VIA PRESS RELEASE | When love reigns over Northwood High out in the Chicago ‘burbs, it happens underneath the soft, pink spotlights illuminating that most special night of the year —prom night! And when that happens, it’s bound to be called … Passable in Pink. That is, if it’s a laughably inept 1984 teensploitation movie that made John Hughes look like Orson Welles. And if that movie never actually existed.
Omnivore Recordings will soon unveil the Passable in Pink: Official Motion Picture Soundtrack in conjunction with the November 14th Audible Original release of Passable in Pink, a cinematic audio experience currently available for preorder at www.audible.com/pink. The Digital-only soundtrack will be available on 11/15.
Concocted by the bestselling author Mike Sacks (Poking a Dead Frog), who wrote Audible’s 2018 hit Stinker Lets Loose!, Passable in Pink sends up the 1980s with an epic cast: Gillian Jacobs, Bob Odenkirk, Adam Scott, Justine Bateman, Judd Nelson, Rhea Seehorn, Laraine Newman, and more.
The soundtrack from Mark Rozzo (who created the Stinker Lets Loose! soundtrack and who has played in Champale, Maplewood, and Bambi Kino) channels every ’80s subgenre imaginable: blippy New Wave, swanky U.K. pop, bratty Twin Cities punk, Winston-Salem jangle, Swiss techno, New Agey electronica, even some break beat and a high-school pep-rally band in overdrive.
With 13 lost gems from such mythic bands as Zebra Trucks, The Spurts, Klub Zurich, The Celibates, Café Racers, The Zero Hour, White Noiz, and more, it’s a music snob’s who’s-who of ’80s obscurities. Well, imaginary ones, anyway. Teaming up with Dennis Diken (Smithereens), Doug Gillard (Guided by Voices), Lee Wall (Luna), Ira Elliot (Nada Surf), Joe McGinty (Psychedelic Furs), Geoff Blythe (Dexy’s Midnight Runners), and other friends, Mark has created a parallel-universe John Hughes-movie soundtrack, one echoing the alternative music that record-obsessed teens actually listened to during the Reagan Era, on seven-inch singles, fanzine flexi discs, wee-hours college-radio, and third-generation cassettes. “It’s like finding that favorite mixtape from 1984 you thought might be gone forever,” writes Sachs.
According ding to producer Rozzo: “My 1980s were more Replacements and Dream Syndicate and Young Marble Giants than Tears for Fears and Simple Minds and David Foster. So Mike Sacks and Audible—the makers of Passable in Pink — basically said to go and make a parallel-universe version of a John Hughes movie soundtrack, plugging into every genre imaginable. It’s kind of a reverse-engineered ‘80s soundtrack, imprinted with idiosyncratic tastes combined with references to the bands my music-obsessed friends and I actually listened to.
Thirteen songs barely seemed like enough — there were so many more I wanted to write, so many other great bands I wanted to pay tribute to, i.e., rip off. This soundtrack is a progression from what I did last year with Stinker Lets Loose!, Audible’s goof on ‘70s rednexploitation movies like Smokey and the Bandit. The difference is that, with Stinker, I created one character—C.J. McKnight, the poor man’s C.W. McCall — who did all the music. With Passable in Pink, it was about channelling an ‘80s jukebox-style soundtrack, so that meant 13 songs, 13 different artists, practically 13 different styles.”
This is Gen X nostalgia retrofitted, played by some of the leading lights of indie music past and present. So if you’re feeling like a fink … and you’re reeling, no time to think … just sink into the pink … into Passable In Pink.
DIGITAL TRACK LIST:
HERE COMES THAT HEARTBREAK – The Spurts
INTO THE PINK – Café Racers
TRYING TO REACH YOU – White Noiz
POP COLLAR NITES – The Zero Hour
TANGERINE SKIES – Atlantis Mantis
EMPTY HOUSE (John Peel Session) – The Celibates
YEAH RIGHT – Klub Zurich
DO THE YARNKIN – The Drive Ins
ADDY’S BREAK – Backbeat Crew + 2 with DJ Blapp
BINARY CODE – Zebra Trucks
INTO THE PINK (Reprise) – Café Racers
GOD DAMN SCHOOL – The Hurricane Boys
I NEED AT LEAST FIVE BOYS – Northwood High School Pep Rally Band
