| American Psycho: Music from the Controversial Motion Picture | |
| Type: | soundtrack |
| Cover: | American Psycho (soundtrack).png |
| Artist: | various artists |
| Released: | April 4, 2000 |
| Recorded: | 1980s |
| Length: | 58:08 |
| Label: | Koch |
American Psycho: Music from the Controversial Motion Picture is the soundtrack to the 2000 film American Psycho directed by Mary Harron. The soundtrack featured music from the 1980s performed by artists such as David Bowie, Huey Lewis, Eric B. & Rakim, the Cure, amongst several others. The musical selections were inspired from the characteristics of Patrick Bateman (played by Christian Bale) and also authentic to the film's setting as Harron wanted it to set the film's tone.[1] Velvet Underground co-founder John Cale's film score was also featured in the album subtitled as "monologues".[2] The album was distributed by Koch Records on April 4, 2000. Despite the positive reception, the soundtrack was also controversial in regard to music licensing, due to the film's violent content.[3] [4]
Derrick Mathis, in his review for AllMusic added that the "loud, ham-fisted goth rock" cinematically illustrated the nature of Bateman and also felt that it "holds up as fresh as anything out today."[5] In a negative review, Margaret Moser of The Austin Chronicle assigned oneand-a-half-star and wrote "Somewhere out there is a killer Eighties soundtrack waiting to be made, but American Psycho just doesn't cut it."[6] Shaurya Thapa and Stephen Barker of Screen Rant summarized "Each song in the soundtrack has a distinct role in the movie, reflecting different scenes and revealing aspects of Patrick Bateman's personality."[7]
The Huey Lewis and the News' "Hip to Be Square" was featured in the film in a sequence where Bateman kills Paul Allen (played by Jared Leto) and the song is played in the background. However, it was not included in the soundtrack album that resulted in Koch Records forcing to recall approximately 100,000 copies of the album. Koch Records' president Bob Frank claimed that the removal was due to Lewis objecting to the film's violence, but Lewis' manager Bob Brown claimed that Lewis had not seen the film and had allowed a portion of the song to be used; he added that the song was included in the album without their permission, which he speculated was a publicity stunt. In a later interview, Lewis dismissed Frank's claims being "completely made up".[8]