Pumpkin and Honey Bunny are sucking face over coffee and eggs for the thousandth time on my Netflix browser. I mouth along with the words as they draw their guns and prepare to shake down the diner of my dreams: “Any of you fucking pricks move, genericillness and I’ll execute every mother fucking last one of you!!!!!!” And then suddenly it kicks in, and the shrieking cry of the devil on a surfboard: Dick Dale’s “Misirlou” is back in my life again, and it’s beautiful. For the next three days, I play the soundtrack on loop, fully aware that I am listening to a god damned classic record.

And yet, in an episode of Parks and Recreation, why does the scene in which Aubrey Plaza’s dead-eyed April Ludgate ridicules a blushing Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) for having the soundtracks to Singles and Grosse Point Blank in his car ring so true? “I kind of look at it like it’s your favorite directors making a mix tape just for you!” he exclaims earnestly, and I’m nodding along. This, however, is her reaction:

I feel the same way towards certain soundtracks as I do towards my favorite albums — Pulp Fiction’s flawless mix of funk, soul, oldies, and surf music being the first, the deepest, in a collection that has grown to include High Fidelity, Shrek, Lost in Translation, Twin Peaks, William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet, Almost Famous, Bronson, Whip It!, The Darjeeling Limited, Trainspotting, Evil Dead 2, and most recently, the delicious three-disk score of Grand Theft Auto V (check out the genius Flying Lotus track “Stonecutters”) among many, many others. Unfortunately, though, not everyone gets it — my soundtrack appreciation has led to me being accused of being lazy with my music appreciation, unimaginative in my downloads. But allow me to convince you: loving soundtracks is totally legitimate, and Miss Ludgate, I love you, but you can suck an egg.

I’m a movie lover as well as a music lover, and I think that the way a film sounds, the way music is used to accent the situations in the film, is every bit as important as elements like acting, cinematography, and dialogue. Scene-by-scene, this is very true (what would Tom Cruise’s no-pants dance in Risky Business be without Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll?” Or Bender’s triumphant walkaway in The Breakfast Club with anything other than Simple Minds’ “Don’t You Forget About Me?”), but a full-length album of great music to match a great film cannot be beaten. The moment when you realize, Wow, I love this movie, a connection is formed that lasts forever, reinforced by synesthesiac impulses and emotional attachments to specific elements, music being one of the strongest, the most lasting. We are brought into a universe of human making when we watch a movie, and everything glitters. Making an audible world within the world of a film makes it ten thousand times more real, more engaging, and more beautiful, and I want to enjoy it again and again long after the credits roll.

Not to mention the fact that a well-assembled soundtrack is a wide-open avenue to discovering new and wonderful music selected carefully by professionals involved deeply in the project of the film, be it the director or a remote music director.

I might have never known about The Walker Brothers’ weird and twisted brand of warbling darkness if it weren’t for Bronson. Indeed, who knows if my enduring love of funk would even exist if I hadn’t seen the 1994 cult classic PCU when I was little? Ben Wyatt couldn’t be more right — a great soundtrack is a mix tape, a labor of love, personal and inspirational. I know that it’s not just me — I think we all remember when Garden State came out, coloring a generation’s vision with manic pixie tropes and the shimmering sounds of The Shins and making its way into hearts and Walkmans across the nation.

Of course, not every great movie soundtrack goes with a great movie, fanning the flames of unnecessary shame even further. I’m not afraid to admit that I own, and bought full-price on iTunes, every soundtrack that’s ever been made for a Twilight series film adaptation. Each one of them categorically rules, featuring gorgeous original creations from great musicians like Grizzly Bear, Thom Yorke, Muse, Cee Lo Green, Band of Horses… do I need to go on?

These songs wouldn’t even exist without Stephenie Meyer, and though I, like most, find the Twilight series to be a saccharine pile of abstinence-pushing psychobabble trash, I’m still glad they exist simply by virtue of these soundtracks. And yet, for a long time, I wouldn’t out my iPod on shuffle around others for fear of Kristen Stewart’s pinched visage floating into view on the screen. I hereby renounce that shame.

In the end, it’s a matter of curation — where taste, instinct, emotion, and intellect converge to create something beautiful and cohesive. A soundtrack is a perfect example of that art, and best of all, it comes imbued with story and history, of the film, of the time and place you saw it, and who you were when you did, be that an angsty pre-teen, a wide-eyed child, or a stressed out college student trying procrastinating with blind passion. I’ll be twisting away to “You Never Can Tell” for the rest of my days, because when I hear it, I’m the little girl who saw Pulp Fiction way too young once again, and she is a fun chick, let me tell ya.

What are some of your favorite soundtracks, and why do you love them? Comment below!