Summer '94: 'Pulp Fiction' Soundtrack Ricochets Into Release

All this month, Soundcheck is taking a look at the summer of 1994, 20 years ago. We're looking at the music, of course, but also re-examining the movies, books, and other cultural high points of that summer. Where were you -- and what were you listening to? Tell us your story here. 

Quentin Tarantino's 1994 wires-crossed caper film Pulp Fiction is packed with memorable scenes. It comes blasting right out of the gate with one, and it's pretty relentlessly great thereafter. The film was a smash hit at the '94 Cannes Film Festival, where Tarantino landed the coveted Palm d'Or, and later the director garnered an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay as well. Pulp Fiction brought John Travolta's career surging back to life; he and co-stars Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman all received Oscar nominations.  

As memorable as the film still is, just as many remember Pulp Fiction for its soundtrack -- a rollicking, surf guitar-filled romp through the 1950s and '60s (with just a taste of the '70s for good measure). Kory Grow, staff writer for Rolling Stone, recently dissected the soundtrack, track-by-track, in his article "Surf Music And Seventies Soul: The Music Of 'Pulp Fiction'." In a conversation with Soundcheck host John Schaefer, Grow explains how the record is different from other soundtracks, and why it's still an evocative "Quentin mixtape," 20 years later. 

"I know the soundtrack did very well for Quentin Tarantino; many, many people bought a copy," Schaefer says. "I did not, but I know that after I saw that film I went out and bought every Urge Overkill record I could get my hands on."