Various - The Virgin Suicides (Music From The Motion Picture) (LP + 7") - 45RPM Blue Vinyl

Some soundtracks try to mirror a film. The Virgin Suicides: Music From The Motion Picture builds a world you can step into. Sofia Coppola’s debut adapts Jeffrey Eugenides’ suburban tragedy, set in mid 70s Michigan, and the song choices do the heavy lifting with eerie ease. Released in 2000, this Various Artists set plays like a haunted AM radio broadcast drifting through cul-de-sacs at dusk. You get the romance and the rot, the heat and the hush, and it still creeps under the skin.

Everyone remembers Heart’s Magic Man. It blares like a dare, all siren guitar and Nancy Wilson’s vocal, and in the film it turns Lux Lisbon into a myth you can’t shake. On record it retains that impulsive charge, the kind of song that makes you drive too fast on an empty street. Then 10cc’s I’m Not in Love slides in and time slows. Those stacked vocal loops and soft-focus keys feel like the inside of a teenage crush, blissful and a little suffocating. The compilation leans into that tension. Todd Rundgren’s Hello It’s Me offers an earnest check-in from the other side of a breakup, simple and humane, like a phone call through a bedroom wall.

Coppola and music supervisor Brian Reitzell knew these songs weren’t just period pieces. They’re points of view. The film’s boys are trying to decode the Lisbon sisters, and the soundtrack behaves the same way, circling around moments and moods rather than spelling anything out. Al Green’s How Can You Mend a Broken Heart floats through like a whispered prayer. The Hollies’ The Air That I Breathe feels like the suburbs breathing in their sleep. The choices have taste but also narrative sense. You can drop the needle on side A or shuffle it on a late drive and the story still catches.

Air’s presence is the glue. Coppola tapped the French duo for the score, released separately, but the theme Playground Love shows up here too, with Gordon Tracks on the mic, better known as Thomas Mars of Phoenix. It’s a slinky, woozy slow dance that opens the door and then lingers in the doorway, saxophone curling like cigarette smoke in a rec room. The vintage cuts give you the era, Air gives you the spell. Heard together, you understand why this soundtrack stuck in the culture and why it helped set the tone for Coppola’s later music choices with Reitzell.

As an album to live with, it’s shockingly coherent for a compilation. Sequencing matters. The sugary hits could have tipped into pure nostalgia, but the pacing keeps a cool temperature. These are radio staples with just enough shade. You get desire, melancholy, and a little menace. The guitars gleam, the harmonies feel unforced, and the whole thing carries that late afternoon light the movie loves. It’s easy to see why The Virgin Suicides Music From The Motion Picture vinyl gets recommended by shop clerks to fans of soft psych and 70s pop, not just cinephiles.

If you hunt for Various Artists vinyl that actually earns shelf space, this one does. The pressing rewards volume, and the jump from the hush of I’m Not in Love to the shimmer of Hello It’s Me feels right on a turntable. It’s also a handy gateway. Put it on at a gathering and someone will ask about Rundgren, or why Air went so hard on mood. Then you get to talk about Coppola’s knack for music, about how a single needle drop can tilt an entire scene. That conversation never gets old.

For collectors, it sits nicely next to Air’s companion score. Play both and you get two views of the same neighborhood. If you’re looking to buy Various Artists records online, pairing this with a copy of Moon Safari makes a neat little narrative on your shelf. I’ve even seen it filed in a Melbourne record store under film soundtracks and 70s pop, which feels exactly right. However you sort it, The Virgin Suicides album works because the songs belong to the characters as much as to the decade.

There are flashier soundtrack albums, but few that breathe like this. Put it on at night, let the room go quiet, and see if the houses on your block don’t start to feel a little more mysterious. That is the trick this record pulls. It makes the past feel present, then lets you sit with it. And for those browsing for Various Artists albums on vinyl, this is a keeper, the kind of record that earns repeat plays long after the credits fade.