The Big Chill

A tale of former college classmates who come together to mourn their friend's death, The Big Chill is at its heart a movie about disappointment and nostalgia, and the often blurry line between the two. Its sound track, too, is all baby-boomer throwback to the rock and Motown hits of the late '60s and early '70s that the movie's characters reveled in during their years at the University of Michigan. Featuring songs by Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, Smokey Robinson and Aretha Franklin, The Big Chill's first sound track (its success prompted the release of a second, More Songs from The Big Chill) is full of the type of music that one might put on at a party to make their older relatives and coworkers feel comfortable. Yet the songs on this album are by now so ubiquitous and timeworn it's feasible to believe that there's no one on earth who wouldn't like them. It's also almost possible to forget that the sound track, like the film, co-opts the amazing work of talented black Detroit musicians for a story about whiny white Ann Arbor grads.