The albums Quentin Tarantino holds dearest
Several elements indicate a Quentin Tarantino film: the presence of Samuel L. Jackson, excessive violence and expletives, and a killer soundtrack. Ever since his first venture into directing, Tarantino has carefully curated the music that accompanies his craft and taken every opportunity to show off his own musical interests on screen.
From the dramatic use of ‘Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)’ in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 to the iconic Pulp Fiction dance scene accompanied by Chuck Berry’s ‘You Never Can Tell’, Tarantino’s soundtrack choices have always served to enhance his visuals. Some of them have even become influential outside of their cinematic context – with his directorial debut, Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino’s iconic use of ‘Stuck in the Middle With You’ by Stealers Wheel even revived the band’s career.
Tarantino seems to love music just as much as he loves the movies, but there are three records he holds more dearly than most. “It’s the same with movies,” he explained to Uncut, “I have my three favourites – Taxi Driver, Blow Out and Rio Bravo – and after that, it depends on my mood.”
One of Tarantino’s top three picks comes from Freda Payne in 1970 with ‘Band of Gold’. “This is just so cool,” he declares, “It’s a combination of the way it’s produced, the cool pop/R&B sound, and Freda’s voice. It’s kinda kitschy in a way – y’know, it’s got a really up-tempo tune – and, the first few times I heard it, I was, like, totally into the coolness of the song.”
Fooled by the coolness, Tarantino notes that it took him several listens to realise just how heartbreaking the track truly was. The effortless beat and seemingly optimistic vocals serve to hide the subject matter, but a closer look at the lyrics reveals the sadness at the centre of the song. “Oh, don’t you know that I wait in the darkness of my lonely room, filled with sadness, filled with gloom,” Payne sings through the “kitschy” instrumentals.
Tarantino also picks out The Sun Sessions by Elvis Presley, which he notes as being “hugely important” to him as a long-standing rockabilly and Elvis fan. “To me,” he enthused, “This album is the purest expression of Elvis there was.” The compilation was released in 1976 but featured tracks from the mid-1950s.
Despite his powerful love for Elvis, the record he declares to be his “favourite album ever” is Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks from 1975. “It’s his masterpiece,” Tarantino adds. The album also spawned the director’s all-time favourite song with ‘Tangled Up In Blue’.
Explaining his love for the track, he shared, “It’s one of those songs where the lyrics are ambiguous. You can actually write the song yourself. That’s a lot of fun – it’s like Dylan fooling around with the listener, playing on the way he or she interprets the lyrics. It’s very hard to take individual songs off Blood On The Tracks because it works so well as an entire album.”
Quentin Tarantino’s favourite albums:
- ‘Band of Gold’ by Freda Payne
- The Sun Sessions by Elvis Presley
- Blood on the Tracks by Bob Dylan
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