory of being in grade school, in Catholic grade school, and I was in second or third grade, it was the last day of school, and the sixth graders who were graduating were all sitting in a room watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off. And I understood that that was like the adults, that was their passage into teenagerdom, was happening right there, and I was not a part of it. And so I, I came to these movies later, and I, I have to assume just VHS or whatever,

• 23:18Speaker 04

  and I watched them a billion times, like everybody did, but it was never quite my generation or my experience. Did you, you didn't, no, you, of course you didn't, you were too young to even-

• 23:28Yasi Salek?

  As a small child. I actually don't even really remember my first viewing of it. I think it's kind of one of those movies that, like, I don't remember not having seen.

• 23:37Speaker 04

  You're born.

• 23:38Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 23:38Speaker 04

  Exactly, yes.

• 23:40Yasi Salek?

  Because it's such like a middle school, probably like sleepovers, you know, like, I remember it. I thought they were so cool.

• 23:50Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 23:50Yasi Salek?

  I was like-

• 23:51Speaker 04

  Who did you, did you have like a favorite? Like, were you drawn, like, of The Breakfast Club? Like, did you have, like, is that a movie that you watch and you, you, you mind meld with one person specifically? Are you supposed to walk out of that?

• 24:04Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, isn't it kind of like meant to be like, here are the archetypes, which one are you, like a boy band or something, you know?

• 24:10Speaker 04

  Exactly, right, okay.

• 24:12Yasi Salek?

  I always really liked Ally Sheen's character.

• 24:15Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 24:16Yasi Salek?

  She was like a kind of a precursor to the manic pixie dream girl, you know, although she was a little more mentally ill, I think, than, oh my God, I haven't seen Breakfast Club in a long time, but is that another one of those movies where then they make her look normal at the end? And they're like, wow.

• 24:31Speaker 04

  That's, that's what I was going to say. Like, there's a very sort of hilarious, like borderline insulting, like yassified effect that she gets at the end. And that, if you see this movie referenced on like Twitter, you know, of several years ago, I guess now, like, they would show her at the beginning and her at the end. Like, it's, it's, it's sort of a, a version of the, the girl takes her glasses off, and she's hot now.

• 24:54Yasi Salek?

  Her ponytail and glasses, she's all that of it all.

• 24:57Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 24:57Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. What about you? Did you, were you like, I am John Bender?

• 25:05Speaker 04

  See, they were too old for me to even, I mean, Anthony Michael Hall by default, I guess? Chicks, chicks can't handle the smoke. Is that his big line? Like, that was, I, I thought he was funny. Like, Emilio Estevez, I, he would have beaten me up, right? He's the wrestling, you know, he's a surprisingly good dancer in the end, but it's like, no, I can't say, I identified with the principal more than everything, more than anything. Like, just the thing where it's like, the, the chair is too heavy for the door, you know, and like, then this door shuts and the chair, like, that's the kind of thing that I would do. Like, even as, even as an eight-year-old, it's like, I am probably the closest in spirit to the lame old man in this movie, and I should not think very hard about what that

• 25:50Speaker 04

  pretends for my future.

• 25:52Yasi Salek?

  Paul Gleason was the actor's name.

• 25:53Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 25:53Yasi Salek?

  He was also on All My Children. He passed away.

• 25:57Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 25:58Yasi Salek?

  Many years ago, actually.

• 26:04Speaker 00

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• 26:30Speaker 01

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• 26:59Yasi Salek?

  Well, let's get into, let's more get into this film. It did not crack the top 10 films of 1986. Would you like to know what the top 10 films of 1986 were? I bet you can guess one.

• 27:10Speaker 04

  Where's Ferris Bueller?

• 27:11Yasi Salek?

  Number 10.

• 27:13Speaker 04

  Ooh, all right, so I guessed one. I, I'm bad with specific years, what, 1980? Back to the Future is 85, 84?

• 27:22Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, that's not in this one, but I'll tell you one, and it involves Tom Cruise and an airplane.

• 27:28Speaker 04

  Oh, okay, all right, okay. Speaking of soundtracks.

• 27:33Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 27:34Speaker 04

  Of distinctions, a real, a real yin and yang here, okay. Okay, that's lovely.

• 27:40Yasi Salek?

  Um, yeah, so Top Gun was numero uno of 86. Number two, Crocodile Dundee. Have you ever heard of it?

• 27:49Yasi Salek?

  Is that, that's Shrimp on the Barbie? That's right.

• 27:51Speaker 04

  Number two.

• 27:52Yasi Salek?

  Number, can you believe it?

• 27:54Speaker 04

  Is that Shrimp on the Barbie?

• 27:55Yasi Salek?

  Only $2 million less than Top Gun. People fucking loved-

• 27:59Speaker 04

  Are you dead serious?

• 28:00Yasi Salek?

  I am dead. 176.8 million Top Gun, 174.8 million Crocodile Dundee. People loved that Australian man and his wrangling of crocodiles.

• 28:12Speaker 04

  Sure, that's not a knife. Yeah, okay, good for him.

• 28:15Yasi Salek?

  Good for him.

• 28:16Speaker 04

  Good for them.

• 28:16Yasi Salek?

  Um, Platoon-

• 28:17Speaker 04

  I saw the sequel in a movie theater. I saw the Back to, Crocodile Dundee 2, like Back to Manhattan or whatever it was called, it's not as good.

• 28:25Yasi Salek?

  Crocodile Dundee, Too Fast Too Furious, yeah. Um, that was good.

• 28:30Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 28:30Yasi Salek?

  I didn't see it, but I believe you.

• 28:32Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 28:33Yasi Salek?

  Um, Platoon is number three, a feel-good movie.

• 28:37Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 28:37Yasi Salek?

  Number four, The Karate Kid Part Two.

• 28:42Speaker 04

  Ooh.

• 28:43Yasi Salek?

  Then Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home. Back to school.

• 28:50Yasi Salek?

  I don't remember.

• 28:51Speaker 04

  Rodney Dangerfield?

• 28:52Yasi Salek?

  Oh, yes. What a fucking film, actually. Oh, my God.

• 28:56Speaker 04

  Number six is impressive. I would have gotten this completely wrong.

• 29:00Yasi Salek?

  It beat Aliens. Aliens, number seven.

• 29:05Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 29:05Yasi Salek?

  The Golden Child?

• 29:08Speaker 04

  Oh, okay. All right. I would have guessed that was.

• 29:10Yasi Salek?

  Eddie Murphy. Yeah, that's a great movie.

• 29:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:13Yasi Salek?

  And then Ruthless People, one of my personal all time faves, number nine, and then Ferris Bueller, number ten. But Pretty in Pink had the number three highest selling soundtrack.

• 29:27Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 29:28Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I think highest selling or at least most highest charting. So that's, that's very cool. It did really okay, I think, in the domestic gross. We talked about it. It was like forty million or something. And then it didn't cost a lot to make. It was.

• 29:47Speaker 04

  I was gonna say, right. It's not like there's.

• 29:49Yasi Salek?

  The budget was ninety million dollars. Yeah.

• 29:53Yasi Salek?

  And well, should we say, should we say the rough plot line?

• 29:58Speaker 04

  Sure. I will jump in.

• 30:00Yasi Salek?

  Andy Walsh is a working class high school student who is a bit of an outcast amongst her more affluent peers at her high school.

• 30:13Yasi Salek?

  She must navigate the dueling affections of her best friend, Ducky, played by John Cryer, and the popular rich boy, Blaine. Hey, Andrew McCarthy. They do not name people Blaine anymore. Have you noticed that? Blaine is such, like, the most rich eighties guy name that I've ever heard. And I don't think I've ever seen another Blaine since.

• 30:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's like every year, like when they're, they're like the lacrosse championships, people just list the rosters of lacrosse teams. And it's, I, I think any Blaine that you're going to find in society in 2026 is playing lacrosse and is like actually nailing that job interview in energy. Yeah, that's, that's a very Blaine. And like, it's so close to bland that it's almost suspicious. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, yeah.

• 31:03Yasi Salek?

  Just so you know, I Googled it and it ranks number eight thousand four hundred and seventy five in the baby name data tracker.

• 31:12Speaker 04

  What?

• 31:13Yasi Salek?

  Well, out of every, out of all of them, I think.

• 31:16Speaker 04

  Sure. Okay. Like for this year?

• 31:18Yasi Salek?

  Yes.

• 31:19Speaker 04

  Blaine is the.

• 31:20Yasi Salek?

  Or for like last year.

• 31:21Speaker 04

  Five. Okay.

• 31:23Yasi Salek?

  And then also, really notably, her father, who I is both, I think, were meant to believe a sort of a bit of a deadbeat in terms of work, and also pining for the loss of Andy's mother, who left the family, is played by the late, great Harry Dean Stanton. What a casting on that one.

• 31:44Speaker 04

  It's pretty incredible. Like, Molly Ringwald is really excellent in this movie, like legitimately as an actress, but like her scenes with him, I, there's a noticeable sort of shift in like tone and ability. It's not like anybody in this movie is like bad in their role, but like he is like an actor ass actor, you know, compared to anybody else in this movie. And it's like really effectively so in that he's like the deadbeat dad and, and he's like confined to his house. And like, it's, it, it works. You know, it's like you're watching Paris, Texas with Molly Ringwald in it for like five minutes at a time. And it's awesome.

• 32:22Yasi Salek?

  Also, we should also note some secondary characters played by the world's best mean rich eighties guy, James Spader.

• 32:35Yasi Salek?

  He's so good.

• 32:36Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 32:36Yasi Salek?

  At that role. Why is he so good?

• 32:38Speaker 04

  He is.

• 32:39Yasi Salek?

  He was born to play that.

• 32:40Speaker 04

  He also, he was born to play that part. And it's another sort of poignant thing about this movie for me is that, again, Molly Ringwald, I think, is the only actual teenager in it.

• 32:50Yasi Salek?

  Correct.

• 32:50Speaker 04

  Like, I, my, my brain refused to process the idea that James Spader was attending this high school. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, it, it, he looks like he's thirty five.

• 33:02Yasi Salek?

  You know what's crazy? He's only two years older than her.

• 33:06Speaker 04

  No kidding? He's two years older than Molly Ringwald? Wow. Okay.

• 33:10Yasi Salek?

  But I think it's like, he's like, his, first of all, his just cheekbones, but also, like, he's wearing a suit at all times, like a linen suit with like Miami Vice unbuttoning. And like, you're like, what eighteen year old kid dressed like that? But again, I wasn't in high school in eighties. If you are to believe Bret Easton Ellis and or this film, a lot of them did.

• 33:32Speaker 04

  Is he, I just level with me, Yasi, is he the, the hottest person in this movie, in your opinion?

• 33:38Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 33:40Speaker 04

  I figured.

• 33:41Yasi Salek?

  Well, Molly Ringwald is pretty exceptionally beautiful also.

• 33:44Speaker 04

  Of course. But like of the dudes, like of the potential people who are vying for Molly Ringwald's affections, like just anecdotally, it seems the internet in 2026 is like, screw all these other people. She should just end up with James Spader. Like, that's obviously the right call, despite his personality. Yeah.

• 34:02Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. And I.

• 34:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:04Yasi Salek?

  This is neither here nor there, but The Blacklist was a beloved show of mine and I did watch every single season.

• 34:10Speaker 04

  I believe that. Is it over?

• 34:12Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I think it ended in twenty twenty three.

• 34:14Speaker 04

  Still transpiring.

• 34:15Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 34:16Speaker 04

  Red Reddington?

• 34:17Yasi Salek?

  That's right.

• 34:17Speaker 04

  Do I have that right? Okay.

• 34:18Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I don't think.

• 34:19Speaker 04

  Does he prevail at the end? We can just spoil it. Like, does he get away?

• 34:23Yasi Salek?

  Remember.

• 34:23Speaker 04

  All right. Okay, that's fine. That's for the best.

• 34:26Yasi Salek?

  It feels like he would have, right? They're, they're not gonna end that show being like he went to jail.

• 34:31Speaker 04

  No, no.

• 34:32Yasi Salek?

  Because that would be, that would be a bummer, you know?

• 34:34Speaker 04

  For him. Yeah.

• 34:35Yasi Salek?

  Raymond Reddington. Um, anyway.

• 34:38Speaker 04

  Raymond Reddington, excuse me.

• 34:39Yasi Salek?

  But I think they called him Red. So you're correct.

• 34:42Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 34:43Yasi Salek?

  And then, of course, Annie Potts, who plays Iona, her mentor, her boss at the record store, her sort of older protector figure, who is very cool.

• 34:57Speaker 04

  The quirky best friend who is also weirdly a mentor and who is like pining for high school in a way that's very strange to me, given that there are high school students who look older than she does. Like, the idea that we're supposed to register her as like impossibly old and like having done drugs in the sixties. And like, she's, she's singing like Copacabana or whatever, while everybody else is into psychedelic. For her is like, yeah, it's, I was having trouble processing her as far and away the oldest non-father figure in Molly Ringwald's life. But like, her entire arc is that she misses high school, which happened for her a long time ago.

• 35:37Yasi Salek?

  I mean, she's eight years older than Molly Ringwald. So.

• 35:40Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 35:40Yasi Salek?

  That is.

• 35:40Speaker 04

  It makes sense.

• 35:41Yasi Salek?

  You know, that's, you're pushing in your mid twenties by that point. High school is a wink in your eye.

• 35:47Speaker 04

  Very Cyndi Lauper coded.

• 35:49Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 35:49Speaker 04

  Uh, Annie Potts in this movie. Yeah, yeah. Down, down to the hair.

• 35:54Yasi Salek?

  All right. Well, we talked about the cast, but I wanted to make some callouts, which I thought are really interesting. Ducky, played excellently by John Cryer, was meant for Anthony Michael Hall, because John Hughes loved him. But he was worried about being typecast. So he turned that down. And I've also apparently turned down the titular role in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which is kind of insane. And Molly Ringwald said she wanted Robert Downey Jr. to play Ducky.

• 36:26Speaker 04

  Yes. Right. Where is he in his fall and rise, Robert Downey Jr.? Like, like, when was the?

• 36:35Yasi Salek?

  Had.

• 36:36Speaker 04

  The darkness?

• 36:37Yasi Salek?

  Less Than Zero come out yet?

• 36:41Speaker 04

  I don't remember.

• 36:43Yasi Salek?

  Less Than Zero comes out in eighty seven.

• 36:46Speaker 04

  Okay. All right. Okay.

• 36:48Yasi Salek?

  He was in Weird Science the year before.

• 36:54Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 36:54Yasi Salek?

  Also, John Hughes.

• 36:55Speaker 04

  He could have done it.

• 36:56Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 36:57Speaker 04

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 36:59Yasi Salek?

  He could have done it. It's interesting to think about. The thing is, like, I think that even though John Cryer has said he didn't mean to play it this way, the way that Ducky is played, and Molly Ringwald said that the character was based on her own best friend, Matt Freeman, who wasn't out at the time, but did come out later in life. And that's maybe why the character has gay best friend energy. I don't know that Robert Downey Jr. would have played it that way. So I think it would have made the story, like, I wonder, this is, uh, this is not a spoiler. I mean, I think it's, the movie came out fifty years ago, but forty years ago.

• 37:42Yasi Salek?

  The original ending of Pretty in Pink had, yeah, had Ducky and Andy ending up together because she was rejected by Blaine. And people at the test screenings were like watching the movie and like, yeah, yeah, I love it, I love it. And then that happened, they were like boo, hate it, this movie sucks. And so they had to rewrite and reshoot the ending to have her end up with Blaine, which is very funny because actually, um, my God, Andrew McCarthy had shaved his head at that point because he was doing a play.

• 38:13Speaker 04

  A hairpiece. Yeah. Once you see it, you cannot unsee it. Once you see it, it's like, yeah.

• 38:19Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it's really rough. But then I'm like, I want, do you think if it was Robert Downey Jr. and she had ended up with Ducky, people would be like, yeah.

• 38:26Speaker 04

  I mean, possibly. I mean, like, as you said, like, John Cryer didn't think that he was playing the gay best friend.

• 38:36Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 38:37Speaker 04

  Right? Like, this is the entire ballgame.

• 38:39Yasi Salek?

  And he technically wasn't. Technically wasn't playing a gay character, but.

• 38:42Speaker 04

  No, it's bizarre, right? Because like, half of his dialogue is sexual harassment. Like, the first, the first scene, like, he's talking to Molly Ringwald and like, they go to lunch, and then John Cryer turns around and there's twin teenage girls, and he says, I could arrange to have one of you impregnated by Christmas. And one of them slaps him to the ground. Like, he is established as like a horn dog, like, ultra friendzoned, like quirky asshole guy, but also Molly Ringwald's best friend. And I can't get a handle on whether she understands that he's pining for her the whole time. This, it's very confusing.

• 39:27Yasi Salek?

  It's very confusing.

• 39:28Speaker 04

  This role.

• 39:29Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 39:30Speaker 04

  And it's like, maybe productively so, like, it's interesting, but it's just bizarre. As a sidebar, have you ever booed a movie based on what happened? Like, have you ever physically booed in a movie theater?

• 39:45Yasi Salek?

  Booed out loud? No.

• 39:47Speaker 04

  Yes, yes, because apparently that transpired. Like, what, like, like Armageddon ends, and like, Armageddon does not trend, and people boo. Like, I'm trying to think of an example of when I was so upset about a pairing, romantic pairing. Yeah, you're supposed to.

• 40:03Yasi Salek?

  You're supposed to.

• 40:04Speaker 04

  Okay, sure.

• 40:05Yasi Salek?

  Um, no, I don't think I've ever booed at a movie in my life. I mean, I've internally booed. I've been like, ugh, you know? But I haven't, you know, voiced my opinion out loud. I think I've more like audibly groaned.

• 40:20Speaker 04

  Sure. Yeah, that's a different thing. Do you think she should have ended up with Ducky?

• 40:25Yasi Salek?

  No. Because they didn't, it didn't, they didn't earn that, you know? Like.

• 40:33Speaker 04

  Right.

• 40:34Yasi Salek?

  He, he's a great character, but he is more of a nuisance than anything throughout the thing. Like, the great thing that, the great romantic gesture that he does is show up for her when she's been stood up, more or less stood up.

• 40:48Speaker 04

  Right.

• 40:49Yasi Salek?

  And abandoned by Blaine McDonough, that's his last name, Blaine McDonough, um, for prom, because he simply can't bear the humiliation of his peers for, and his mother and father or whatever, for dating this weird trashy girl. And he shows up for her so she doesn't have to go alone, which is really lovely. But other than that, I don't find them to have any chemistry or connection, so it's, would be strange for them to end up together.

• 41:14Speaker 04

  That ending prom scene is just, it's an uncanny valley for like, 10 different reasons. Like, like, once you see the hairpiece, and once you understand that this has been tacked on, and like, they're scrambling to save the movie, like, it just, nothing makes sense about it. I tried to take a screenshot, and Hulu won't let you do it, but like, when you're watching the movie, look at this stage, when they introduce the prom, so, uh, uh, what's the OMD song called?

• 41:47Yasi Salek?

  If you leave.

• 41:48Speaker 04

  Thank you. If you leave starts playing, and it's a giant photo of like, an orchestra that is behind the stage, and onstage are two guys dressed identically, including like, hats, I don't know if they're dashikis or what, but they have two giant synthesizers that are pointing in opposite direction. There is no DJ component to the, it's wild. It looks like the Chicago Pet Shop Boys. I was trying to figure out, like, are these real people, is this John Hughes's idea of how this music is performed? Like, it's, it was very confusing to me.

• 42:31Speaker 04

  And then, like, again, everybody is as old in the Pretty in Pink's prom scene as in the gross, point-blank, 10-year reunion scene. Like, it's the same extras? Like, those were shot back to, like, it's in the hairpiece, and just every, and, and the other thing, and I apologize if this is too personal a question, do you like her prom dress?

• 42:55Yasi Salek?

  I do not. But also.

• 42:59Speaker 04

  Neither did she.

• 43:00Yasi Salek?

  She did not, yeah. Famously, she did not. I'm not a big fan of any of her outfits in this, in this, I'm, I'm more of an Annie Potts, Iona. I liked her looks the most. Um, or even honestly, I probably wore more what Ducky was wearing, but like, there was, there was a lot of florals and like blossom hats and stuff that isn't like particularly my style, but also, you know, she pulled it off excellently.

• 43:27Speaker 04

  Blossom is a great framing.

• 43:29Yasi Salek?

  Even though Blossom is early 90s.

• 43:30Speaker 04

  She is, she is the proto blossom. Right, but no, it's that, there's a direct, there's a straight line there.

• 43:35Yasi Salek?

  Another straight line, which I think is very cool, is that for my, my so-called life heads, you might notice that Ricky Vasquez dresses almost exactly like Ducky, and he is the gay best friend in my so-called life.

• 43:49Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 43:50Yasi Salek?

  It's kind of cool to see that reimagined on an actual gay best friend, you know, with another redhead leading lady. It's a, I hadn't thought about it until I rewatched Pretty in Pink, and I was like, oh, it's giving Ricky Vasquez. You know, also, um, some fun cameos in this film we should discuss just really briefly. The shoplifter in the.

• 44:14Speaker 04

  Oh, who is that?

• 44:15Yasi Salek?

  Okay, so, in the, in the record store where Andy works with Annie Potts, Iona, and she, uh, she nail gun, shoots a nail gun.

• 44:24Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 44:25Yasi Salek?

  And he goes, that was an inch from my eyeball, and she goes, half an inch. Um, that man became the lead singer of a little band called The Aquabats, and also the creator of Yo Gabba Gabba. His name is Christian Jacobs.

• 44:37Speaker 04

  What? Wow.

• 44:39Yasi Salek?

  Wonderful.

• 44:40Speaker 04

  That's.

• 44:41Yasi Salek?

  Wonderful bit of trivia. Also, less exciting, and no disrespect to Dweezil Zappa, but Dweezil Zappa is also in this film. Um, he's in that first.

• 44:49Speaker 04

  Dweezil is used to it.

• 44:50Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, he's in that first nightclub scene. He's sitting at the table with Molly, he was Molly Ringwald's boyfriend at the time, which is how.

• 44:58Speaker 04

  Oh, that's nice.

• 44:59Yasi Salek?

  He was cast in the, uh, the film. Um, all right.

• 45:03Speaker 04

  He was Lisa Loeb, Dweezil was the one who dated Lisa Loeb.

• 45:07Yasi Salek?

  Oh, did he inspire, um.

• 45:10Speaker 04

  You say. No, I think it was after that.

• 45:13Yasi Salek?

  Okay. I don't listen hard, no more than. Sorry, it's such a, such a good song.

• 45:19Speaker 04

  Yes, it is, it is.

• 45:21Yasi Salek?

  It isn't such a good one to anyone. Howard Deutsch, incorrectly, uh, originally wanted the film to have primarily theme music. Wrong, bad Howard Deutsch, incorrect. But John Hughes was like, let's do something a little different, shall we? Also, imagine seeing two John Hughes movies with absolute banger-ass music in it, and then you get to this, and it's like, theme music? And this.

• 45:45Speaker 04

  What do you mean by theme music? Like, just an orchestral swell?

• 45:48Yasi Salek?

  I guess so, yeah, like, just like.

• 45:49Speaker 04

  In the, okay.

• 45:50Yasi Salek?

  Original instrumental.

• 45:51Speaker 04

  Not pop songs, oh.

• 45:52Yasi Salek?

  The song is, the movie is named after a, a song, a pop song.

• 45:57Speaker 04

  It, notably, yes.

• 45:58Yasi Salek?

  The titular song opens the film in this like gorgeous and wonderful way, like, you're like, hell yeah, let's fucking go, it's time for Pretty in Pink.

• 46:06Speaker 04

  And then 20 minutes later, it just happens again. I was, I was really hoping it would happen like five or six times. It's just every music cue was, brrr, brrr, brrr, like, go ahead.

• 46:17Yasi Salek?

  Kind of.

• 46:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:19Yasi Salek?

  Let the river run core, um, and working, just different, uh, versions. Uh, you, okay, well, we should mention, the Psychedelic Verse song, it was re-recorded in a different way for this film. It features prominent saxophone, which is not, and I'm gonna say.

• 46:38Speaker 04

  It certainly does.

• 46:39Yasi Salek?

  I'm gonna say, the original is better. The original is better, I don't know why they needed to add a bunch of sax to it. I don't want to step on any toes.

• 46:45Speaker 04

  It's very E Street band.

• 46:46Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 46:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, I know what you mean.

• 46:48Yasi Salek?

  Maybe they just wanted to distinguish it, because the, the song had come out in 81 on Talk Talk Talk, the Psychedelic Verse album.

• 46:53Speaker 04

  Um, right.

• 46:55Yasi Salek?

  But yeah, the original is better.

• 46:56Speaker 04

  Well, no, the real killer here in terms of a re-recorded song is Wouldn't It Be Good, which is not the Nick Kershaw version, and I would be real pissed if I'd have bought this tape.

• 47:09Yasi Salek?

  This is with like, the most love and respect in my heart to the band Three Dog Night, who's a great band, and their singer, Danny Hutton, whose band, The Danny Hutton Hitters, that's right. Re-recorded Wouldn't It Be Good. I tried to get a little tea on this through my sources, um.

• 47:27Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 47:28Yasi Salek?

  And my source being my friend whose landlord was previously Danny Hutton of Three Dog Night, and they're still in touch, that's right.

• 47:36Speaker 04

  Hold the fuck on.

• 47:38Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, he's a Laurel Canyon staple, and I was like, can you get in touch with your former landlord, Danny Hutton, and ask how this came about? But Danny Hutton is upwards of 80 years old and also still touring, so I think I just didn't ask with enough lead time to get an answer back.

• 47:56Speaker 04

  Playing a casino near you, that's rude. That's, good for him.

• 48:00Yasi Salek?

  I think, listen, if I'm 80 years old and I'm still doing literally anything, amazing. Danny Hutton's an icon. Do you know he used to manage Iggy Pop? He has crazy stories, actually need to go and meet him and talk to him. Um, but.

• 48:13Speaker 04

  There's no way I'm gonna absorb any other information than he's your friend's former landlord. That's where it begins and ends with Danny Hutton.

• 48:20Yasi Salek?

  L.A. babe. I mean, maybe they ran out of money, because like, as people love to inform me on Instagram.com, um, cover songs cost less than regular songs, and I'm like, I know that I'm not like some genius Mensa-level scholar, but like, I do know that, you know?

• 48:45Speaker 04

  This is, we've discussed you not reading the comments, Yasi, and I'm starting to worry that you have, you have disobeyed me.

• 48:54Yasi Salek?

  I avoid most of them, but you can't avoid your own Instagram comments. Do you not read your own Instagram comments? I am bricked eight hours a day and still I manage to find a look.

• 49:07Speaker 04

  You are, you are phys, you are brand name bricked?

• 49:09Yasi Salek?

  That's right.

• 49:10Speaker 04

  Does that work?

• 49:10Yasi Salek?

  Capital B.

• 49:11Speaker 04

  Is it?

• 49:11Yasi Salek?

  Um, yeah, it works because it physically locks you out from your phone. And if you stick that shit on your fridge and go about your day, there's no way to get back into instagram.com to read the comments about how cover songs cost less than regular songs.

• 49:24Speaker 04

  It's a bad version of Wouldn't It Be Good? I have to be honest. It's very, it's shrill. It's in a different, it's higher, it's in a different key and it's, I, I really reacted poorly to it because I do like Nick Kershaw quite a bit. And so I'm sorry to that man.

• 49:42Yasi Salek?

  I'm sorry to him.

• 49:45Speaker 04

  Good for him, but no, thank you.

• 49:47Yasi Salek?

  We're gonna, we're gonna go track by track as is my want, but I just want to mention a couple. You already mentioned one, which is Otis Redding's Try a Little Tenderness. There's several songs that you were, like you were saying that are in this film, but not on the official soundtrack. Um, another is The Association's Cherish, which listeners of this podcast who do like Madonna might recognize as the inspiration for her song Cherish. Um, and the song Rudy.

• 50:14Speaker 04

  Great Annie Potts scene.

• 50:15Yasi Salek?

  Yes.

• 50:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:17Yasi Salek?

  Um, and Talk Back song Rudy. And also two songs by a band called The Rave Ups. You up, are you up on The Rave Ups?

• 50:30Speaker 04

  Out of this context, no, they're the bands playing.

• 50:33Yasi Salek?

  That's right. They're, they're actually, what is it called?

• 50:35Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 50:35Yasi Salek?

  It's not called endemic. That's the wrong word, but there's like that word, that's the distinction between whether a song is actually being heard in the movie by the characters or whether it's just playing over the characters. I can't remember the name.

• 50:48Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 50:49Yasi Salek?

  Um, so sorry you guys.

• 50:50Speaker 04

  Let's just say endemic. It's wrong, but let's be wrong.

• 50:53Yasi Salek?

  Let's be wrong.

• 50:53Speaker 04

  Just total confidence.

• 50:54Yasi Salek?

  You can go ahead and tell me on instagram.com if I was wrong. Um.

• 50:59Speaker 04

  You put it in your refrigerator?

• 51:01Yasi Salek?

  I put it.

• 51:01Speaker 04

  Did you say that your bricked phone?

• 51:03Yasi Salek?

  I put it on.

• 51:04Speaker 04

  On, like just magnetically.

• 51:06Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. What if I put it in the refrigerator? Well, I put it in the freezer. I put my whole phone in the freezer and then I throw myself off a balcony and then I'll never use the phone again.

• 51:14Speaker 04

  Deli meats. Sure.

• 51:15Yasi Salek?

  Um, The Rave Ups were apparently Molly Ringwald's favorite band.

• 51:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, they were. Yeah, that makes sense.

• 51:23Yasi Salek?

  I can't get behind that.

• 51:24Speaker 04

  Good for them.

• 51:24Yasi Salek?

  But one of those songs is pretty good, actually. Shut up.

• 51:28Speaker 04

  They're good and they, they're effective in that, you know, it's like, I believe that band is performing for 10 people in, in, on the wrong side of the tracks.

• 51:38Yasi Salek?

  It's giving, it's giving has a 10 person audience, but also like, I thought that song was good. Um, they have like a look that I feel, again, I didn't delve too deep into their history, but they have a look that was so eighties that people forget about how much rockabilly existed, like how much stray cats ass shit was happening in the eighties.

• 51:57Speaker 04

  Exactly. The rock this town of it all. Sure, sure. Yeah.

• 52:01Yasi Salek?

  Um, okay. But then the rest, it's important for us to talk about these ones. Cause again, it's really like a huge portion of this soundtrack was written. They're all original songs. Not all, but most. Okay. Let's take it from the top. And the top in, in the track listing, well, let's take it from the very top, the liner notes. John Hughes wrote, "The music in Pretty in Pink was not an afterthought. The tracks on this album and in this film are there because Howie Deutsch and I believe the art, believe in the artists, respect the artists, and are proud to be in league with them." Meanwhile, Howie Deutsch wanted some fucking theme music, but we don't have to talk about that. Okay. It starts with, would

• 52:43Yasi Salek?

  you say even more than Pretty in Pink, If You Leave by orchestral maneuvers in the dark is the most associated with this film song in the same way that The Simple Minds song that ends Breakfast Club is like, that's the song of Breakfast Club?

• 53:00Speaker 04

  I would agree. I mean, I, those two songs are twinned in my head. You know, if enough time goes by, then I will start mixing up John Hughes movies and soundtracks.

• 53:12Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 53:12Speaker 04

  Right? Like I was genuinely relieved that this was not, that Long Duck Dong does not appear in this movie. You know what I say? Like Sixteen Candles is just like, there is fucking bananas.

• 53:25Yasi Salek?

  I think at some point Long Duck Dong.

• 53:26Speaker 04

  Transpiring.

• 53:27Yasi Salek?

  First of all, Long Duck Dong, that's I guess borderline a Vietnamese name, if it's close to anything. The man is Chinese. The, the actor is Japanese. And at some point he says bonsai, which is not anything, except the tree and I guess it's Japanese word.

• 53:44Speaker 04

  Nobody was doing their best work.

• 53:45Yasi Salek?

  There's a gong every time he says something. It's rough.

• 53:48Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 53:49Yasi Salek?

  Rough.

• 53:50Speaker 04

  And like Molly Ringwald's underwear is a like plot point. Like it's Sixteen Candles is, I'm very grateful to this movie for not being Sixteen Candles. I do not want to talk about that movie for two hours.

• 54:05Yasi Salek?

  There was a little learning curve between National Lampoon, Family Vacation and Pretty in Pink.

• 54:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 54:11Yasi Salek?

  And I think we just brought a little National Lampoon into Sixteen Candles that we should have left at the door.

• 54:16Speaker 04

  Right. Like Molly Ringwald has written, she did like a New Yorker thing, right? Like a very, very thoughtful, like post me too.

• 54:24Yasi Salek?

  Right.

• 54:25Speaker 04

  Reassessing of these movies and just like her relationship with John Hughes. And like she goes back and she reads John Hughes's National Lampoon, like writing, which is like ultra rough. Like it's, it's even trying to understand that it was a different time. You know, I, it's, it's, this is Pretty in Pink, among many other things, is like arguably the least overtly problematic of these movies.

• 54:52Yasi Salek?

  Breakfast Club was problematic?

• 54:54Speaker 04

  Um, not, I mean, Breakfast Club has the scene.

• 54:57Yasi Salek?

  Person of color in, in sight in the entire high school at all. So that's odd.

• 55:05Speaker 04

  I mean, problematic is, I, I just always think of the Ally Sheedy like fake makeover and like the scene again with Molly Ringwald's underwear where they weren't, she was so young that they couldn't even like ask her if she could, like they, there's a body double, right? Obviously because she was underage. Like I, there's a discomfort uniformly to all of these movies, but maybe it is, maybe The Breakfast Club, not The Breakfast Club, excuse me, maybe Sixteen Candles is like far and away the gnarliest. Like everyone, like you, you re-watch, re-watching Ferris Bueller and understanding that he's the antagonist of the movie is like an important step in your personal development. But like I, it's

• 55:49Speaker 04

  Sixteen Candles, I think is far and away like the, the, oh my God, you know, this, yeah, that, that's the roughest re-watch now. And Pretty in Pink by comparison is like, yeah, this is fine.

• 56:00Yasi Salek?

  It's a bit, yeah, there's, there's redeeming qualities for sure of Sixteen Candles. I don't want to completely say it's, you know, but yeah, some of the parts you're like, one of those. Um, okay, back to orchestral maneuvers in the dark. Shall we do a quick OMD sidebar?

• 56:19Speaker 04

  Please, please.

• 56:21Yasi Salek?

  Good. Cause I have 22 bullet points I need to get through.

• 56:24Speaker 04

  Great, great, great band name.

• 56:27Yasi Salek?

  Um, isn't it a great band name? Why is maneuvers spelled like that? Is that the British, the Queen's English spelling?

• 56:33Speaker 04

  I'm going to assume that slash, it's more sophisticated. It's like, what? There's a U in there, right?

• 56:39Yasi Salek?

  Yes.

• 56:39Speaker 04

  Is that the, yeah, or an extra U?

• 56:41Yasi Salek?

  Mano Yivers. I don't know. Yeah.

• 56:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:45Yasi Salek?

  I thought this was cool because I didn't know it actually. I guess maybe some people would enjoy an OMD episode. Um, the first single that they put out was called Electricity and it was actually put out on Factory Records in 1979. Yeah. They, they loved Factory. They sent it on over. Tony Wilson, my beloved, my king, uh, was like, eh, this is what I've, but his wife really loved it. And so.

• 57:10Speaker 04

  Oh, one of them.

• 57:11Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. So then he was like, okay, I'll put it up.

• 57:13Speaker 04

  The girls know.

• 57:14Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. So he put it out and actually they did kind of blow up from it and they got a big deal and they had two albums go gold in the UK, their first two. And then their third, which was Architecture and Morality, came out in 1981 and went platinum. This is still, still in the UK. Um, and had, but had three international hit singles, Souvenir, Joan of Arc, and Maid of Orleans.

• 57:39Speaker 04

  Those are three songs that I couldn't hum for you, but I will know them instantly if you play them for me. Like this is a big, oh, that song band.

• 57:47Yasi Salek?

  Right. Oh, that's them. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and the record company was like, hell yeah, brothers. This was so rad. Can you just make one more of Architecture and Morality and then you'll be Genesis and we're going to be all set. And they were like, hmm, okay, that is, sounds like that's probably the worst thing you could have said to us. They said no heart. And they went ahead and made a little departure in sound. They went a little experimental mode and they made dazzle ships in 1983.

• 58:16Speaker 04

  Dazzle ships.

• 58:18Yasi Salek?

  Couldn't tell you. I listened to some of it. It wasn't really up my street if I'm keeping it a hundred with you, but.

• 58:25Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 58:26Yasi Salek?

  I was not alone. They lost 90% of their audience, according to Paul Humphreys of the band. Um, and then they, then they kept trucking. They put out Junk Culture. They had a little minor hit with Locomotion. Not that one. Different Locomotion.

• 58:39Speaker 04

  Not that one.

• 58:40Yasi Salek?

  And then Tesla Girls is a song that was in Weird Science. So they, so John Hughes was, I guess, a fan.

• 58:48Speaker 04

  Okay. They're on his radar. Yeah. Okay.

• 58:50Yasi Salek?

  And then they put out another album in 1985 called Crush that did okay. They had a single called So In Love that had a Billboard 100 moment. So they're a little, making some progress. And then along comes John Hughes again. Knock, knock. Hello. I would like you to write an original song for my film, Pretty in Pink. And they said, yes, absolutely, John Hughes. And they came to the Paramount Pictures Studios. They met Molly Ringwald and John Cryer, who were huge fans of theirs. And they were like, really like, oh my God, you know about us. And they wrote a song called Goddess of Love to go along with the original ending of Andy and Andy up with Ducky. And as we said, the original ending was boo. And so John Hughes was like, you know, we made a new ending.

• 59:35Yasi Salek?

  And then he was like, you need to write another song. And it needs to be written at the 120 BPM because that is, the actors were dancing to, Don't You Forget About Me.

• 59:47Speaker 04

  I noticed this.

• 59:48Yasi Salek?

  John Hughes loves one song and it's Don't You Forget About Me by Simple Minds. And OMD was like, we have to go on tour in a day and a half. Um, so, okay, no problem. We'll be right back. And they recorded that song in 24 hours. Can you believe that?

• 1:00:04Speaker 04

  First of all, I noticed the speed of the dancing. Wrote and recorded. It's, but you know, first thought, best thought, right? Like there's like that.

• 1:00:12Yasi Salek?

  You notice how they're dancing offbeat? It's funny because the guy from A Crystal Maneuvers in the Dark was like, we literally did what he said. And then we watched the movie.

• 1:00:20Speaker 04

  It's too fast.

• 1:00:20Yasi Salek?

  And we're like, nobody's dancing. Well, he was like, everyone's dancing to a different BPM. So I have no idea what, what would have matched. Well, the guy from OMD said that he thinks there was a sync error or something, but he was like, yeah, nobody didn't.

• 1:00:32Speaker 04

  I believe that. It looks like a cocaine. Like that is one of the uncanny valley aspects of that. Like first you see the Chicago Pet Shop Boys and you're like, what on earth is this? And then you see everybody in the crowd like this to If You Leave. And it's like something, this, this has like a dream sequence.

• 1:00:51Yasi Salek?

  And then you see.

• 1:00:52Speaker 04

  And then you see the wig.

• 1:00:53Yasi Salek?

  The wig, the hairpiece, really everything. It's a lot. I didn't notice when I was a kid, when I was a kid, I was like, fuck, yes. This is so cool. I'm so happy. She ended up with the hot, rich guy. Cinderella story. Let's, this is wonderful. What a gorgeous song. If you leave, I'm emotionally moved. So he said they usually wrote their songs very like, they're like a synth computer band, right? Like, but he said this time they actually like played chords on the piano and like came up. And he was like, it was something like Tin Pan Alley. It was just so not their style of like writing a song normally. Um, and it worked. Sent it at 3am.

• 1:01:37Speaker 04

  Cause it sounds like a synth, like do, do.

• 1:01:39Yasi Salek?

  Well, yeah, I think they recorded it that way, but I think the way they wrote it was not the way they usually wrote it.

• 1:01:45Speaker 04

  I'd love to hear that demo then. I want to hear the Tin Pan Alley sounding version of If You Leave. Yeah.

• 1:01:52Yasi Salek?

  Also, here's what they said about the writing to it. Lyrically, it's about the end of high school, the ending of your childhood. And then they were trying to capture the fear of what comes next. Andy McCloskey also said, we felt sorry for Ducky. So it was sort of a sad song for him. It was almost like Ducky was saying they would continue to be friends.

• 1:02:13Speaker 04

  Seven years passed under the bridge, like time is standing. So, okay, sure, sure.

• 1:02:20Yasi Salek?

  Do you know that If You Leave was more than five minutes long when they first wrote it?

• 1:02:24Speaker 04

  How long? Is it like three and a half? I guess it has to be three and a half. This is a very bespoke piece of music.

• 1:02:30Yasi Salek?

  That's actually a really good question. Let's see how long it is.

• 1:02:33Speaker 04

  Like, did it have a guitar solo in it or something? Or like, yeah, okay.

• 1:02:37Yasi Salek?

  No, it's four and a half minutes. And funnily enough, they were asked, they were like, you have to cut it down to four minutes so it can go on the radio. And they were like, yes. And then they made it four and a half minutes. And they were like, we just wrote on the tape box, four minutes and sent it in and nobody ever checked and no one said anything. And we went about our business. I don't find the song to feel long because it's so catchy and fun that you kind of don't want it to end.

• 1:03:02Speaker 04

  The outro is really good. That part is great. Right? Like that part earns, you know, the extra 60 seconds that it tacks onto a normal pop song. I agree with that completely. Yeah.

• 1:03:22Yasi Salek?

  It made them stars. It went to number four on the US charts. Um, however, I do believe it broke their entire band apart in half. And they put out one more album after that and then did, had a creative meltdown of the partnership and.

• 1:03:38Speaker 04

  Totally.

• 1:03:39Yasi Salek?

  That was that. I think they have since maybe reunited.

• 1:03:42Speaker 04

  I want to hear Dazzle Ships now.

• 1:03:44Yasi Salek?

  You can. It's available to you on Spotify.com.

• 1:03:47Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:03:48Yasi Salek?

  Spotify app on your phone.

• 1:03:50Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:03:51Yasi Salek?

  Do you like this song, Rob?

• 1:03:53Speaker 04

  I do. I love this song. I was trying to decide, like, this has been done a billion times. Like it, this over, don't you forget about me, like who you got? Yeah, it's a tough one.

• 1:04:08Yasi Salek?

  I don't know, man. Maybe, maybe I'm a slightly. I might be a little more OMD because it's a little more melancholy.

• 1:04:19Speaker 04

  It's definitely a little more melancholy. Yeah. I know, I, I feel bad for Simple Minds, but you could have convinced me that OMD did Don't You Forget About Me as well, right? Like, that's how similar these two songs are. Like even if you remove them from the context of the John Hughes universe, like they just, they're serving it's very similar functions, you know, both in the movie and in real life. I just synth pop. Almighty jams. I might go, don't you forget about me, but it's close enough.

• 1:04:52Yasi Salek?

  He likes, you prefer Scottish people too.

• 1:04:54Speaker 04

  I prefer, I do generally prefer Scottish people.

• 1:04:57Yasi Salek?

  There, I mean, it's a real Sophie's Choice. They're both really phenomenal bangers of tunes.

• 1:05:02Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:05:03Yasi Salek?

  There's a few covers of this song I just want to mention. Good Charlotte covered it for Not Another Teen Movie, which was actually very funny since that was a parody of Pretty in Pink slash other teen movies. Um, there's a Not a Surf cover of this song. Have you ever heard that? It's actually quite good. It was, uh, used in an episode of the OC.

• 1:05:21Speaker 04

  Sure it was. I just, I finally got into like the post-popular.

• 1:05:26Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:26Speaker 04

  Like re-emerge. They are, they are. And they did like a really hard thing in going from like a nineties alt-rock band to like a two thousands, like Grey's Anatomy Extended Universe band like, and so I, I can totally, I have not heard that, but I'm sure they would do this song justice. That sounds very well paired band and song.

• 1:05:49Yasi Salek?

  I think they did. Also, Angel Olsen covered the song a couple of years ago on one of her.

• 1:05:53Speaker 04

  Oh damn, on that. Oh, that's right. That one I think I heard because she did like a whole bunch of eighties. Yeah. I, I remember that one. That was really good. I love her. So that's cool. That's cool.

• 1:06:06Speaker 00

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• 1:06:33Speaker 01

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• 1:07:02Yasi Salek?

  Okay. The next song on the soundtrack is Left of Center by Suzanne Vega. Do you have a relationship with Suzanne Vega and her music?

• 1:07:08Speaker 04

  Other than like.

• 1:07:10Yasi Salek?

  Tom Steiner.

• 1:07:10Speaker 04

  It's almost insulting to say Tom Steiner, Luca, you know, like that. Yes.

• 1:07:17Yasi Salek?

  I'm so sorry.

• 1:07:18Speaker 04

  It's, I, I don't, I have not done the deep dive that I think she warrants because I'm never unhappy to hear her. And I, I dig how this song, she wrote this song for this movie, right?

• 1:07:31Yasi Salek?

  Another original composition.

• 1:07:33Speaker 04

  It sounds like it. Like this is, she's basically trying to write Andy.

• 1:07:39Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. The lyrical conceit is very much about an outsider-y girl, you know?

• 1:07:44Speaker 04

  So yeah, that's, I'm never unhappy to hear Suzanne Vega's voice. And so I, I think she does a good job here.

• 1:07:57Yasi Salek?

  I did read she thought, uh, this would be like the big song of the movie and like be the end credits. But, um, she was a little upset to find out that it was only like in like two seconds of the movie or whatever.

• 1:08:08Speaker 04

  Um, right.

• 1:08:09Yasi Salek?

  Did you know that this song was also remixed by, um, Arthur Baker?

• 1:08:13Speaker 04

  I did not know that, but our friend Chris Sutton was just talking up Arthur Baker's, is it autobiography or maybe just a biography of him? And, and just, I bought it on his recommendation. Yes. Okay. So I, I've been meaning to get all the way into Arthur Baker as well because there's a real.

• 1:08:31Yasi Salek?

  For those who don't know, he is maybe best known as the producer of Afrika Bambaata's groundbreaking Planet Rock single, but he's done many.

• 1:08:40Speaker 04

  He's just around.

• 1:08:40Yasi Salek?

  Incredible remixes throughout the eighties and made a lot of incredible dance music. And he's kind of a fucking G. Okay. This is a song I can't wait to talk to you about. It's called Get to Know Ya by Jesse Johnson.

• 1:08:55Speaker 04

  Go ahead. I don't know a lot about this dude other than the Prince Extended Universe of him.

• 1:09:00Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. He was the original guitarist of the time.

• 1:09:04Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:09:04Yasi Salek?

  Um, I don't either. I know the song was written specifically for the film. I can't help but wonder if they were like, it was a bit like we have Prince at home.

• 1:09:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, I feel terrible thinking that.

• 1:09:15Yasi Salek?

  It's a good song.

• 1:09:16Speaker 04

  No, it's a good song, but it's very Prince. Down to the guitar solo. Yeah.

• 1:09:21Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. Um, this is, they play this.

• 1:09:23Speaker 04

  1986. Yeah. This is, yeah, we're in full Prince.

• 1:09:29Yasi Salek?

  But I think, I mean, that's pretty cool that like, cause I originally assumed they must've just picked this song up to put on the soundtrack. Cause like, it doesn't, it's not, doesn't really fit in with the other uh, genre, you know, we're doing a lot of like English and UK post-rock or what, not post-rock, but, um, you know, that, what would you call it? Post-punk? Anyways.

• 1:09:58Speaker 04

  Yeah. New wave.

• 1:09:59Yasi Salek?

  New wave. Yeah. Post-punk, new wave. And then they were like, yeah, but if we're going to be real, if we're going to keep it a hundred, there would have been this kind of music as well. So let's tap Jesse Johnson for a cool kind of funk song and it's great.

• 1:10:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:10:13Yasi Salek?

  It's so R and B soulful.

• 1:10:24Yasi Salek?

  Do what, W O T, you do by Inexcess is the next song, also written specifically for this soundtrack.

• 1:10:33Speaker 04

  No kidding.

• 1:10:34Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:35Speaker 04

  I.

• 1:10:35Yasi Salek?

  What in the hell?

• 1:10:36Speaker 04

  I looked up, the first thing I did was look up when Kick was, which was eighty seven. So this is a year before Inexcess, like, blow all the way up. I know they're like already pretty prominent.

• 1:10:46Yasi Salek?

  They had only put out the one album, the Listen Like Thieves.

• 1:10:50Speaker 04

  The Don't Change, yeah, like, so they were.

• 1:10:54Yasi Salek?

  Don't Change is one of the best songs of all time.

• 1:10:59Speaker 04

  It's fantastic. I agree. I do not disagree with that at all. Yeah, so that's the pretty good poll, pretty good time to buy stock in Inexcess, to use Ringer Universe language. Pretty, pretty smart decision here.

• 1:11:15Yasi Salek?

  Don't Change is not on Listen Like Thieves. When did Don't Change come out? I feel like that might be later, too. Hold on.

• 1:11:20Speaker 04

  Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm confusing. Let's, let's get this right.

• 1:11:23Yasi Salek?

  I want to get it right. That, no, I lied. That came out even earlier, nineteen eighty two. Shabu Shuba. Shabu Shuba.

• 1:11:31Speaker 04

  I.

• 1:11:35Speaker 04

  I'm really glad that we found a way for you to say that album title out loud.

• 1:11:38Yasi Salek?

  I don't know that I knew that that's what it was called. Shabu Shuba.

• 1:11:42Speaker 04

  I know that name. I have, I have like a sense memory of that album title.

• 1:11:48Yasi Salek?

  That is the third Inexcess album. Inexcess been fucking busy as hell.

• 1:11:52Speaker 04

  They were around. They were around. Yeah, they were, they were a sneaky not one, you know, not overnight success.

• 1:12:00Yasi Salek?

  Michael Hutchins, The Late, and Andrew Ferris wrote this. And later on, I mean, I'll be honest with you, it's not exactly like an A tier Inexcess song, but it's a good song.

• 1:12:12Speaker 04

  Well, no. That's, that's a testament to the A tier Inexcess songs, but I agree. But, you know, it's, it's, no one's gonna mistake this for Need You Tonight, or whatever. Yeah.

• 1:12:23Yasi Salek?

  What else to say about this song except that it exists and was written for this beautiful soundtrack?

• 1:12:31Yasi Salek?

  We already kind of talked.

• 1:12:32Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:12:33Yasi Salek?

  At length about Pretty in Pink. I will mention that they had already had a song, a big song in a film, Love My Way, was in Valley Girl. Another amazing soundtrack from nineteen eighty three. I don't want to call out the copy editors at spin.com, but I was reading a spin article about this soundtrack, and they did say that that was a John Hughes movie, and that is absolutely not a John Hughes movie, Valley Girl, but that's okay. It is a good movie.

• 1:13:05Speaker 04

  Disappointed in spin. Yes.

• 1:13:07Yasi Salek?

  Was it because a woman directed it? Maybe. Maybe they were like, we don't believe in female directors.

• 1:13:12Speaker 04

  Do you happen to know that charts, like, is this the psychedelic Furs's biggest hit? And is that a direct result of this movie?

• 1:13:20Yasi Salek?

  Pretty in Pink.

• 1:13:21Speaker 04

  It isn't, because as you said, it's like a three or four year old, five, six year old song.

• 1:13:25Yasi Salek?

  They re-released it as a single, and then.

• 1:13:28Speaker 04

  The new version.

• 1:13:29Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, and I don't think it, so the first version is, was produced by Steve Lillywhite, this man, at every scene of every crime in the coolest way possible.

• 1:13:38Speaker 04

  Mister, Mister D M B himself. Yes, yes, yes.

• 1:13:42Yasi Salek?

  But the, so the original version only hit forty three on the singles chart of the UK, but the eighty six version hit eighteen and narrowly missed the top forty by getting to forty one in the United States, but still pretty good.

• 1:13:58Speaker 04

  Pretty good. Okay, good for them. Weren't they a little weirded out by like the wild misinterpretation of the song? Like, is this, it was like a thanks for the money.

• 1:14:08Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I think they also were like, we don't like the movie. Well, they were like, I think Richard Butler said, it's not my kind of film.

• 1:14:17Speaker 04

  Sure. Okay.

• 1:14:20Yasi Salek?

  It's fine. It's fine. You don't have to like it.

• 1:14:23Speaker 04

  I don't want to know what his kind of film is. Yeah, you can just cash the checks.

• 1:14:29Yasi Salek?

  Um, Shellshock by New Order.

• 1:14:32Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 1:14:33Yasi Salek?

  Is the next song, also written specifically for this film.

• 1:14:37Speaker 04

  No kidding.

• 1:14:38Yasi Salek?

  John Hughes was making calls left and right.

• 1:14:40Speaker 04

  I guess he was.

• 1:14:42Yasi Salek?

  At the premiere of the movie, Peter Hook was there, and he remembers waiting for the scene where Shellshock was placed. And he said, quote, "I was absolutely cockahoop."

• 1:14:54Speaker 04

  Cockahoop?

• 1:14:55Yasi Salek?

  "I was absolutely cockahoop." And then all of a sudden, later on in the film, Shellshock came in, and it had only been in the film for eight bars, which I thought was fucking hilarious. "I liked the film a lot, and I love The Breakfast Club, so to be asked to do it was such a great honor. It was a very strong soundtrack, and we were in great company, without a shadow of a doubt." I don't know what cockahoop means.

• 1:15:14Speaker 04

  I can't even, I was going to say, like, even in context, I can't.

• 1:15:19Yasi Salek?

  Hammered?

• 1:15:19Speaker 04

  Is that positive? Do you want?

• 1:15:21Yasi Salek?

  No, I looked it up. Extremely happy, excited, or proudly triumphant about an achievement.

• 1:15:27Speaker 04

  So chuffed. Okay, it's, it's sort of a chuffed variant. I was gonna say it was, he was mad that it was like, like in a car driving by or what. I don't even remember where it occurs, Shellshock in the movie.

• 1:15:40Yasi Salek?

  I actually don't.

• 1:15:41Speaker 04

  It's, and I saw it like forty eight hours ago.

• 1:15:43Yasi Salek?

  I don't remember where it is. And that's how much, I mean, eight bars. It's probably, I bet you it's probably in the, in the record store scene or something.

• 1:15:52Speaker 04

  Right, yes.

• 1:15:53Yasi Salek?

  They also did two instrumental version of Thieves Like Us and an instrumental song, Elegia, which are both in the film and not on the soundtrack. The Thieves Like Us instrumental plays when the pre-prom part where Andy's making her dress, and Ducky and Blaine are sitting alone in their bedrooms, and James Spader's smoking a cig in his tux. Okay.

• 1:16:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:16:18Yasi Salek?

  I don't want, I don't want to disparage anybody, but there's gonna have to be a worst song on the soundtrack. And it doesn't mean it's a bad song, but there's gonna have to be one.

• 1:16:30Speaker 04

  Somebody's gotta do it.

• 1:16:32Yasi Salek?

  Somebody's gotta do it. And I, I'm sorry, I think it might be Round Round by Bluey Som. What do you think?

• 1:16:40Speaker 04

  Um, yeah, again, it's the, it's.

• 1:16:44Yasi Salek?

  Danny Hutton hitters.

• 1:16:45Speaker 04

  Wouldn't it be good? Yeah, it's, this is, this is the, the low point, the one-two punch of this song. It's, yeah, I, I can't say this song made much of an impression on me, Round Round. Bluey Som, it's, I think of the cartoon Bluey, which is totally not.

• 1:17:04Yasi Salek?

  He didn't know that was coming. He had no idea.

• 1:17:06Speaker 04

  He didn't know. Yeah. It's just a reminder that not everybody who made music in the eighties became famous for making music.

• 1:17:14Yasi Salek?

  That's true. And I think he was fairly successful in the eighties. He made a whole living out of it, you know, but just not, not remembered. I mean, if he had, let me, let me just tell you, if he had put his whole Bluey-ian into it, and written something more like Bring On The Dancing Horses, perhaps we would be remembering Bluey in a different light, but he didn't.

• 1:17:37Speaker 04

  Who among us has not written Bring On The Dancing Horses? His whole.

• 1:17:44Yasi Salek?

  That's right. He did, he did write that song specifically for this film, so I'm just saying, he could have worked a little harder.

• 1:17:48Speaker 04

  Sure he did. Well, it's, yeah.

• 1:17:52Yasi Salek?

  Should we talk about Bring On The Dancing Horses? Because I'm gonna say something controversial.

• 1:17:57Speaker 04

  I want you to just say something controversial.

• 1:18:00Yasi Salek?

  This is the best song, this is the best song on this entire soundtrack.

• 1:18:03Speaker 04

  No, I agree with you. I, the, the pre-chorus, the.

• 1:18:12Speaker 04

  Structurally, this is an incredible song. How old was it?

• 1:18:17Yasi Salek?

  This song was written for this film.

• 1:18:20Speaker 04

  Are you dead fucking serious?

• 1:18:21Yasi Salek?

  Bring On The Dancing Horses by Echo and the Bunny Men was written for Pretty in Pink. Are you even? Can you even? That's, it only came out as a standalone single, and then was later on like a greatest hits compilation.

• 1:18:34Speaker 04

  That's shocking to me. I thought it was as old as Pretty in Pink was. That's shocking to me. That's wild. They should have called the movie Bring On The Dancing Horses.

• 1:18:44Yasi Salek?

  They should have called the movie Bring On The Dancing Horses.

• 1:18:47Speaker 04

  No, I agree with you. As great as every other non-Bluey song is on this record, I, when you, when you are listening to Bring On The Dancing Horses, you're like, this is one of the great pop songs of, of our time. I had no idea it was exclusive to this movie. That's wild.

• 1:19:05Yasi Salek?

  I really wonder, because I guess, I mean, Ian McCullough, in my experience with him, as we've talked about one time, I asked him if he was Morrissey as a joke, and he got really mad. I made fun of my eyebrows and called me the C word. And we don't have to get into it, it's fine.

• 1:19:19Speaker 04

  That's incredibly rude of him and you. It's ruder.

• 1:19:24Yasi Salek?

  Well, the way they use the C word over there is like more light and playful.

• 1:19:29Speaker 04

  Even so, I, that's not nice of him.

• 1:19:33Yasi Salek?

  I always curse on this podcast, and I just, I don't want to.

• 1:19:35Speaker 04

  What was the context? Were you at like a dinner? Was he your friend's landlord?

• 1:19:39Yasi Salek?

  He was my, my friend's, he was my friend's landlord. No, I was at, like, I was working for some short-lived, nobody would remember, this magazine only ever even, maybe even came out, in LA, and it was run by a British guy who was like friendly with Ian McCullough, and it was in LA, it was at a bar, and he was like, introduced me as like a massive Echo and the Bunny Men fan. And of course, that makes me medically incapable of not making some sort of joke. And I thought it was quite funny.

• 1:20:11Speaker 04

  It's funny. It's, it's funny. I'm glad I wasn't there and didn't do it, but it's funny to think about.

• 1:20:21Yasi Salek?

  He didn't think it was funny. He didn't think it was funny.

• 1:20:23Speaker 04

  Did you talk to him? Did that start or end your conversation?

• 1:20:27Yasi Salek?

  Well, like I said, he, he said my, I had mini Riperton eyebrows, that was a diss, and the C word, and then that sort of, that was the beginning and ending of our friendship.

• 1:20:37Speaker 04

  Mini Riperton eyebrows? Is that a common, is that like a reference people get?

• 1:20:44Yasi Salek?

  Here is.

• 1:20:45Speaker 04

  Okay, I would have had to Google.

• 1:20:47Yasi Salek?

  First of all, mini Riperton had got us, but secondly, I do have to point out that Ian McCullough.

• 1:20:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:20:52Yasi Salek?

  Ian McCullough is quite a bit older than me.

• 1:20:55Speaker 04

  That's the insult he improvised when a stranger called him Morrissey. That's fascinating. Okay. This is a lot of information.

• 1:21:07Yasi Salek?

  I guess, I guess he spent like ten or whatever, seven years being brutally comment-mogged in the British press by Morrissey.

• 1:21:17Speaker 04

  In the parlance of our time.

• 1:21:18Yasi Salek?

  In the parlance of our time. So perhaps it was just like too tender, even though it was multiple decades later.

• 1:21:24Speaker 04

  No, I, it does not shock me that he did not like that.

• 1:21:29Yasi Salek?

  I thought it was-

• 1:21:30Speaker 04

  I don't think Morrissey would have liked it. Yeah, no, it's hilarious, but it's like to us.

• 1:21:36Yasi Salek?

  Where's that famous British sense of humor? You know what I'm saying? Um, anyways, I've digressed. The point, my point being that-

• 1:21:41Speaker 04

  I think the C word was, yeah, that's where that manifested. Okay.

• 1:21:46Yasi Salek?

  They did not, they have not, to my knowledge, done much by way of talking about this song or, I mean, again, I didn't go super deep. Um, but I was like, look, like things that were like, uh, anniversary of the soundtrack we interviewed, like, it's never like, and then Ian McCullough said, or Will Sargent said, yeah.

• 1:22:08Speaker 04

  Um, sure. Okay.

• 1:22:09Yasi Salek?

  But, so I didn't get too much deeper in that, but when you read the lyrics, it kind of, I have to assume they did see the film and it, there's a lot that kind of has the, uh,

• 1:22:21Speaker 04

  break your brittle, it goes from break your brittle hearts to break my brittle hearts. It's like a Taylor Swift's perspective switch guy. I, uh, Taylor Swift did not invent that move, obviously. Okay. So, uh, yeah. Yeah. I have to rethink the entire song now that I know that it was ostensibly, it was written for this movie. That's wild as hell to me. I'm sorry.

• 1:22:53Yasi Salek?

  I mean, there are like, I guess at one point Ian McCullough said that bring on the dancing horses, uh, is a Russian phrase about things falling apart. Um,

• 1:23:05Speaker 04

  Is it though?

• 1:23:06Yasi Salek?

  I don't know.

• 1:23:06Speaker 04

  Is that, is that true? People in Russia are like, this dinner is a, does that like bring on the dancing hor- like, that's, I, I would rather think that he invented that phrase himself, just as he invented the phrase, mini Riperton eyebrows. That seems like an original.

• 1:23:26Yasi Salek?

  He's known for his mini Riperton eyebrows.

• 1:23:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:23:31Yasi Salek?

  Um,

• 1:23:33Yasi Salek?

  I mean, I guess when you get to the Messiah part, then it's like, I don't know what we're talking about anymore, but it's, what a fucking banger. What a, what a goddamn tune. Um, they had already put out four albums when Pretty in Pink came out. They'd already done pretty well. I mean, I think in 81, Rolling Stone called them the greatest band to come out of Liverpool since The Beatles.

• 1:23:56Speaker 04

  Where's Killing Moon? Like Killing Moon is much earlier.

• 1:24:00Yasi Salek?

  Had already come out.

• 1:24:02Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:24:03Yasi Salek?

  As, as well as The Cutter, which I did look and I was like, I'm biased because I thought those were massive tunes in America, but they didn't even chart. It's just they were massive on K-Rock, which is what raised me. So I heard them all the time, but I don't know that everybody heard them all. They, but they were big in LA because I know that they, I don't know why, I think this is in the Wikipedia, but in 84, when they toured, they played the Greek Theater in LA, which is quite, it's a big, decently sized venue. Um, their biggest hit is probably Lips Like Sugar. Would you agree with that?

• 1:24:34Speaker 04

  Yes, I would, probably. Probably chart wise.

• 1:24:37Yasi Salek?

  That didn't even chart in America either, which is so crazy, but that came out in 87. Anyways,

• 1:24:43Yasi Salek?

  this is a god tier song and they play it in the record store when Blaine comes by to talk to Andy and try to ask her out.

• 1:24:51Speaker 04

  I enjoy the scene where Andy sells him like a lame record and like he, you can never quite tell if he understands that he's being played. Like, there's a really interesting dynamic.

• 1:25:04Yasi Salek?

  I think you're referring to the Steve Lawrence album, Take It On Home from 1981.

• 1:25:10Speaker 04

  Thank you for that information. Did you play that album?

• 1:25:13Yasi Salek?

  I did.

• 1:25:13Speaker 04

  Did your research extend to actually throwing on, yeah, I did not. I can't say so.

• 1:25:18Yasi Salek?

  But-

• 1:25:18Speaker 04

  I think we're to understand that that is not a cool album and that she is, she is taking the piss as Ian McCollum might say.

• 1:25:27Yasi Salek?

  It is rough because you're like, who do you want her to end up with? And then you're like, okay, well, what, what did Blaine do?

• 1:25:33Speaker 04

  What did Blaine do? The one actual romantic, like noble scene in the movie is where out of nowhere, they're in the stable.

• 1:25:43Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:43Speaker 04

  Right? Like they're in like the fucking hay.

• 1:25:46Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:47Speaker 04

  With like horses or like, maybe this is what Ian McCullough was like, these are the titular dancing horses.

• 1:25:52Yasi Salek?

  Horses that were brought on by Blaine.

• 1:25:54Speaker 04

  Like, cause their first date is horrible.

• 1:25:57Yasi Salek?

  Well, he takes her-

• 1:25:58Speaker 04

  Prom.

• 1:25:59Yasi Salek?

  He, he stupidly takes her to his Richie friend's party and they're all extremely mean to her.

• 1:26:06Speaker 04

  This is, it's a, and then they go to the punk club and every, at the 10 people watching the rave ups or whatever, and everybody there is mean to him. Like there's no, like, there's no period where this relationship is going well, except for when he asks her to prom. And when they're like smooching amidst the hay, you know, it's, it's just, it's a really protracted relationship that I'm supposed to understand is there one true pairing.

• 1:26:34Yasi Salek?

  There's like, I mean, he does the cute thing with the computer.

• 1:26:38Speaker 04

  Yes, he invents AIM in 1986. That's impressive. Yeah.

• 1:26:42Yasi Salek?

  With like a full photo on like a MS-DOS ass computer, which is really-

• 1:26:48Speaker 04

  Purs and then hit. That, that was very sweet. That was very creepy, but sweet in the way of romantic comics of the time and also now.

• 1:26:55Yasi Salek?

  That always sticks with me is where like all the weirdos sit outside and at some point Blaine like comes out there to find her. And it has, it's such a cool shot because all the extras are obviously like super like punk and new wave and they all look so cool. And he says something to her like, I'm not really into all this shit.

• 1:27:14Speaker 04

  It's like the clue, it's like the clueless scene of the, the cruise. Like, yes, there's a nice lineage.

• 1:27:20Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. The Persian mafia is over there.

• 1:27:22Speaker 04

  I like that scene too.

• 1:27:23Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:24Speaker 04

  The Persian mafia.

• 1:27:25Yasi Salek?

  It was at Beverly Hills High, so that made sense. Um,

• 1:27:28Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:27:28Yasi Salek?

  And then we wrap, we wrap it up with, please, please, please,

• 1:27:38Yasi Salek?

  let me get what I want by the Smiths. Not written originally for this film, written, uh, in, I don't know when it was written, but it was put out in 1984 as the B-side

• 1:27:49Yasi Salek?

  to William, It Was Really Nothing. I love William. William, William. Anyways, the other B-side of William, It Was Really Nothing was How Soon Is Now? Those were the two B-sides of the single. They were like, well, just stick those on the fucking back.

• 1:28:05Speaker 04

  Interesting.

• 1:28:06Yasi Salek?

  How Soon Is Now? Now, obviously probably the most famous Smith song of all time.

• 1:28:10Speaker 04

  Did you find, I laughed out loud when this song appears in this movie, which is when Ducky, who has been absent from the movie for some time, reappear, it's just a quick shot of him in his bedroom, which is a mattress on the floor. And he's listening to this song, but he's listening to it conspicuously quietly. I compare to every, like, like Pretty in Pink is like three times as loud. Yes. Every other song on the soundtrack is like, this is a movie that's about the soundtrack. Like it understands the role of music, but there's something suspiciously quiet about, please, please, please let me get what I want. And that's it. I couldn't figure out like this, as you said, it's, this is the same year as Ferris Bueller,

• 1:28:54Speaker 04

  which is again, my personal favorite John Hughes musical moment. Like I wondered if there was a reason, like, do they, did they have to pay Morrissey by the decibel or something? Like, is there some reason why they're trying to sneak that song past you compared to every other soundtrack hit in this movie? It's very quiet.

• 1:29:15Yasi Salek?

  Really strange because like, obviously they paid for it. They put it on the soundtrack. It's like on-

• 1:29:19Speaker 04

  They certainly did.

• 1:29:21Yasi Salek?

  He liked it so much that he used it instrumentally on another film in the same year. Do you know David Gilmour of Pink Floyd produced that instrumental version by the Dream Academy?

• 1:29:31Speaker 04

  I did not. The Style Council is that? No, that's the, the, the Dream Academy, Style Council is Paul Weller. Yeah. I did not know that. I did. Good for David Gilmour.

• 1:29:41Yasi Salek?

  Good for David Gilmour.

• 1:29:42Speaker 04

  He needed some money.

• 1:29:43Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. I don't know why it was, I don't know why it was hidden, quiet. You know, it was-

• 1:29:49Speaker 04

  It's a, it's the ideal song. It's, it's almost too literal for the scene. If you buy, if you buy into the notion that Ducky's whole thing is, he wants to get with Molly Ringwald. If you do not subscribe, as Molly Ringwald famously does to the idea that Ducky is secretly gay the whole time. Like that's, you can't think of a better song for that situation than that one.

• 1:30:12Yasi Salek?

  Yeah. It's a little on the nose, but I like it and I'm glad it's on the soundtrack and I, and I, I think it gave the Smiths,

• 1:30:21Yasi Salek?

  if I'd have to dig back to my research of multiple years ago for the Smiths episode, but I think it gave them a considerable bump in breaking quote unquote, I don't think they ever fully broke America, but into having a little more footprint and visibility in America because they put out Louder Than Bombs the next year in the USA. And this was a third-

• 1:30:42Speaker 04

  When did they break up? Did they make it to the nineties?

• 1:30:45Yasi Salek?

  No.

• 1:30:46Speaker 04

  Yeah. I didn't think so. So this is pretty late. 86 is pretty late into the Smiths.

• 1:30:52Yasi Salek?

  They broke up right, right. Uh, I believe before their final studio album, Strange Ways, Here We Come, came out in 1987. So just one smoothie year after this film came out. It was a nice, less than five year run that they had there. Tight, compact.

• 1:31:12Speaker 04

  Is it a lame Smith's opinion? If that's your favorite, my favorite Smith song?

• 1:31:16Yasi Salek?

  Is it? Are you that sad in your heart?

• 1:31:19Speaker 04

  That or asleep. I don't feel that sad in my heart.

• 1:31:21Yasi Salek?

  Sleep is the other most depressing.

• 1:31:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:31:24Yasi Salek?

  These are the two suicide watch songs.

• 1:31:27Speaker 04

  Right. Yes. Yeah. But I, when I think of them, like I, I agree with you completely that how soon is now in terms of like ubiquity?

• 1:31:36Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:37Speaker 04

  Is, is now the one, if you know one song of theirs, it's going to be that one. But no, I would say that's one and two in some order. I feel pretty well adjusted in general. I, but that's, that's my truth.

• 1:31:52Yasi Salek?

  I think my, there's like-

• 1:31:54Speaker 04

  Now I'm worried.

• 1:31:55Yasi Salek?

  No, you're okay. You seem okay. I won't call it wrong.

• 1:31:57Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 1:31:58Yasi Salek?

  Um,

• 1:31:59Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:31:59Yasi Salek?

  My Smiths songs change, favorites change all the time, but I've been on like a real heater with, uh, Rush Home Ruffians.

• 1:32:10Yasi Salek?

  It's a different energy. The last night of the fair, yeah. By the big wheel generator. Boy stabbed it as money is grabbed.

• 1:32:20Speaker 04

  Panic? I dig panic.

• 1:32:23Yasi Salek?

  Panic in the streets of London. Let's hang the, hang the DJ, hang the- I mean, they have pretty much wall to wall perfect songs. There's like three Smith songs in the entire catalog that are like a little lackluster and like, then every other song was just like god tier amazing. So.

• 1:32:43Speaker 04

  Our ideal podcasting mode is me just naming songs and you singing them.

• 1:32:48Yasi Salek?

  That's right.

• 1:32:48Speaker 04

  Yeah. That's, I really, there's really no need for any additional.

• 1:32:56Yasi Salek?

  Well.

• 1:32:56Speaker 04

  Just podcast karaoke, I think, is the form that we need to just.

• 1:33:02Yasi Salek?

  Bring to the people. Rob, this was.

• 1:33:04Speaker 04

  Trademark.

• 1:33:05Yasi Salek?

  This was such a treat. I guess to, to close it out, how do you, how do you feel the Pretty in Pink soundtrack's legacy has held up? I mean, you thought of it pretty quickly when I asked you to pick your favorite. I know it wasn't your number one, but.

• 1:33:22Speaker 04

  I did, and I, I dig it. It's, it's sad, and I'm sure you've talked about this at length, like, you go to Spotify and this, it's like chopped up and grayed out. Like it's, and this is as true of the 90s as the 80s. Right? Like you can't go, it's the, the way that compilations were so important in real time, but it's, you have to like painstakingly YouTube reconstructs the listening experience of having, and, and just like, I, that's a drag, right? Because I, I didn't own this tape, right? And I can't, I don't have a conscious memory of listening to this soundtrack from front to back, but like just,

• 1:34:02Speaker 04

  John Hughes, like I was gonna ask you, like, there is no 90s equivalent to John Hughes, to Molly Ringwald. Like you could say whatever you want to say. You could talk about Clueless, you know, I, every generation has its movies, but I feel like the John Hughes extended universe and the synergy of like these three, four movies in particular, in these soundtracks in particular, like this, he gets a lot of credit now, and maybe it's overblown, and maybe it's not for sort of inventing the teen movie.

• 1:34:34Yasi Salek?

  Totally.

• 1:34:34Speaker 04

  And the idea of like a movie that takes a teen's feelings and music taste seriously. Like, again, like I, this doesn't feel like mine. This is not my teenage experience. And so I still weirdly feel like a kid when I watch these movies or listen to them, because they still seem like teenagers who are older than me, even now.

• 1:34:57Yasi Salek?

  Even though you're 40.

• 1:34:59Speaker 04

  Even.

• 1:34:59Yasi Salek?

  Something years old.

• 1:35:01Speaker 04

  Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. How about you? Like I, what was your, like, do you go back to the John Hughes movies? Do you have like a huge emotional connection to John Hughes? Or is it just?

• 1:35:12Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, I think.

• 1:35:13Speaker 04

  In your storehouse of knowledge and it's not an emotional thing?

• 1:35:16Yasi Salek?

  I've probably seen The Breakfast Club like a thousand times for some reason. I've seen that one more than any other one.

• 1:35:22Speaker 04

  Me too.

• 1:35:23Yasi Salek?

  And I, I, I thought, I thought that one maybe had the most thoroughly realized idea that was like, we're all this, you know, all, like, there's so much alienation in being a teenager because high school is all about being categorized and, and kept in these like kind of tight boxes that seem better to people who are on the other side of them, but actually everyone is like fighting their own war. And when forced to come together.

• 1:35:53Speaker 04

  Including a ladder.

• 1:35:54Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, it's like, I, I, I found that one to be the most, yeah, the one, most enduring for me because the, the message stays the same. It is kind of interesting because I don't think, in the 80s, it was like a novel concept, right? To make films for teenagers because that, that's not really what people were making films for before. And then obviously in the 90s, we kind of had like a bonanza of amazing films that were for, I mean, you could name so many, right? It's like Clueless, Empire Records. These are all kind of aimed at young people slash teenagers. Reality by its singles, like they're not all high school movies, but they're all young people movies, you know?

• 1:36:30Speaker 04

  Yes. Yeah.

• 1:36:31Yasi Salek?

  Can't Hardly Wait. Like, there was, there was a ton of actual high school movies too.

• 1:36:35Speaker 04

  American Pie, if you want to go that far out. Like, yeah.

• 1:36:40Yasi Salek?

  I mean, yeah, Ghost World. I mean, there's, there's like a lot, a lot going on. Um, and then you, then you start to get to like more recent times and I'm like, we, they don't make them as much anymore. And I don't know if it's because, it's not like they don't exist. Like Bottoms was like a high school movie, and I'm sure there are.

• 1:36:59Speaker 04

  Right, right.

• 1:37:00Yasi Salek?

  You know, one or two that come out every year or whatever, but it's, I think we, we still have always coming of age movies, but those are a little different than like ensemble-y high school movies. Um, and I wonder if it's just because people of that age don't care about this as a format as much. I don't know.

• 1:37:19Speaker 04

  I don't know. They, like, what is the 80s euphoria? Like, please don't answer that, but, but yeah, that's, the, the first things I think of as like trying to capture what it's like to be in high school now, which is like, I don't even want to think about it. I'm gonna have high school age kids. I'm gonna have a high school age kid in three weeks.

• 1:37:37Yasi Salek?

  Oh, he's very euphoria-coded, for sure, I think. He should be worried.

• 1:37:42Speaker 04

  Okay, that's a good way to end. I think, yeah, it's, it's very, very frightening. But I wonder how much of that energy went to, to prestige TV.

• 1:37:50Yasi Salek?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:50Speaker 04

  First of all.

• 1:37:51Yasi Salek?

  Yeah, totally. Or to like Twitch streaming. Well, Rob, this is, this has been, it's been a real delight. It's been a joy. It's been a pleasure. We brought on the dancing horses.

• 1:38:05Speaker 04

  You shaking Ian McCalla's hand and being like, are you Morrissey? That's incredible.

• 1:38:10Yasi Salek?

  It's rough.

• 1:38:10Speaker 04

  That is amazing.

• 1:38:11Yasi Salek?

  I apologize to you, Ian McCalla, if you're listening to this podcast.

• 1:38:15Speaker 04

  He's fine.

• 1:38:16Yasi Salek?

  I was simply trying to be cheeky.

• 1:38:17Speaker 04

  He can handle it. I don't think that's the most insulted Ian has ever been to his face in the city of Los Angeles.

• 1:38:24Yasi Salek?

  Morrissey alone has probably said meaner things to him in one minute. Um, to quote the great Iona, AKA Annie Potts of this film, "It's after 7:00 PM. Don't waste good lip gloss."

• 1:38:39Yasi Salek?

  Actually, the, her best line, sorry, that was such a good way to end, but her, her actual best line in this film, and maybe the best line in the whole film is, "I'm good in bed. Should I be a whore?"

• 1:38:49Yasi Salek?

  I think she's, she's saying she's good at something, and she's like, you should go do that for a while. She's like, I'm good in bed. Should I be a whore? Um, well, Rob, on that note, thank you again for coming on to talk about Pretty in Pink.

• 1:39:05Speaker 04

  Anytime.

• 1:39:07Yasi Salek?

  Come back next week for a brand new episode of Bandplain.

• 1:39:20Yasi Salek?

  If you liked what you heard today, subscribe for more episodes of Bandplain. Our guest today was Rob Harvilla. You can listen to 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, colon, the 2000s, on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Rob Sunderman and edited by Adrian Bridges with help from Justin Sales. Video production by Sarah Ready. Executive producers for Bandplain are Gina Dahlback and me, Yasi Salek. Our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Cosentino and Jennifer Claven, and graciously recorded by Carlos de la Garza in Los Angeles, California. Special thanks to our producer emeritus, producer Dylan, AKA Dylan Tupper River, and also Sean Fantasy and the onion dip packets that you get at the grocery store. And then you mix it with a bit of Greek yogurt, and then you just get a bag of chips, and that's really a delicious meal.

• 1:40:05Yasi Salek?

  Come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bandplain on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.

• 1:40:14Yasi Salek?

  Questions before we begin, Rob Harvilla?

• 1:40:17Speaker 04

  I don't think so. I'm vaguely familiar with how this program works. I understand this to be.

• 1:40:22Yasi Salek?

  You've been, you've been around.

• 1:40:23Speaker 04

  A special format, but I've, I've been around for a few special formats as well, so I, yeah. It would, it's my fault if I'm surprised unpleasantly by anything that occurs.

• 1:40:36Speaker 00

  Everyone's got a hard question about AI. Your job, your kids, where it's going. Anthropic was built to surface those questions and share what it finds along the way, because there's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at claud.ai/spotify and keep thinking. That's claud.ai/spotify.

• 1:41:00Speaker 05

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