Let's Predict the Soundtrack for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

My favorite moment in the original Guardians of the Galaxy came at the very end, when Star-Lord finally opened the last gift he ever received from his mother and discovered a brand-new mixtape. It wasn’t just that this scene provided the perfect grace note for the end of Star-Lord’s character arc; it was that the rest of us got to spend a couple of years speculating about what that new Awesome Mix might actually contain.

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In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Marvel Finally Embraces Its Weird Side

Thank the Star-Lord.

By Joshua Rivera

If you saw Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 over the weekend, you know Mrs. Quill didn’t let us down. The new mixtape is a blast, with songs like ELO’s "Mr. Blue Sky," Fleetwood Mac’s "The Chain," and Looking Glass’s "Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)." And just like the original, Vol. 2 caps off its soundtrack with a big tease for the music that might come next.

Spoilers for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 to follow.

At the end of the movie, Star-Lord gets a special gift from Kraglin: a Microsoft Zune, the now-defunct music player that failed to steal the market from Apple’s iPod. (As someone who once owned that exact model—R.I.P., my beautiful brown Zune—my heart skipped a beat.) And while the Zune may not be quite as cutting-edge as Kraglin claims, it’s a pretty big upgrade from Star-Lord’s cassette tapes. The Zune 30, which can hold 7,500 songs, came out on November 14, 2006. That means Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 will have access to nearly two decades of music that the first two movies were forced to pass over, since Meredith Quill’s mixtapes were confined—at the very latest—to music released in 1988.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is still years away—but why wait? Let’s imagine the songs that Zune might contain, and the Vol. 3 scenes to match:

"(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)" — Beastie Boys

One of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’s post-credits sequences teases that Baby Groot has evolved into Teen Groot, with the sullen attitude to match. Sure, he can still only say "I am Groot"—but when Star-Lord bursts into his bedroom, he’s clearly saying, "Leave me alone! You’re not my real dad!"

So what kind of music would appeal to Teen Groot? I’m betting on the go-to anthem for spoiled '90s teenagers who didn't comprehend irony: "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party)." Tell me you don’t want to see Teen Groot head-banging to that.

"No Rain" — Blind Melon
"I Wish" — Skee-Lo
"A Girl Like You" — Edwyn Collins
"Breakfast at Tiffany’s" — Deep Blue Something
"The Distance" — Cake
"Your Woman" — White Town
"Steal My Sunshine" — Len
"Breathless" — The Corrs
"Aaron’s Party (Come Get It)" — Aaron Carter
"Smooth Criminal" — Alien Ant Farm
"Why Can’t I?" — Liz Phair
"Crazy" — Gnarls Barkley

Think about it. For nearly 30 years, Star-Lord has been stuck with his Walkman, which could only play a few cassettes, with the songs in the same order every time. The shuffle function on the Zune is going to blow his mind.

Of course, anyone who has actually screwed around with a massive playlist on shuffle has also discovered how annoying it is to compulsively skip around until you stumble onto the perfect song. So why not goof on Star-Lord’s new Zune by making him overwhelmed with the sheer amount of new music in his hands? The opening scene of Vol. 3 could pack an entire soundtrack’s worth of music into just a few minutes, as Star-Lord anxiously skips around between bursts of gunfire at some horrific alien beast, catching up on all the Earth music he missed between 1988 and 2006. I’ve suggested a dozen upbeat one-hit wonders, but you could easily sub in your own favorites.

"The Bargain Store" — Dolly Parton

One of Vol. 2’s most memorable moments comes as Yondu casually wipes out an entire ship of Ravagers while whistling to the sound of Jay and the Americans’ "Come a Little Bit Closer." James Gunn certainly isn’t the first director to use this particular technique—I see you, Scorsese and Tarantino—but that doesn’t mean it’s ineffective.

So how can Vol. 3 use it to similar effect? If Vol. 2 is anything to go on, Nebula is going to kick some serious ass in the next Guardians of the Galaxy—and I can’t think of a better song to score it than Dolly Parton’s "The Bargain Store," which tells a story about another woman made up of used and banged-up parts.

"Sentimental Lady," by Bob Welch

Like Cheers’ Sam & Diane—who get explicitly name-checked in Vol. 2—Star-Lord and Gamora seem locked into a will-they/won’t they that Guardians of the Galaxy is is no hurry to resolve. Both movies give them an intimate moment set to a song ("Fooled Around and Feel in Love" and "Bring It On Home to Me," respectively), and then abruptly cut it off before anything can actually happen.

So assuming we get another variation on the same scene, I like the irony of a song like "Sentimental Lady," which plays in contrast to the decidedly unsentimental Gamora. (As a bonus, "Sentimental Lady" is by Fleetwood Mac alum Bob Welch, which evolves nicely from Vol. 2’s most prominent cut, "The Chain.")

"We Gotta Get Out of This Place" — The Animals

This is another reliable Guardians of the Galaxy trick; in Vol. 2, the climactic space battle is set to Silver’s cheery "Wham Bang Shang-a-Lang," with every beat of the song neatly punctuated by an explosion. And assuming the Guardians are still underdogs in their next space battle—which is kind of their thing—The Animals' "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" is a catchy, self-aware way to highlight the long odds they face.

"Both Sides Now" — Judy Collins

Man, "Father and Son" in Vol. 2, right? Was there a dry eye in your entire movie theater? Part of the brilliance of the Guardians soundtracks is that they don’t just reuse old pop hits—they re-contextualize them, making them feel both nostalgic and poignant in the context of the movies themselves. "Father and Son" was released almost 50 years ago, but it’s the perfect way for Star-Lord to say goodbye to both of his father figures at once: His actual father, Ego, and his surrogate father, Yondu.

We don’t know what Vol. 3 will be about yet, so I’m taking my best crack with a song that feels like it might fall within the same spectrum: "Both Sides Now," as performed by Judy Collins (though the later Joni Mitchell recording would work fine too). It’s a song about reflecting on the sum total of life’s experiences, which feels appropriate for the third entry in a franchise. It's also something that Meredith Quill would almost certainly have heard and enjoyed.

"Another Part of Me" — Michael Jackson

Because—contra Vulture—Baby Groot is a delight who will never get old. And what’s even more adorable than a single dancing Baby Groot? Tons of dancing Baby Groots! I don’t know how the Guardians would bump into a bunch of Groot babies—since Groot is supposedly the last of his race, my best guess is an uncharted planet—but I don’t really care. Just give us a bunch of Baby Groots dancing to Michael Jackson. No one will complain.

William Shatner does a brand-new cover of something

It’s going to be tough for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 to top the closing credits of Vol. 2, which enlisted David Hasselhoff (!) as a guest vocalist for a catchy disco pastiche that also included a cameo from Jeff Goldblum (!!!).

So what can Vol. 3 do? Lock down a sci-fi icon with a history of so-cheesy-they’re-great covers of songs like "Space Oddity" and "Rocket Man." Like Hasselhoff, William Shatner has long had a playful sense of humor about his own celebrity, and Guardians of the Galaxy has always been good at tipping its hat to the sci-fi franchises that came before it. Get William Shatner to provide guest vocals on, I don’t know, a cover of the Beastie Boys’ "Intergalactic," and we’ll be cooking with fire again.