Various Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels - Soundtrack From The Motion Picture (2-LP, colored Vinyl, Ltd.)

(Island Records) 27 tracks, colored vinyl in red, limited edition 25th anniversary release.

Originally released in September 1998 on Island Records, the soundtrack to the box office hit film written and directed by Guy Ritchie, quickly became a must-have album and is often referred to as one of the best film soundtracks of all time.

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels redefined the British gangster film and established Guy Ritchie as one of the greatest directing and writing talents of his generation. With a frenetic mix of cinematic styles, humor, violence, breaking the fourth wall, storytelling and oodles of swearing, it's hard to imagine a time when this film and its influence wasn't there. It made the then-unknown Jason Statham a star, and - amazingly - made tough-guy footballer Vinnie Jones a star, causing a stir in several scenes as Big Chris. Taking a cue from Quentin Tarantino, who had been meticulously curating his film soundtracks since the early '90s, Ritchie let the music to his film tell its own story, with memorable snippets of dialogue between many of the tracks.

It features a wonderfully eclectic selection of songs from the past three decades, plus current artists contributing some of their best, like Ocean Colour Scene's "Hundred Mile High City" and the E-Z Rollers' drum 'n' bass masterpiece "Walk This Land." Among the historic tracks, Dusty Springfield sings her sultry version of Spooky; James Brown makes two appearances with The Boss and The Payback; The Stooges with "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and two versions of Pete Wingfield's masterful one-hit wonder "18 With A Bullet"; the 1975 original and a contemporary cover by Lewis Taylor and Carleen Anderson. And that's only half of it. For lovers of soundtrack albums that create their own distinctive universe, "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" is a must.