Various Artists – Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)

Some films have brilliantly curated soundtracks that work as stand-alone compilation albums really well. The first Austin Powers film's soundtrack is one of these. There's some 60's pop, seductive bossa nova, some jazz and more modern rock music. Putting the genres like this makes it sound like the album would be a bit all over the place, but in fact, the songs on the album fit very well together. At the time this film came out, I was listening to lots of 60's and 70's music and I was quite into the psychedelic sounds of the hippy era. When I first saw the film I thought, now here's a good soundtrack. I then bought the CD a little bit later when I found it with affordable price somewhere. I also ended up finding a couple of bands in this way that I've listened to more of later on. When the second Austin Powers album came out, I was looking forward to the soundtrack as well as the film.



I remember watching the first Austin Powers film at home with my friend. We rented this and some other film on a VHS from the close by place, as we did back then. I remember doing this quite often. Renting a couple of films with friends and buying some sweets to go with the film. I remember both of us being really happy about this choice. This kind of humour really worked for two teenagers interested in 60's music and popular culture in general. I had just a bit earlier borrowed the Love Generation 5 CD compilation which I used to educate myself on 60's music.

This album also had some styles of music that I don't really listen to otherwise. It introduced me to musicians such as Burt Bacharach and Quincy Jones. There were a couple of songs on the album that I knew already, such as Carnival by The Cardigans and Incense and Peppermints by Strawberry Alarm Clock. The thing that I didn't like about my purchase was that the CD didn't include two really good songs from the film. Secret Agent Man and These Boots Are Made for Walking caught my attention in the film and I really would've liked to have those on the album.

There were also a couple of original songs made for this album that I thought were quite good. One of them was a song called BBC played by a made-up band called Ming Tea. This song has kind of a music video spot in the film and it even played on MTV as a separate music video for a while. Mike Myers is singing and playing guitar in that song. It's crazy how Mike Myers has really affected my musical taste through his films. Both the Austin Powers trilogy and earlier two Wayne's World films have given me tips on new music at the time. I was so excited about the Wayne's World films that I watched them through over and over again and almost knew the dialogue by heart. This was the time when I was learning to play the guitar so Wayne's fandom of hard rock and Stratocaster guitar were completely understandable.

I rarely listen to this album anymore, but it has definitely widened my horizons when it comes to music. The soundtrack is not, unfortunately on Spotify, and neither are all of the songs but I've made a list of some songs from the album for you to listen to. Here's a link to Spotify.