Vanity Fair has named Purple Rain the greatest soundtrack of all time. We’ll go one better: We’ll say Purple Rain is the greatest LUNCHMEAT of all time. Also the greatest breakfast cereal. VF's list won’t be released till next month’s issue, which means we probably won’t read it till we have to take a flight somewhere near Christmas, but other albums in the top 10 include Trainspotting, The Graduate, and The Big Chill. The Big Chill?!? COME AWN. Did my mother make this list?
There is one soundtrack that is deeply, painfully missing from their top 10. That soundtrack is Xanadu. The half Olivia Newton-John/half ELO album is one of the greatest collaborations of the 80s, a hideously underrated musical masterpiece, and perhaps the greatest soundtrack for a bad film ever. (Sadly, it is only the third best lunchmeat, edged out by High School Musical 2.)