VA - Repo Man - Music From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1984)

As a backdrop to his fast-paced and cartoon-like debut chronicling the wayward life of Los Angles repo men, punk auteur Alex Cox did well to use music from the city's early-'80s hardcore punk scene; the tongue-in-cheek histrionics of Fear and the Circle Jerks (who appear in the movie as a punk band-turned-lounge act) fit flush with the film's mix of displaced suburban youth, gruff, and wizened repo veterans, Mexican hoods, industrial-skid row scenery, and irradiated UFO conspiracy theorists. Along with tracks by punk godfathers Iggy Pop ("Repo Man") and Jonathan Richman (writer of "Pablo Picasso"), the album's additional L.A. hardcore highlights include Black Flag's "TV Party," Suicidal Tendencies's "Institutionalized," and the Plugz's "Hombre Secreto (Secret Agent Man)." The Plugz's noir-ish, punk en espanol tracks, in fact, formed the trademark sound of the film. One of the first soundtracks to use pre-existing band cuts in lieu of an original score, Repo Man is a fine, if not terribly thorough document of L.A.'s punk heyday.~Review by Stephen Cook