The soundtrack to the
George Lucas film about teenage life in a small California town in the early '60s was probably the best thing about the movie, featuring several dozen outstanding early rock & roll hits. There's nothing terribly obscure here -- in fact, most of these were big smashes -- but it's a good survey of rock's early days, ranging from superstars like
Buddy Holly,
Chuck Berry,
Fats Domino, and
the Beach Boys to great one-shots like
the Monotones,
the Tempos, and
Buster Brown. Drawbacks:
Wolfman Jack talks over the intros of a few songs, and there are a couple tracks by early-'70s
Sha Na Na-type revivalists
Flash Cadillac.