Arguably, in the rock pantheon, the Smiths sit most snugly next to the Byrds and R.E.M.with jangling guitars, a downcast vocalist, profound mystery, thick melancholy. But there's another key element: Despite being overshadowed in public by their bandmates, all three had bassists that were crucial to their operations.

Enter Andy Rourke, the only bassist the Smiths ever had in their five-year, three-album run. (Like both the Byrds and R.E.M., they  never reunited.) Yes, feuding singer Morrissey and guitarist Johnny Marr have sucked up the majority of the oxygen. 

But a Smiths without Rourke's supple, tensile playing — where he acts as the central pillar between Marr and drummer Mike Joyce, and still manages to play with Morrissey — would be no Smiths at all. Perhaps Morrissey said it best: "Nothing that he played had been played by someone else."

That Morrissey message arrived today due to heartbreaking news: Rourke died on May 19 in New York after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 59.

"Watching him play those dazzling baselines [sic] was an absolute privilege and genuinely something to behold," Marr wrote on social media. Stated Joyce: "Not only the most talented bass player I've ever had the privilege to play with but the sweetest, funniest lad I've ever met."

"I suppose, at the end of it all, we hope to feel that we were valued," Morrissey continued in his heartfelt note. "Andy need not worry about that." That sentiment has been echoed by Smiths fans, and the music community, the world over — whose loss of Rourke comes as a blow.

Read on for a lightning round of 11 great basslines by Rourke — a tough list to narrow down, as every track Rourke ever laid down for the band benefited from his touch.

"You've Got Everything Now" (The Smiths, 1984)

On this cut from their now-classic self-titled debut, Rourke demonstrates how he can both anchor the groove and percolate along with Marr — all while studiously avoiding bass clichés.

"What Difference Does It Make?" (The Smiths, 1984)

In this key Smiths track, hear Rourke walk the bass while animating the music with a dark, roiling energy. (The Peel Session version of "What Difference Does It Make?" from that year's Hatful of Hollow compilation is essential too.)

"Hand in Glove" (The Smiths, 1984)

Few bassists can play four strings as a lead instrument and pull it off. Rourke was one of them, and on "Hand in Glove," he inhabits the rhythmic, melodic and harmonic spheres with equal facility.

"This Charming Man" (Hatful of Hollow, 1984)

Few Smiths songs commensurately occupy the sunshine and shadows like "This Charming Man" — and there's certainly competition by the dozens.

Dig Rourke on "This Charming Man," right in the pocket, laying down that bum-bum-bum, bum-bum-ba-bum rhythm also heard in Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life."

"Handsome Devil" (Hatful of Hollow, 1984)

Another great one from the aforementioned Peel Sessiont features a bass-walking Rourke pushing the rhythm forward with authority while never stepping on any of his bandmates' toes.

"Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" (Hatful of Hollow, 1984)

Another Smiths desert-island cut, with Rourke at his most effervescent and pointillistic; his bassline not only adds rhythmic and melodic shape, but texture.

"Well I Wonder" (Meat is Murder, 1985)

The Smiths' second album, Meat is Murder, boils over with indignation. On "Well I Wonder," Rourke plays roiling chords on the bass and provides a great deal of the song's emotional tension.

"Frankly, Mr. Shankly" (The Queen is Dead, 1986)

Arguably the Smiths' zenith, The Queen is Dead captures the band at their most majestic and downcast, as well as lighthearted and satirical. Rourke's stuffed-shirt bassline to the finger-wagging "Frankly, Mr. Shankly" recalls the Kinks, but also slouches toward reggae.

"Cemetry Gates" (The Queen is Dead, 1986)

It's difficult to imagine "Cemetry Gates" without Rourke's burbling bassline; his part practically captures the song in totality, and certainly helps define it.

"There is a Light That Never Goes Out" (The Queen is Dead, 1986)

Everything great about Rourke as a bassist is on full display on drop-dead Smiths classic "There is a Light That Never Goes Out." He supplies a massive part of the song's emotional architecture, and his fills on the verse practically put him in question-and-answer dialogue with Morrissey.

"I Started Something I Couldn't Finish" (Strangeways, Here We Come, 1987)

By keeping it simple when he needed to, Rourke also elevated the Smiths. The hard-rocking "I Started Something I Couldn't Finish" benefits from his wit and terseness on the bass.

While Strangeways, Here We Come ended up being the last-ever Smiths album, the title of this song belies that the album was, indeed, the most logical and satisfying finish anyone could hope for. And Rourke played a crucial role in taking their sound and vision to the finish line. 

As Marr put it in his goodbye note to Rourke: "Well done Andy."

Songbook: A Guide To The Smashing Pumpkins In Three Eras, From Gish To Atum

In the annals of rock history, how many artists seem to foreshadow all of indie, in some way? One was Buddy Holly; from the glasses to the Strat to the attitude, his short career was like a split atom that produced nuclear fission. And, arguably, there was one other: the Smiths.

Their fey, idiosyncratic and devastatingly witty frontman, Morrissey — born Steven Patrick Morrissey — was fully himself right out of the box. From his baritone voice to his ambiguous sexuality, Moz set the prototype of unconventional, underdog frontmen for good.

His foil, Johnny Marr, played resplendent jangle guitar, with harmonic shades of light and shadow that played off Morrissey's sweet-and-sour musings. Their perennially underrated bassist, Andy Rourke, was supple and tensile. And rock-solid drummer Mike Joyce provided the tasteful foundation, with anthemic flourishes in his fills that made the tunes pop.

The world was introduced to the Smiths via, well, The Smiths — their debut album, released on Feb. 20, 1984 via Rough Trade Records.

Across their four-album discography — plus some must-have compilations, like Hatful of Hollow and Louder Than Bombs — the Manchester-based group would develop in a very short time — and split apart in short order, in 1987. But if, on Feb. 21, 1984, a double-decker bus crashed into the foursome, their role in rock history would still be ironclad.

From the gorgeous, sprawling "Reel Around the Fountain" to the sexually palpitating "This Charming Man" to the stony-yet-sparkling "What Difference Does It Make?", The Smiths paved the way for the Stone Roses, Radiohead, Oasis, and so many more Brits with a way with melody and a screw loose.

And their literary inspirations, melancholia and navel gazing also inspired a generation of emo and goth groups — including acts on the other side of the pond, like the National, Ryan Adams, Billie Eilish, and Low.

How did they accomplish this? Partly due to their visual aesthetic — simple, striking typography, against grayscale photography of anonymous figures, typically men. (Take a spin through Belle and Sebastian's discography, and you tell us whether they were influenced.)

The cover of The Smiths depicts gay sex symbol Joe Dallesandro; he's topless and a curtain of hair obscuring his face; his extremities are cut off by the camera, Venus de Milo-style. The image speaks to both the play with sex and gender in the lyrics, and the band's quotidian personae.

Despite its subject, the cover of The Smiths doesn't scream starpower; it looks ripped out of a moldering magazine. Which completely jibes with the music — glimmering yet murky, seemingly anti-produced in places. That vibe was the point from the beginning — hence their band name.

"It was the most ordinary name," Morrissey once said, "and I thought it was time that the ordinary folk of the world showed their faces." And throughout The Smiths, Moz sings about those ordinary folk — their traumas, their abuses, their sexual hangups.

The Smiths being the Smiths, well, it got dark. The gently unspooling opener "Reel Around the Fountain" is about a sexual experience with an older partner; tabloids wondered aloud if it was about pedophilia. "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" connotes child murder. To say nothing of the knife-twisting closer "Suffer Little Children."

But despite their critical reputation as "miserablists," it's not all pitch-black. "Still Ill" addresses the decriminalization of gay sex in the United Kingdom — an early glimmer of political consciousness for the band that would go on to make Meat is Murder. And the gorgeous "Hand in Glove" — with haunting harmonica blowing through it — is about love slipping away, with a queer tint.

What also makes The Smiths resonate? Partly what they didn't do. In the most synth-choked era of pop/rock, at the tail end of the UK's new romantic movement, The Smiths' guitar-bass-drums starkness was like bare brick against gaudy wallpaper.

Unincumbered by overwrought sonic trappings, the Smiths'  hilarious, harrowing vignettes stick with you from the first listen. Clearly, that unadorned aural aesthetic stuck for decades, with numberless acts — and to a great degree, you can thank Moz and company.

So many terrific artists take a few records to become themselves, but not the Smiths. No, with their classic debut, you get everything now — including the ocean of indie in its wake.

Remembering Andy Rourke With 11 Amazing Smiths Basslines, From "You've Got Everything Now" To "I Started Something I Couldn't Finish"

Every great guitarist has their musical signature. Something that lets the listener know, beyond a reasonable doubt, who is working the strings and frets. Eddie Van Halen had his rapid-fire tapping; Jack White has his stuttering squeal. Succinct and unforgettable, Johnny Marr's distinctive guitar riffs have colored rock and pop for the last four decades.

"As a musician, I'm definitely searching for something," Marr tells GRAMMY.com over Zoom from a hotel room in Los Angeles. "There are riffs I want to find. And then those riffs lead to songs. And then those songs need decent lyrics and decent vocal. Just working at my craft, it makes me happy just thinking about it."

Many of Marr’s famous riffs were heard in the music of the Smiths, for which Marr was the co-founder and guitarist, with his bright and lively fretwork appearing on classics including "This Charming Man," "Back to the Old House," and "Bigmouth Strikes Again."

Marr's guitar-driven legacy is also driven by his time with Modest Mouse, Electronic, the Pretenders, The The and the Cribs, as well as session work for Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music, Pet Shop Boys, and Talking Heads. The go-to guitarist for Hans Zimmer, Marr has contributed to soundtracks for Inception, Freeheld, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and the 2021 James Bond entry, No Time To Die where Marr’s guitar work was featured on Billie Eilish’s GRAMMY-winning theme of the same name.

All of this comes on top of leading his own solo project, with which he released four albums between 2013 and 2022. The most recent was Fever Dreams Pts 1-4, wherein Marr matches his electric prowess with other soundscapes like big synthesizer effects like on "Receiver" and adept acoustic picking on "Lightning People."

Marr’s legacy even has a physical form: a signature Fender Jaguar guitar. "Every single [Jaguar] is exactly the same as mine. Right down to the last screw," Marr says. "The idea was that I then give them what I think is the perfect instrument, and they duplicate it. So every one that anyone buys is the one that I play."

Marr has recently added two new additions to his long list of accomplishments. The first is Marr’s Guitars, a photography anthology of various guitars that have played a role in his career —  from his first-ever guitar (a Gibson Les Paul), to guitars he purchased from the late bass player of the Who —  alongside insights from the titular narrator.

The second is Spirit Power, a greatest hits compilation featuring 21 tracks from Marr’s solo project. The album includes hits "Easy Money" and "Spirit Power and Soul," as well as covers, outtakes, and even two brand new songs: "Somewhere" and "The Answer."

Yet Marr is no "greatest hits" artist. After 40 years, his story is nowhere near complete. "I think I'm 60 percent of the way through my journey. I certainly don't feel like I'm 100 percent of the way there," Marr says. "Hopefully, when I croak I will have got up to 95 percent."

On the eve of the compilation’s release, Marr shared stories from his legendary career — from the guitars he loaned Radiohead to write In Rainbows, to recording "Easy Money" on a tour bus, and how guitars communicate with him (and vice versa).

Two of the most well known songs on the new compilation are "Easy Money," and "Spirit Power and Soul," both of which have the strong, upbeat feel of many of your records. Does the guitar have a unique ability to enhance these kinds of danceable songs?

Well, first off, it's a challenge of source to be able to put a lot of guitars on electro music. 

When I formed Electronic with Bernard Sumner in the late '80s, early '90s, I learned that it's much more difficult to not mess with the integrity of the machines and the direction of the music by putting too many guitars on it.

With rock music, I'm able to find spaces for acoustic guitars and slides, and all these different kinds of textures. It's a bit more straightforward with electro music. But I think over the years I've found a place for it. 

"Spirit Power and Soul" is built on the [bassline] and that was a concept that I had months before I actually wrote the song. When we were on tour with the Call The Comet album, I got the idea that the next album, if I can pull it off, the first single should be an electro pop song.

The idea was that it would be a good thing for the band to surprise the audiences and to really write an electro banger. When it came out I had quite a few musicians contact me. To say how much they like it, which is for me is the highest compliment.

"Easy Money" was one that I came up with when I was on tour in the United States. I heard the whole tune in my head, and it was one of those songs where I thought, This song is either the most annoying thing I've ever heard or it's brilliant.

The record was actually made on the tour bus. When we got back to Manchester we put a real drum kit on it. But I wrote the vocal at the back of the bus. I would write a verse, we'd have to stop the bus, and then I’d record it with James, my co-producer, who's in the band.

I've been around so long now, and a couple of the bands I’ve been in, especially the Smiths, are so revered over the years. But there are quite a lot of people who come to see me now, who got into me because of "Easy Money." 

The comp has one cover on it: "I Feel You," by Depeche Mode. This song's opening riff has a swing-blues feel, which is outside of the dancier style across the comp. How did you make that riff your own?

I was playing that riff in the dressing room in Philadelphia in 2015-16, and Ewan, who's the bass player in my band, said to me, "Oh, cool riff. Is that a new one?" and for a split second I considered lying to him, or stealing the riff and writing a song from it. [Laughs]

I started singing "I Feel You," and he's like, "Wow! Really suits your voice," So we worked it up and we sang it that night. The audience liked it. It was a bit of a moment. Conceptually I liked the idea of doing a cover version of one of my contemporaries. I think Martin Gore is a really class musician.

But the thing about the riff and the bluesy aspect to it is that the band I was in from '89-'92, The The, they're coming from the same place as Depeche Mode. Like a techno blues kind of thing. 

**A couple stories in Marr’s Guitars are about your loaning and/or giving away guitars. You lent two to Noel Gallagher and eventually let him keep them, and you lended three to Radiohead for when they were recording In Rainbows. How do you know which guitar is right for a certain person or band when you’re loaning them out?**

Well with Radiohead it was a no-brainer. They didn't have a Les Paul; they didn't have an SG. I knew Ed had a Rickenbacker and obviously Johnny's got his Telecaster. I can't remember what Thom was playing at the time, but I knew what they didn't have.

I've given guitars to people who aren’t in the book. People like PJ Harvey, Alex Turner. This is just because I could do it. It's a sign of respect, and it might seem extra extravagant, but it's not. I've been very, very fortunate and over the years and it's come back to me. Nile Rodgers gave me one of his Stratocasters. The Edge gave me a Stratocaster.

With Noel, that story's been told in all these different ways, but I can honestly say as soon as I saw a picture of him with it, I thought, Oh, it's his! He just looked right with it.

No one had any idea at that point that Oasis were going to be even playing to more than 100 people, or even 100 people. They were only playing literally to 14. He was just a kid that I liked.

In the book there is a strong theme about how these guitars communicate with you. You write that you took the Gibson ES355 out of the case, and "Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now" arrived under your fingers complete. How would you describe that communication that happens between you and these instruments? 

In some ways it's not esoteric or cosmic, and in some ways it is. The ways that it isn't esoteric or cosmic is that it felt quite like a jazz guitar under my left hand the way the neck is shaped. And it's from 1960, so it's essentially a 1950’s kind of instrument, and it feels expensive because it is expensive. It's beautifully made. 

All of these things are quite tactile under your fingers. It doesn't make you want to shred. It feels sophisticated. So the chords in "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" are very sophisticated, particularly for a 20-year-old boy from Manchester. So maybe subconsciously the idea of this expensive, sophisticated, well made, beautiful luxury instrument made me play those expensive, sophisticated chord changes.

On a more esoteric and cosmic take, it may be just as simple as that the guitar had been used to be playing those kind of chords. Whichever musician had it from all the way through the 1960s, someone else in the 1970s, had maybe put a lot of good feeling into that guitar.

On the rare occasions when I've loaned my guitars to people who don't take care of them, they definitely come back with the wrong feeling. Now that might be flipped back again away from the cosmic. That might be because the guitar’s a machine.

When it's been loved and cared for, and nice music's been played on it, it gets used to it. I should say it's a machine that vibrates and resonates. That's the nature of it. It's wood and wire.

There's many musicians who will tell you that if they're lucky enough to own a few different instruments, they inspire you to find that moment and come up with a song or they just, as I say, they deliver it to you right under your fingers.

In this same regard, with the Fender Jaguar that has your name on it, what sort of energy do you want to pass on?

Well, when that guitar was developed I was doing a lot of running. I was like Forrest Gump with a Jaguar [laughs]. So it's a real daytime, healthy, awake, high tempo energy.

It's there in "Easy Money." That's a real riff that came out of that. It's pretty much there in the whole compilation album. All the songs started being written in 2011 when I was getting that guitar released, and that was what I was using all the time. 

Although I gave one to Nile Rodgers and he thinks it's a really good jazz guitar, which it is. That's got to do with the sound of it. It is very, very versatile. I know one of the first known musicians to get one was Al Jardine from the Beach Boys, which was amazing. Taylor Swift has got one.

So it's right across the board pretty versatile. But the energy from it is a real kind of positive, wide-awake energy.

What was it like in the studio with Billie Eilish and Finneas for "No Time To Die"?

There was a hell of a lot at stake because it's the Bond theme. Hans [Zimmer] is orchestrating it,  trying to make it sound like a Bond movie. But then Billie, quite rightly, is keeping her eye on it because her prerogative is that it keeps the same feeling that she intended when she wrote it. And that's very smart. 

I know that environment really well. That's my world. Hans knows that environment. That's his world. Billie knows it. It's her world. So you get a feeling for someone real quick because I know that environment. That's my oxygen. 

Billie Eilish is young and yes, she's a pop star, but she's not like some kid who just won a lottery ticket to go in and try and sing. It's very obvious she is a very accomplished and gifted artist, and the vibe I got from Billie and Finneas was they’re musicians that could have been around in the '50s, '60s, could've been around in the eighties. 

She was kind of the boss, really, without having to say very much. She didn't need to impose on anybody. She reminds me of Pharrell, although her personality is different. Pharrell buzzes around quite a lot, but he's still pretty zen. These are people who have a vision. They let you express yourself. They let you make constructive changes, but ultimately you know that they've got this vision for how it should be.

In the case of the Bond theme, Billie wrote a really dead cool song, but she also knew that what was going to keep it powerful was making it sound like a Billie Eilish song.

You mentioned this idea of different worlds in the studio. Your world. Hans Zimmer’s world. Billie Eilish’s world. When writing a film score that’s not in a pop structure like "No Time To Die," what is it like for these multiple worlds to come together?

Inception is the best example because before we did Inception, guitars in movies were a complete no-no. They'd been overused in the '80s in a way that had really dated quite badly. 

At a point when composers brought ideas to a director, they could suggest Himalayan flutes, they could suggest Aeolian harps, they could suggest synthesizers. But one thing they couldn't suggest on a movie soundtrack was the electric guitar. The electric guitars were out and because of what we did on Inception, guitars are now back in. 

I like synthesizers and I like electronics. Over the last 10,15 years, getting to work on movies with Hans, I'm involved with the top sound designers and synthesizer players in the world. Hans being one of them. But sonically, there are things that you could do on the guitar that you just simply cannot do on keyboards. No matter how clever you are.

There's a whole world that you can live in with the guitar, and I'm very, very, very pleased and privileged to be in it.

Remembering Andy Rourke With 11 Amazing Smiths Basslines, From "You’ve Got Everything Now" To "I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish"

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From its opening shot, Trainspotting is a movie in motion. As sneakers hit the sidewalk of Princes Street in Edinburgh, Scotland, we hear the raucous drumbeat of Iggy Pop's 1977 barnstormer "Lust For Life." Renton—played by Ewan McGregor—and Spud—by Ewen Bremner—sprint away from two security guards, their shoplifting spoils flying out of their pockets. 

"Choose life," Renton's narration begins, introducing an instantly classic monologue about the emptiness of middle-class aspirations. The action then zips to a soccer match that introduces Renton's ragtag mates: Spud, Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), Begbie (Robert Carlyle) and Tommy (Kevin McKidd). The scene is all propulsion and attitude, with Iggy Pop dropping the match on the trail of fuel. In just 60 exhilarating seconds, Trainspotting tells us precisely what it's going to be.

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Trainspotting burst into U.K. cinemas in February 1996, followed immediately by a debate on whether its fizzing depiction of junkie life glorified drug use. Audiences staggered out, scandalized and delighted in equal measure by "The Worst Toilet In Scotland," Spud's soiled sheets and a ceiling-crawling baby. By the time it opened in the US in May, the movie was already a critical and box office hit at home. Its credentials were undeniable, including a compelling young cast led by newcomer McGregor, a visually daring director in Danny Boyle and a script adapted from Irvine Welsh's cult book of the same name. 

In a year dominated by slick Hollywood blockbusters like Independence Day, Twister and Mission: Impossible, Trainspotting was the scrappy, no-kids-allowed outsider that could. One of the movie's most significant talking points, and a key reason for its enduring legacy, was its use of "needle drops" in lieu of a traditional composerly film score. The soundtrack reaches back to the '70s and '80s, while also showcasing of-the-moment Britpop and dance music. The music of Trainspotting endures because it's intrinsic to the movie, with each song meant to elevate a particular scene or moment. 

Read: How 1995 Became The Year Dance Music Albums Came Of Age

Welsh's 1993 novel frames Renton's misadventures as a heroin addict against the dismal backdrop of Leith, just north of Edinburgh's city center. Trainspotting was first adapted as a stage play, with Ewen Bremner (perfectly cast as Spud in the movie) playing Renton. Before long, the movie offers rolled in. "There was loads of interest," Welsh told Vice in 2016. "Everybody seemed to want to make a film of Trainspotting."

Most directors wanted to ground the adaptation in social realism, but Welsh knew Trainspotting needed a wilder take. In 1994, a promising young director called Danny Boyle had made his feature debut with the pitch-black comedy Shallow Grave, starring Ewan McGregor. Impressed by the movie's visual flair, Welsh gave Boyle the keys to Trainspotting. 

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The making of the movie was a thrill for all involved. Fresh from writing Shallow Grave, screenwriter John Hodge relished the opportunity to adapt Welsh's book for the screen. (Hodge was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 1997 Academy Awards - the movie's only Oscar nod.) Before filming, Boyle sent his actors to spend time with Calton Athletic, a real-life recovery group for addicts. The shoot began in June 1995 and lasted 35 days (a step up from the 30 allocated for Shallow Grave), with Glasgow mostly standing in for Edinburgh. 

Alongside cinematographer Brian Tufano, Boyle brought a bold, kinetic style to every shot. "We'd set out to make as pleasurable a film as possible about subject matter that is almost unwatchable," Boyle told HiBrow in 2018. 

While Shallow Grave gave an early glimpse of Boyle's tastes, including his fondness for electronic duo Leftfield, the music in Trainspotting demanded a bigger role. Welsh's book is peppered with references to The Smiths, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed and David Bowie, so the call went out to a select list of musical icons. Bowie was a no, but others who'd loved the novel happily offered up their music to the project. 

Welsh and Boyle were both clued-in to acid house and rave culture (represented on the soundtrack by the likes of Underworld, Leftfield and John Digweed and Nick Muir's Bedrock project), but it was the director's idea to bring in the likes of Blur and Pulp. That decision was a "masterstroke", Welsh told Vice, because "Britpop was kind of the last strand of British youth culture, and it helped position the film as being the last movie of British youth culture."

Several of the best scenes in Trainspotting are soundtracked by songs made before 1990. Following "Lust For Life", the sleazy strut of Iggy Pop's 1977 track "Nightclubbing" lurks behind a sequence of Renton's relapse into heroin. (Both songs were co-written by David Bowie, giving him an honorary spot on the soundtrack.) New Order's 1981 song "Temptation" is a motif for Renton's taboo relationship with high schooler Diane (Kelly Macdonald in her first film role), while Heaven 17's 1983 pop hit "Temptation" plays at the club where they first meet. 

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Lou Reed's "Perfect Day" lands the hardest punch. In a dazzling sequence, Renton visits his dealer Mother Superior (Peter Mullan) for a hit of heroin. As Renton's body sinks almost romantically into the floor, we hear Lou Reed softly singing about a perfect day drinking sangria in the park. The romance ends there. Knowing an overdose on sight, Mother Superior drags his sort-of friend to the street, then heaves him into a taxi, tucking the fare in his shirt pocket. (In a brilliant small detail, we see an ambulance rush past, headed for someone else.) 

"Perfect Day" keeps on at its languid pace as Renton is ejected at the hospital, hauled onto a stretcher and revived by a nurse with a needle to his arm. "You're going to reap just what you sow," Lou Reed sings as Renton gasps wildly for air. 

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Boyle pushed for Britpop on the soundtrack, but he didn't want obvious hits. Britpop, a genre coined in the '90s to describe a new wave of British bands influenced by everything from the Beatles to the late '80s "Madchester" scene, was at its peak during the Trainspotting shoot in the summer of 1995. Pulp had just released the Britpop anthem "Common People," Elastica and Supergrass were flying high from their debut albums, and genre superstars Oasis and Blur were locked in a media-fueled battle for chart supremacy. 

In the heat of all that hype, Boyle reached back to 1991 and took "Sing" from Blur's debut album, Leisure. The song's stirring piano melody picks up after the "Nightclubbing" sequence, as Renton and his fellow addicts hit a harrowing rock bottom. Later, when Begbie busts in on Renton's new life in London, Pulp's "Mile End" underlines the mood of big city ennui. Along with contributions from Elastica and Blur frontman Damon Albarn, Trainspotting draws on just enough Britpop to keep its cool. 

If Trainspotting has a signature song, it's Underworld's "Born Slippy .NUXX". The duo of Rick Smith and Karl Hyde already had three albums behind them when Boyle reached out to use their 1995 B-side in his movie's climax. The duo was wary—as Smith later put it to Noisey, their music was often sought out to accompany "a scene of mayhem"—but Boyle convinced them with a snippet of the film. Underworld also contributed the propulsive "Dark & Long" to the indelible scene of Renton detoxing inside his childhood bedroom. After Trainspotting, "Born Slippy .NUXX" became the defining song of Underworld's career and a constant euphoric peak in their live sets. 

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Just as Trainspotting caught the Britpop zeitgeist, it also immortalized a high point for dance music. A rush of trailblazing dance albums came out in 1995, including Leftfield's Leftism, The Chemical Brothers' Exit Planet Dust and Goldie's Timeless. In a time of rave culture colliding with chart hits, the movie finds room for both the dark electronics of Leftfield's "A Final Hit" and the goofy Eurodance of Ice MC's "Think About The Way". 

In one scene, Renton sits grinning between the speakers at a London nightclub that's going off to Bedrock and KYO's 1993 classic "For What You Dream Of." "Diane was right," he narrates, recalling a conversation from before he left Edinburgh. "The world is changing, music is changing, drugs are changing, even men and women are changing." For the briefest moment, we see the thrill of '90s dance music as it really was. 

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The Trainspotting soundtrack album hit shelves in July of 1996. The cover played on the movie's iconic poster design, framing the characters in vivid orange. The soundtrack sold so well that a second volume followed in 1997, featuring other songs from the movie and a few that missed the cut. (The same year, the hugely popular Romeo + Juliet soundtrack also inspired a "Vol. 2.") 

Boyle continued to use music as a key character in his movies, following up Trainspotting with the madcap Americana of A Life Less Ordinary and the pop-meets-electronica of The Beach. After 20 years, Boyle got the gang back together for 2017's T2 Trainspotting. In contrast to the original's wall-to-wall needle drops, the sequel weaved a score by Underworld's Rick Smith around songs by High Contrast, Wolf Alice and Young Fathers. 

Many impressive, star-studded soundtracks followed in the wake of Trainspotting. What makes this one rare, though, is how deeply its unholy union of rock, Britpop and dance music belongs to the movie. Remove any needle drop from a scene in Trainspotting, however fleeting, and it'd lose something vital—that's how you know it's built to last.

How 1995 Became A Blockbuster Year For Movie Soundtracks

Three months after OneRepublic began promoting their sixth album, Artificial Paradise, in February 2022, the band unexpectedly had their biggest release in nearly a decade. The pop-rock band's carefree jam, "I Ain't Worried," soundtracked Top Gun: Maverick's most memeable scene and quickly became a global smash — ultimately delaying album plans in favor of promoting their latest hit.

Two years later, "I Ain't Worried" is one of 16 tracks on Artificial Paradise, which arrived July 12. It's a seamless blend of songs that will resonate with longtime and newer fans alike. From the layered production of "Hurt," to the feel-good vibes of "Serotonin," to the evocative lyrics of "Last Holiday," Artificial Paradise shows that OneRepublic's sound is as dialed-in as it is ever-evolving.

The album also marks the end of an era for OneRepublic, as it's the last in their contract with Interscope Records. But for the group's singer, Ryan Tedder, that means the future is even more exciting than it's been in their entire 15-year career.

"I've never been more motivated to write the best material of my life than this very moment," he asserts. "I'm taking it as a challenge. We've had a lot of fun, and a lot of uplifting records for the last seven or eight years, but I also want to tap back into some deeper material with the band."

As he's been prepping Artificial Paradise with his OneRepublic cohorts, Tedder has also been as busy as he's ever been working with other artists. His career as a songwriter/producer took off almost simultaneously with OneRepublic's 2007 breakthrough, "Apologize" (his first major behind-the-board hit was Leona Lewis' "Bleeding Love"); to this day he's one of the go-to guys for pop's biggest names, from BLACKPINK to Tate McRae.

Tedder sat down with GRAMMY.com to share some of his most prominent memories of OneRepublic's biggest songs, as well as some of the hits he's written with Beyoncé, Adele, Taylor Swift and more.

I was producing and writing other songs for different artists on Epic and Atlantic — I was just cutting my teeth as a songwriter in L.A. This is like 2004. I was at my lowest mentally and financially. I was completely broke. Creditors chasing me, literally dodging the taxman and getting my car repoed, everything.

I had that song in my back pocket for four years. A buddy of mine just reminded me last month, a songwriter from Nashville — Ashley Gorley, actually. We had a session last month, me, him and Amy Allen, and he brought it up. He was like, "Is it true, the story about 'Apologize'? You were completely broke living in L.A. and Epic Records offered you like 100 grand or something just for the right to record the song on one of their artists?"

And that is true. It was, like, 20 [grand], then 50, then 100. And I was salivating. I was, like, I need this money so bad. And I give so many songs to other people, but with that song, I drew a line in the sand and said, "No one will sing this song but me. I will die with this song." 

It was my story, and I just didn't want anyone else to sing it. It was really that simple. It was a song about my past relationships, it was deeply personal. And it was also the song that — I spent two years trying to figure out what my sound was gonna be. I was a solo artist… and I wasn't landing on anything compelling. Then I landed on "Apologize" and a couple of other songs, and I was like, These songs make me think of a band, not solo artist material. So it was the song that led me to the sound of OneRepublic, and it also led me to the idea that I should start a band and not be a solo artist.

We do it every night. I'll never not do it. I've never gotten sick of it once. Every night that we do it, whether I'm in Houston or Hong Kong, I look out at the crowd and look at the band, and I'm like, Wow. This is the song that got us here.

We were halfway through promoting Dreaming Out Loud, our first album. I played basketball every day on tour, and I snapped my Achilles. The tour got canceled. The doctor told me not to even write. And I had this one sliver of an afternoon where my wife had to run an errand. And because I'm sadistic and crazy, I texted [songwriter] Evan Bogart, "I got a three-hour window, race over here. Beyoncé called me and asked me to write her a song. I want to do it with you." He had just come off his huge Rihanna No. 1, and we had an Ashley Tisdale single together.

When you write enough songs, not every day do the clouds part and God looks down on you and goes, "Here." But that's what happened on that day. I turn on the keyboard, the first sound that I play is the opening sound of the song. Sounds like angels singing. And we wrote the song pretty quick, as I recall. 

I didn't get a response [from Beyoncé after sending "Halo" over], which I've now learned is very, very typical of her. I did Miley Cyrus and Beyoncé "II MOST WANTED" [from COWBOY CARTER] — I didn't know that was coming out 'til five days before it came out. And when I did "XO" [from 2013's Beyoncé], I found out that "XO" was coming out 12 hours before it came out. That's how she operates.

["Good Life"] was kind of a Hail Mary. We already knew that "All the Right Moves" would be the first single [from Waking Up]. We knew that "Secrets" was the second single. And in the 11th hour, our engineer at the time — who I ended up signing as a songwriter, Noel Zancanella — had this drum loop that he had made, and he played it for Brent [Kutzle] in our band. Brent said, "You gotta hear this drum loop that Noel made. It's incredible."

He played it for me the next morning, and I was like, "Yo throw some chords to this. I'm writing to this today." They threw some chords down, and the first thing out of my mouth was, [sings] "Oh, this has gotta be the good life." 

It's the perfect example of, oftentimes, the chord I've tried to strike with this band with some of our bigger records, [which] is happy sad. Where you feel nostalgic and kind of melancholic, but at the same time, euphoric. That's what those chords and that melody did for me.

I was like, "Hey guys, would it be weird if I made the hook a whistle?" And everyone was like, "No! Do not whistle!" They're like, "Name the last hit song that had a whistle." And the only one I could think of was, like, Scorpion from like, 1988. [Laughs.] So I thought, To hell with it, man, it's been long enough, who cares? Let's try it. And the whistle kind of made the record. It became such a signature thing.

Adele — "Rumour Has It," '21' (2011)

"Rumour Has It" was the first song I did in probably a four year period, with any artist, that wasn't a ballad. All any artist ever wanted me to write with them or for them, was ballads, because of "Halo," and "Apologize" and "Bleeding Love."

I begged [Adele] to do a [song with] tempo, because we did "Turning Tables," another ballad. She was in a feisty mood [that day], so I was like, "Okay, we're doing a tempo today!"

Rick Rubin was originally producing the whole album. I was determined to produce Adele, not just write — because I wanted a shot to show her that I could, and to show myself. I stayed later after she left, and I remember thinking, What can I do in this record in this song that could be so difficult to reproduce that it might land me the gig?

So I intentionally muted the click track, changed the tempo, and [created that] whole piano bridge. I was making it up as I went. When she got in that morning. I said, "I have a crazy idea for a bridge. It's a movie." She listens and she says, "This is really different, I like this! How do we write to this?" 

I mean, it was very difficult. [But] we finished the song. She recorded the entire song that day. She recorded the whole song in one take. I've never seen anyone do that in my life — before or since.

Then I didn't hear from her for six months. Because I handed over the files, and Rick Rubin's doing it, so I don't need to check on it. I randomly check on the status of the song — and at this point, if you're a songwriter or producer, you're assuming that they're not keeping the songs. Her manager emails my manager, "Hey, good news — she's keeping both songs they did, and she wants Ryan to finish 'Rumour Has It' production and mix it." 

When I finally asked her, months later — probably at the GRAMMYs — I said, "Why didn't [Rick] do it?" She said, "Oh he did. It's that damn bridge! Nobody could figure out what the hell you were doing…It was so problematic that we just gave up on it."

I was in a Beyoncé camp in the Hamptons writing for the self-titled album. [There were] a bunch of people in the house — me, Greg Kurstin, Sia — it was a fun group of people. I had four days there, and every morning I'd get up an hour and a half before I had to leave, make a coffee, and start prepping for the day. On the third day, I got up, I'm in the basement of this house at like 7 in the morning, and I'm coming up with ideas. I stumble across that chord progression, the guitar and the melody. It was instant shivers up my spine. 

"Lately I've been losing sleep, dreaming about the things that we could be" is the only line that I had. [My] first thought was, I should play this for Beyoncé, and then I'm listening to it and going, This is not Beyoncé, not even remotely. It'd be a waste. So I tabled it, and I texted the guys in my band, "Hey, I think I have a potentially really big record. I'm going to finish it when I get back to Denver."

I got back the next week, started recording it, did four or five versions of the chorus, bouncing all the versions off my wife, and then eventually landed it. And when I played it for the band, they were like, "This is our favorite song."

It was my second session with Taylor. The first one was [1989's] "I Know Places," and she sent me a voice memo. I was looking for a house in Venice [California], because we were spending so much time in L.A. So that whole memory is attached to me migrating back to Los Angeles. 

But I knew what she was talking about, because I lived in New York, and I remember the feeling — endless possibilities, all the different people and races and sexes and loves. That was her New York chapter. She was so excited to be there. If you never lived there, and especially if you get there and you've got a little money in the pocket, it is so exhilarating.

It was me just kind of witnessing her brilliant, fast-paced, lyrical wizardry. [Co-producer] Max [Martin] and I had a conversation nine months later at the GRAMMYs, when we had literally just won for 1989. He kind of laughed, he pointed to all the other producers on the album, and he's like, "If she had, like, three more hours in the day, she would just figure out what we do and she would do it. And she wouldn't need any of us." 

And I still think that's true. Some people are just forces of nature in and among themselves, and she's one of them. She just blew me away. She's the most talented top liner I've ever been in a room with, bar none. If you're talking lyric and melody, I've never been in a room with anyone faster, more adept, knows more what they want to say, focused, efficient, and just talented.

I had gone through a pretty dry spell mentally, emotionally. I had just burned it at both ends and tapped out, call it end of 2016. So, really, all of 2017 for me was a blur and a wash. I did a bunch of sessions in the first three months of the year, and then I just couldn't get a song out. I kept having, song after song, artists telling me it's the first single, [then] the song was not even on the album. I had never experienced that in my career.

I went six to nine months without finishing a song, which for me is unheard of. Andrew Watt kind of roped me back into working with him. We did "Easier" for 5 Seconds of Summer, and we did some Sam Smith and some Miley Cyrus, and right in that same window, I did this song "Sucker." Two [or] three months later, Wendy Goldstein from Republic [Records] heard the record, I had sent it to her. She'd said, very quietly, "We're relaunching the Jonas Brothers. They want you to be involved in a major way. Do you have anything?" 

She calls me, she goes, "Ryan, do not play this for anybody else. This is their comeback single. It's a No. 1 record. Watch what we're gonna do." And she delivered.

My memory is, being in lockdown in COVID, and just being like, Who knows when this is going to end, working out of my Airstream at my house. I had done a lot of songs for movies over the years, and [for] that particular [song] Randy Spendlove, who runs [music at] Paramount, called me.

I end up Zooming with Tom Cruise [and Top Gun: Maverick director] Jerry Bruckheimer — everybody's in lockdown during post-production. The overarching memory was, Holy cow, I'm doing the scene, I'm doing the song for Top Gun. I can't believe this is happening. But the only way I knew how to approach it, rather than to, like, overreact and s— the bed, was, It's just another day.

I do prescription songs for movies, TV, film all the time. I love a brief. It's so antithetical to most writers. I'm either uncontrollably lazy or the most productive person you've ever met. And the dividing line between the two is, if I'm chasing some directive, some motivation, some endpoint, then I can be wildly productive.

I just thought, I'm going to do the absolute best thing I can do for this scene and serve the film. OneRepublic being the performing artist was not on the menu in my mind. I just told them, "I think you need a cool indie band sounding, like, breakbeat." I used adjectives to describe what I heard when I saw the scene, and Tom got really ramped and excited. 

You could argue [it's the biggest song] since the band started. The thing about it is, it's kind of become one of those every summer [hits]. And when it blew up, that's what Tom said. He said, "Mark my words, dude. You're gonna have a hit with this every summer for, like, the next 20 years or more." 

And that's what happened. The moment Memorial Day happened, "I Ain't Worried" got defrosted and marched itself back into the top 100.

Tate McRae — "Greedy," 'THINK LATER' (2023)

We had "10:35" [with Tiësto] the previous year that had been, like, a No. 1 in the UK and across Europe and Australia. So we were coming off the back of that, and the one thing she was clear about was, "That is not the direction of what I want to do."

If my memory serves me correct, "greedy" was the next to last session we had. Everything we had done up to that point was kind of dark, midtempo, emotional. So "greedy" was the weirdo outlier. I kept pushing her to do a dance record. I was like, "Tate, there's a lot of people that have great voices, and there's a lot of people who can write, but none of those people are professional dancers like you are. Your secret weapon is the thing you're not using. In this game and this career, you've got to use every asset that you have and exploit it."

There was a lot of cajoling. On that day, we did it, and I thought it was badass, and loved it. And she was like, "Ugh, what do we just do? What is this?"

So then it was just, like, months, months and months of me constantly bringing that song back up, and playing it for her, and annoying the s— out of her. And she came around on it. 

She has very specific taste. So much of the music with Tate, it really is her steering. I'll do what I think is like a finished version of a song, and then she will push everyone for weeks, if not months, to extract every ounce of everything out of them, to push the song harder, further, edgier — 19 versions of a song, until finally she goes, "Okay, this is the one." She's a perfectionist.

I love [our latest single] "Hurt," but my favorite song on the album is called "Last Holiday." I probably started the beginning of that lyric, I'm not joking, seven, eight years ago. But I didn't finish it 'til this past year.

The verses are little maxims and words of advice that I've been given throughout the years. It's almost cynical in a way, the song. When I wrote the chorus, I was definitely in kind of a down place. So the opening line is, "So I don't believe in the stars anymore/ They never gave me what I wished for." And it's, obviously, a very not-so-slight reference to "Counting Stars." But it's also hopeful — "We've got some problems, okay, but this isn't our last holiday." 

It's very simple sentiments. Press pause. Take some moments. Find God before it all ends. All these things with this big, soaring chorus. Musically and emotionally and sonically, that song — and "Hurt," for sure — but "Last Holiday" is extremely us-sounding. 

The biggest enemy that we've had over the course of 18 years, I'll be the first to volunteer, is, this ever-evolving, undulating sound. No one's gonna accuse me of making these super complex concept albums, because that's just not how my brain's wired. I grew up listening to the radio. I didn't grow up hanging out in the Bowery in CBGBs listening to Nick Cave. So for us, the downside to that, and for me doing all these songs for all these other people, is the constant push and pull of "What is their sound? What genre is it?" 

I couldn't put a pin in exactly what the sound is, but what I would say is, if you look at the last 18 years, a song like "Last Holiday" really encompasses, sonically, what this band is about. It's very moving, and emotional, and dynamic. It takes me to a place — that's the best way for me to put it. And hopefully the listener finds the same.