Guardians of the Galaxy was the biggest domestic hit this year, raking in money faster than The Collector at a horse track, and one of the most popular parts of the movie was its amazing soundtrack of beloved 1970s classic rock and pop hits. Known in the movie as “Awesome Mix Vol. 1,” the soundtrack was also called this and has sold a ton of copies and even been the score for a number of late-summer weddings (including my best friend’s). The promise of an Awesome Mix Vol. 2 in the sequel has us very excited, but we don’t have to wait to get another playlist of Galaxy-jumping tunes, and this one’s a little bit different.

Director James Gunn explained in a Facebook post that he certainly pumped the music we hear in the film on set for the actors to hear, but he also allowed sound engineer Simon Hayes to do so for the extras during two particularly daunting night shoots, one the Temple of Morag, and the other the Boot of Jemiah sequence. Hayes had Gunn make a playlist of upbeat party songs for the latter sequence to keep morale up, and to make sure everyone was awake.

Says Gunn, “Simon took requests for the credit scene, but for the Boot of Jemiah he asked me to put together an AWESOME playlist of high-energy party tunes. So I did, featuring some of my favorite tunes. My assistant Simon Hatt (50% of British people are named Simon) just found this list and sent it to me. So I thought I’d share it with you in case you wanted to make your own BOOT OF JEMIAH PLAYLIST – or, as known from now on, Awesome Mix Volume Zero.”

1. Never Wanted to Dance – Mindless Self Indulgence
2. Party Hard – Andrew WK
3. The Way It Was – Aceyalone (feat. Bionik)
4. I Like It, I Love It – Lyrics Born
5. Let’s Dance to Joy Division – The Wombats
6. Start Wearing Purple – Gogol Bordello
7. Ben Vereen – Pigeon John
8. Teenagers – My Chemical Romance
9. Black Fist – Juskwam and Lyrikill
10. Timebomb – The Old 97′s

HT: PSN Europe

That’s definitely a happy, upbeat, dancey group of ten songs. Like Barney Stinson says, a great mix shouldn’t be rise and fall, it should be ALL RISE! I haven’t thought about “Let’s Dance to Joy Division” in a thousand years, so big thanks to Mr. Gunn for bringing that nugget back into my brain.

Would you like to take a listen? Of course you would!

Awesome Mix Volume Zero from mattymurdock on 8tracks Radio.

I think if he’d like, James Gunn could have a career as the chief programmer of NOW That’s What I Call Music, and then the series would actually boast good songs.

If you are fixing for more Guardians music, make sure you enter our Holiday Giveaway for your chance to win a limited edition vinyl version of the Awesome Mix from Mondo and check out our Awesome Mix Vol. 2 playlist!