"Bad Batch" Soundtrack Lyrics

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"Bad Batch" Soundtrack Description

Production

• Label: Lakeshore Records (with a vinyl edition via Death Waltz Recording Co./Mondo)
• Release: 2017 (digital in late June; physical followed)
• Type: Movie soundtrack (various artists + film dialogue cues)
• Vibe: Sandblasted synths, post-punk moods, spaghetti-Western guitars, and a sly 80s pop sting when the movie wants to smirk

How the music came together

• Writer-director Ana Lily Amirpour programs songs like she’s DJ’ing a dream in the desert—needle-drops that swagger, then drift, then hit you with something sweet and wrong on purpose.
• The album stitches together cult cuts and left-turn choices: crime-scene electronics, neon-noir post-punk, cosmic lounge, and a couple of “wait, they used that?” pop anthems.
• Dialog tracks from the film live on the record too, framing the playlist with the movie’s cracked philosophy and black humor.

Where it was born

• Much of the film’s world—Comfort, the rave, the skatepark—was built in and around California’s Salton Sea/Slab City, and that off-grid grit bleeds into the sound choices.
• The giant boombox you remember is real-world art hauled into frame; the soundtrack often treats it like a character.

Reviews & Track Highlights

Standout needle-drops (no full tracklist here—just the good gossip)

• Federale — “All the Colours of the Dark”: Spaghetti-Western melancholy riding shotgun with the film’s woozy morality. It’s the dusty postcard you didn’t send.
• White Lies — “Fifty on Our Foreheads”: A closing-credits gut-punch, a teenage-glory anthem repurposed as bittersweet epilogue. It lands like a memory you’re not sure you earned.
• Ace of Base — “All That She Wants”: On paper, too bright for a cannibal wasteland. In practice, that’s the point—the wrongness becomes a mirror. It’s end-times karaoke with a knowing grin.
• Darkside — “Heart”: Desert-night pulse. You feel the sand cool down as synths throb and guitars coil.
• Black Light Smoke — “Screws in My Head” / “Firefly”: Sleaze-gloss and engine-rumble, built for long, stare-heavy tracking shots where not much is said and everything is implied.
• Chilled by Nature — “Otherness (Black Mustang’s Frozen Moon Jam)”: Ambient drift for those liminal hours when the movie swallows its own echo.

Why these cues work on screen

• Against-type placement: Cheerful pop rubbing up against grim choices makes you complicit—you laugh, then feel weird about laughing.
• Montage as mantra: Songs often play long, giving the cinematography space to hypnotize. The soundtrack trusts repetition and texture over exposition.
• Dialogue as rhythm: The album’s spoken snippets aren’t fan service; they function like percussion—short, sharp, percussive beliefs.

Story & Characters (for context)

“Any kind of connection feels like a relief in life.”

• Setup: A fenced-off wasteland outside Texas holds America’s “undesirables.” Arlen, dropped there and quickly dismembered by cannibals, crawls into a brutal new normal.
• Comfort vs. desert: A neon cult-oasis led by a silk-tongued messiah nicknamed The Dream promises plumbing and parties—at a price. Outside, the sand decides who you are.
• Emotional spine: Arlen’s charged orbit around Miami Man (tattooed, fearsome, unexpectedly gentle) and a little girl named Honey. Violence flares; tenderness tries to survive it.

Cast Snapshot (2017)

• Suki Waterhouse as Arlen — loner, survivor, reluctantly tender.
• Jason Momoa as “Miami Man” — gym-god menace with a sketchbook and rules.
• Keanu Reeves as The Dream — poolside philosopher-king with a PA system and an ethos.
• Jim Carrey as The Hermit — mute guide, sand-worn and unexpectedly kind.
• Diego Luna as a passer-through — the wasteland doesn’t keep souvenirs.

How the music shapes them

• Arlen: Electronic pulses give her motion; a pop hook sneaks in when she lets herself feel something like hope.
• Miami Man: Morricone-by-way-Portland—twang, tremolo, and patience. You hear the desert think.
• The Dream: Sugar-coated menace. His scenes wear glossy synths like cologne.
• The Hermit: Air and space. Tracks thin out around him; silence becomes a score.

Musical Styles & Themes

• Post-punk romanticism: Not the weepy kind; the stoic, squint-into-sunset kind. Big feelings, low affect.
• Industrial desert: Beats that sound like sheet metal left out too long. The wind does backing vocals.
• Western noir: Surf guitar ghosts and tremolo beds nod to Leone while keeping one foot in 2010s synth-land.
• Pop as alien artifact: The 80s hit that shouldn’t fit becomes the film’s thesis on nostalgia—warm, dangerous, unreliable.

Critic & Fan Reactions

• Some critics weren’t sold on the film’s narrative spine, calling out the “lavishly distressed” audiovisual surface as the main event. The soundtrack, though? Even the skeptics tended to admit it slaps.
• Genre outlets flagged the musical curation as vital to the mood—an off-kilter mixtape that makes the dust feel neon.

“Lavishly distressed visuals and soundscape.”

“Visually stunning and backed by an impressive soundtrack.”

What fans say (rough cut)

• “Didn’t love the plot, kept the playlist.”
• “I came for Momoa; I stayed for White Lies at the end.”
• “That wrong-song-right-scene thing? It’s witchcraft.”

FAQ

Is this a traditional score or a various-artists soundtrack?

Various artists, curated like a story. The “score” moments are mostly about texture and sustained mood, with a few dialogue stingers.

Why those sugary 80s pop choices in such a grim world?

Because dissonance tells the truth. When joy barges into horror, you notice what you’ve stopped feeling.

Does the vinyl sound different from the digital release?

The sequencing and core selections line up; the 2xLP from the boutique imprint gives it that ritual feel—drop the needle, watch the mirage wobble.

Where does the closing song hit?

Right when the movie exhales. It reframes grit as memory—less a bow, more a bruise.

Is there any original diegetic music inside the world of Comfort?

Plenty—rave drones and sermon-ready beats. The boombox isn’t a prop; it’s a pulpit.

Additional Info

• Festival arc: Premiered at Venice with a Special Jury Prize before rolling into Toronto; the movie proper hit U.S. theaters in late June 2017.
• Locations: Shot in and around Salton Sea/Slab City and other California desert pockets; many background faces are locals.
• Format lore: The vinyl edition arrived with boutique-label packaging and liner notes from the director—catnip for soundtrack collectors.
• Dialog cues: Short spoken interludes on the album are not throwaway skits; they frame the doomed pep talks and survival rules the movie runs on.
• One last listen-through tip: Run the album late, windows cracked, low volume. Let the air between tracks do the storytelling.

It is no wonder that such a gloomy film has the gloomy collection of songs. One of those films that won’t be filled and stuffed with humor as, for instance, Despicable Me 3 is. No, this is way another field of visual representation. It was released on June 23, 2017 (right at the day of writing this review) and we expect the entire 6 million dollars spent on its production will be recouped promptly. The story tells about a girl (Suki Waterhouse) who was mutilated by some scum backs and deprived of an arm and a leg. But she managed to escape and found the shelter in the character of Jason Momoa. This is a dystopia that evolves from the position of the love story of Suki Waterhouse and Jason Momoa, who falls in love in the desert full of scavengers represented by other people. One of them, with a tiny participation and hard character, is Giovanni Ribisi (you will be surprised but he already aged 42). How strange but the main antagonist, the bad guy here is Keanu Reeves (aged 52 now), who was made up in order to lose his attractive body and face forms, to become fatter and more repulsive as a personality. Judging from the trailer, he succeeded in his role, which is another no-wonder thing as he always copes with whatever character he plays. ‘All That She Wants’ (by Ace Of Base) is one of the very famous songs in the soundtrack. The second one is Culture Club’s ‘Karma Chameleon.’ ‘Screws in My Head’ and ‘Firefly’ have depressing lyrics. Some pieces are instrumental, with no lyrics, like ‘Otherness’. Karma Chameleon is the only invigorating thing here, but it contributes to the general sense of the plot – karma is a chameleon – now you are a free person & the next minute, you are lying at the rusty table with limbs tied to its surface and some person starts to saw your hand off to fry it like a piece of meat.

September, 24th 2025

Get more info about 'The Bad Batch': Internet Movie Database, Wikipedia

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