A big part of the secret to John Hughes’ success with teen movies was his excellent ear for music.

If his dialogue and stories rang true in such films as “Sixteen Candles,” “The Breakfast Club” and “Pretty in Pink,” so, too, did the music that accompanied them.
There’s “Pretty in Pink,” obviously; supposedly Hughes was listening to the Psychedelic Furs a lot while writing the script for the film. The Furs are a great band, but they weren’t exactly mainstream; a lot of unsuspecting teenagers were doubtless turned on to “Love My Way” and “The Ghost in You” after seeing the film, and thankful for the experience.
That’s probably true of Simple Minds, as well. Critical darlings but something of an underground taste, they had their biggest hit — by far — with “Don’t You Forget About Me,” which served as a sort of theme song for “The Breakfast Club.” Mind you, it didn’t sound a lot like their best work — it sounded more like Billy Idol, actually — probably because they didn’t write it. Supposedly they weren’t fond of the song, but it opened up a new audience for the band, and the checks cashed the same.
When Anthony Michael Hall rounds the corner in a borrowed luxury car in “Sixteen Candles,” a drunken babe on his arm, OF COURSE “Rebel Yell” by Billy Idol is playing. The lyric (typically Idol) “More, more, more” pretty much sums up how his night has gone.
“Some Kind of Wonderful” was, in part, about a musician, so maybe that’s why its soundtrack is so eclectic, including the likes of Pete Shelley, the Jesus and Mary Chain, Flesh for Lulu and, as a perfect ending to the film, a great version of “Can’t Help Falling in Love” by Lick the Tins.
But Hughes didn’t just throw songs in movies for the sole purpose of establishing some sort of street cred among teenagers. The music serves the story, and vice versa. In the flashback scene in “She’s Having a Baby,” for instance, when Kevin Bacon is remembering how he first met Elizabeth McGovern, “More Than a Feeling” by Boston is playing on the jukebox. It’s the perfect combination of nostalgia and cheese — just the right choice.
More seriously, later in that film Hughes uses “This Woman’s Work,” by Kate Bush, to great dramatic effect, playing it behind Bacon’s reaction to McGovern’s difficult delivery.
Probably the most-famous use of music in Hughes’ movies is the parade scene in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” Bueller (Matthew Broderick) has cut school and somehow landed at the head of a parade, where he lip-syncs first Wayne Newton’s version of “Danke Schoen” and then the Beatles version of “Twist and Shout.” The former is funny. The latter is joyous, a free-for-all that sends the parade watchers into a frenzy, and the audience, too.
Imagine the scene with, say, a Herman’s Hermits song. Just not the same. The wrong choice of music can kill a scene. The right choice can make it great.
Hughes understood this as much as any director, and his films are so much more effective because of it. He had the ear of a genuine fan, not the studied commercial tastes of a director or studio executive, and it showed.