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The most horrible example is the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Early commercial VHS tapes of it have the original music. Later tapes, and the DVDs, have all the music replaced with just awful generic music. That bad music just makes it unwatchable.

Music is an enormous factor in movies, I wonder why nobody mentions it. For example, the Lord of the Rings soundtrack is spectacular and adds greatly to the pleasure in watching it. In contrast, the soundtrack to The Hobbit sounds completely generic and boring, and the result is unwatchable.

Another example is Star Wars. The first two movies had amazingly good soundtracks. The later sequels had boring music, and whaddya know, the sequels were boring.

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Beavis & Butthead. The best part was the music videos with their commentary.
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I don’t know if perfect soundtracks would save your examples; I’d argue that the malaise infects everything: you can’t make a great soundtrack for a mediocre movie.
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"you can’t make a great soundtrack for a mediocre movie."

The Hackers soundtrack made more money than the actual movie. There was a sequel to the soundtrack but not the movie and unless you are involved in development, almost nobody knows the movie but you still hear songs from the soundtracks at nightclubs today.

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> you can’t make a great soundtrack for a mediocre movie.

I'm having trouble coming up with an example, but my dad told me that "Warsaw Concerto" was composed for the movie "Dangerous Moonlight". The movie was bad, but was popular because people really liked "Warsaw Concerto".

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I think an amazing song or piece could come from or certainly be used in a crappy movie, but I don’t think you can have a definitive entire soundtrack for a bad movie.

I could probably be proved wrong( I don’t think it’s entirely causal but more “they won’t pay for good music if they won’t pay for a good script” kind of thing.

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The "Warsaw Concerto" was composed for the movie. I haven't seen the movie myself, but movies often use themes from the main song throughout.
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Xanadu was a terrible movie, but the soundtrack was a critical and commercial success -- it went to number one in 11 countries, was certified double platinum in the US and had six charting singles, some of which still get radio airplay over four decades later. (And all the songs on the soundtrack were written for the movie; it wasn't a collection of already-existing pop songs.)
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Xanadu is not even really a terrible movie. Terrible movies are worth seeing, at least once, because of how awful they are. I've seen at least three disco movies on roller skates, (roller skates) released at that time. The Apple is certainly terrible; I think it was made to cash in on West Germany film subsidies (the same subsidies that paid for The Neverending Story), even the songs are charmingly terrible. Xanadu has a great soundtrack, but the movie is just boring. Skatetown, U.S.A. is probably terrible, but I'd need to watch it again and I don't want to. :P I haven't seen Roller Boogie.

That said, I would absolutely buy (and wear) a Xanadu jacket if I saw one for a reasonable price.

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Yes you can! For example, The Bodyguard. Shite movie, second best soundtrack of all time and possibly the buggiest selling, I know it was at one point.
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The solution there is to not bother with "streaming services" and just download the readily available alternative captures, which include the original music.
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I did this for Married With Children.
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Northern Exposure had similar problems but, as I understand it, at least some was resolved for the (somewhat relatively) recent DVD box set release.

It just wasn't an issue that was seriously considered by a lot of studios(?) at the time and it's not like back catalog TV shows are usually these big money-makers that warrant a lot of time and cost to get in order.

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There's a DVD box set that has almost all of the original music!
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That's so stupid when these rights disputes come up! Think of how many people will stream or buy the songs legally after (re) discovering them on an old show.

And think of how few people will watch the show solely because it features copyright music.

It should be the other way around, i.e. Stranger Things should send the record company a bill for the resurgence of "Running up that hill".

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