Footloose Soundtrack

From LoveToKnow Music

The Footloose soundtrack got a small conservative town back on its feet and on the dance floor, and it did the same thing for millions of music fans in the 80s. The title track of the soundtrack, which was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 1985 for Best Original Song in a Motion Picture, is a staple of 80s music mixes.

About The Footloose Soundtrack

The soundtrack to Footloose was a mixture of new tracks created for the film, R&B and dance tracks and metal music from the era. The track listing is as follows:

Footloose - Kenny Loggins
Let's Hear It for the Boy - Deniece Williams
Almost Paradise (Love theme from Footloose) - Ann Wilson and Mike Reno
Holding Out for a Hero - Bonnie Tyler
Dancing In the Sheets - Shalamar
I'm Free (Heaven Helps the Man) - Kenny Loggins
Somebody's Eyes - Karla Bonoff
The Girl Gets Around - Sammy Hagar
Never - Moving Pictures

In 1998, a special reissue of the album was released and included the following bonus tracks:

Metal Health (Bang Your Head) - Quiet Riot
Hurts So Good - John Cougar Mellencamp
Waiting for a Girl Like You - Foreigner
Dancing In The Sheets - 12" mix - Shalamar

The original soundtrack was released on February 14, 1984. Although a slow seller at first, the Footloose soundtrack eventually rose to the number one spot on the Billboard Charts in April of that year, knocking Michael Jackson’s Thriller out of that space. Footloose stayed at the top of the charts until June 30, 1984, when it was replaced by the soundtrack to Splash – one of the few times in the history of music when a soundtrack displaced another soundtrack for the top position on the charts.

Footloose was released during a transition time for music formats, and so it was released in several different forms: 8-track, vinyl, cassette and CD.

As of 2009, the soundtrack to Footloose had sold 9 million copies in the U.S. alone.

The Footloose Story

Footloose tells the story of a small town in which dancing is forbidden. The Reverend Shaw Moore, the town’s spiritual leader who is played by John Lithgow, had led the campaign to ban dancing after his son was killed in a car accident coming back from a dance club. The reverend blamed the music and the dancing for his son's death.

Ren McCormick, played by Kevin Bacon, moved to the small town from Chicago with his mom. He struggled to adjust to small town life, but the hardest thing for him to come to terms with was the rules about music and dancing. With the help of the reverend’s daughter, he arranged a high school prom just across the town’s border and forced the reverend and the entire town to review their attitudes toward music, dancing and religion.

Footloose enjoys a special status with music fans, thanks to the plot and the success of the soundtrack. It also was essentially a musical and was adapted as such for the stage.

The movie cost just over $8 million to make, and as of 2009, it had grossed over $80 million.

The Real Footloose

A town without dancing? It happens. The story of Footloose was an adaptation of events in Elmore City, Oklahoma, but there are towns where dancing and popular music are forbidden all over the U.S. Some of the laws are on the books but not enforced, however, a few small towns, especially in the Midwest and South, still exist where dancing laws are in place and adhered to. Footloose actually sparked debate in some of these communities about the laws.