‘Pretty in Pink’ Soundtrack Is Still a Mixtape Masterpiece 40 Years Later

Karen Ruud July 19, 8:00 am

Pretty In Pink Soundtrack collage — Everett Collection

What To Know

The Pretty in Pink soundtrack is celebrated as one of the best movie soundtracks, featuring iconic post-punk and new wave hits.
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s “If You Leave” became a pop culture staple.
Forty years later, the soundtrack remains influential and beloved.

When you think of ’80s movies, especially teen movies, it’s nearly impossible not to think of John Hughes immediately. With a string of hits, including 1984’s Sixteen Candles and 1985’s The Breakfast Club, Hughes and the young actors he worked with were box-office gold.

At the top of the list of these teen flicks is 1986’s Pretty in Pink, which updated the classic tale of the poor girl who likes the rich boy who treats her badly, and doesn’t know her best friend is also in love with her. Molly Ringwald stars as the girl Andie, and, as the story goes, she asked Hughes to write a movie based on a popular song that she loved, the Psychedelic Furs’ “Pretty in Pink.”

The other most well-known hit from the movie, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s “If You Leave,” wasn’t even the original song the band had written for the film. After Hughes changed the whole happy ending of Andie ending up with Duckie, the original song, “Goddess of Love,” was scrapped, and the band scrambled to come up with the aforementioned hit and cement their place in pop culture music history.

Ringwald’s character has an after-school job in a cool record store, which gave Hughes plenty of excuses to make music a feature of the film. In fact, the entire soundtrack has been hailed as one of the best in movie history, featuring several post-punk/new wave hits. From the title track, Echo & the Bunnymen’s “Bring on the Dancing Horses,” New Order‘s “Shellshock,” and the Suzanne Vega/Joe Jackson duet “Left of Center,” it seemed like every song was radio gold. And not to be forgotten, the track list also includes INXS (“Do Wot You Do”) and the Smiths (“Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want”), two more familiar names from the decade’s music scene. Several of the bands on the soundtrack can mark their rise in popularity to the release of the soundtrack.

PRETTY IN PINK, Jon Cryer, Annie Potts, Molly Ringwald, 1986

Everett Collection

The music from Pretty in Pink was as much of a character in the film as Ringwald’s Andie and Jon Cryer‘s Duckie, and even now, 40 years later, the soundtrack is remembered fondly, and it’s a safe bet that at least one of the songs will pop up on the next “’80s Night” playlist you come across.

For you collectors out there, it was recently reissued on limited-edition pink vinyl for the 40th anniversary, which you can purchase here.

Full Track List

“If You Leave” – Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
“Left of Center” – Suzanne Vega & Joe Jackson
“Get to Know Ya” – Jesse Johnson
“Do Wot You Do” – INXS
“Pretty in Pink” – The Psychedelic Furs
“Shellshock” – New Order
“Round, Round” – Belouis Some
“Wouldn’t It Be Good” – Danny Hutton Hitters
“Bring on the Dancing Horses” – Echo & The Bunnymen
“Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want” – The Smiths

While not all tracks from the movie are on the official soundtrack, we dug up this playlist that includes all the extras.

Additional reporting by Meredith Ennis. This article appears in the June 2021 Teen Love Songs Issue of ReMIND Magazine. You can purchase the full issue at the link below.