I love The Boat That Rocked

Do you ever have one of those conversations where you geek out massively over a film with someone, turn round expecting everyone else to be joining in with just how brilliant that film is but actually they’re looking at you like you’ve just admitted that Aladdin 3 is your favourite Disney? I had this the other day. Asked what my favourite film soundtracks were, Billy Elliot came in at number 1 and The Boat that Rocked was a close second. The film that made me the subject of much derision in the Radio 1 offices. “How can you like The Boat that Rocked?! It was an awful film!” “It was so badly acted…”

I love it - I can re-enact scenes at the drop of a hat. I’ll admit there are some dodgy, sexist scenes in it (Dave and Carl trying to trick Desiree into having it off with the latter instead of the former) and Tom Sturridge’s acting skills could have been enhanced. Possibly by getting another actor in his place. But for me, it encompasses an era which I thought I knew so much about (thanks to mum and dad) but nothing had ever given me such a tangible example of what it might have been like to grow up in the 60s until Richard Curtis’comedy about a pirate radio station came along. And that experience is hugely down to the tracks which accompany the performances.

The Boat That Rocked trailer

I’m not really into cool, new music. I don’t claim this lightly, since I work at two pretty awesome radio stations, both of which are famous for playing new and exciting music but when it comes to tunes, I am quite happy listening to an Oasis playlist, or The College Dropouton repeat. The Boat That Rocked soundtrack is just essentially a compilation of 60s music as a colleague pointed out, but who says that a soundtrack has to have original score or haunting, powerful melodies? Not every film can be The Dark Knight or Drive. I love the film because the soundtrack is so happy and upbeat, set to people dancing on Brighton Beach, drunk radio DJs a stag do and girls gathered giggling around the radio. It’s not to everyone’s taste. Radio DJ Tony Blackburn who found fame on an actual pirate radio station before he joined Radio 1, hated it. He told me so himself. Apparently the character based on him – Simon Swafford played by Chris O’Dowd – was too tall.

Maybe it’s a romanticised view but I don’t think that music today is as evocative of a period of time as the track listing for The Boat That Rocked is, for the carefree, influential decade of the 1960s. It doesn’t matter that the film is flawed or splits opinions on a polar scale, the soundtrack papers over the cracks and your imagination fills in the blanks. Which is why I unashamedly love The Boat That Rocked and all who sing on it.

Full track listing here but just have the Youtube playlist below going while you carry on browsing and see if it lifts your mood. Or better yet, just put the film on.

The Boat That Rocked soundtrack. I dare you...