Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood’ is inspired by a real radio station from 1969

• The soundtrack for Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood is inspired by a real life radio station — KHJ Radio.
  
• Tarantino scrapped three years worth of collected recorded to shift gears for the movie's soundtrack to be more like the radio station.
  
• He explains that the radio was an important part of society in 1969 when people didn't turn the volume down for ads or change channels looking for other songs.
  

Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood is being lauded for being a movie that effectively transports movie-goers to Los Angeles in 1969.

And, a large part of creating that experience is the movie's soundtrack. It is inspired by recordings of an actual radio channel from the time — even though that wasn't the original plan for the Brad Pitt and Leonardo di Caprio starrer.


In Spotify's new Quentin Tarantino podcast, the director discloses how he has been collecting his own snippets of music for the soundtrack but instead completely scrapped that plan once he heard over seven hours KHJ Radio over and over again.
Listening to the recordings, he realised that wanted a KHJ Radio vibe for his movie.

"That's what it was like in Southern California. You listened to the radio all the time, you didn't turn around looking for different songs, you didn't want it down when the ads came on — you just talked over them," he says in conversation with David Wild of the Rolling Stones.


Listening to KHJ Radio is also when Tarantino decided that he liked the idea of the radio jockeys being the period narrators.

Tarantino is known for his haunting soundtracks. His famous movie Kill Bill had revived Nancy Sinatra's Bang Bang, giving the 70s song a new edge.

Capturing the sound of KHJ

While Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood tell its story in 1969 — the soundtrack isn't inspired by the greatest hits of the time.

Tarantino explains that KHJ Radio had its own way of coming up with the Top 40 which didn't mean repeating the Billboard Top 40. Instead, KHJ used to take into account what was popular in the record stores, what their listeners requested and inputs from the KHJ people themselves.

In the end, some of the songs on the radio weren't necessarily popular all over the US, but they were definitely popular in Los Angeles. This is the edge that this radio station's soundtracks will bring to the movie.

So, when Tarantino was working on the soundtrack for Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood, he admits to gravitating towards sounds that resonated with the California KHJ sound that didn't break out onto the national stage.

KHJ Radio boomed to success in 1965 with radio jockey, Bill Drake's formula — less talk, less commercials and more music. And, another thing that was unique about KHJ radio was how it could turn its commercials into songs that sounded a lot like the tracks that were being played.

This is reflected in Heaven Sent perfume's jingle called Suddenly that features in Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood's soundtrack. It's one of the best song cues in the movie, according to Tarantino.