The Get Down: Original Soundtrack From The Netflix Original Series (Deluxe Version)

In a way, the soundtrack for Baz Luhrmann and Stephen Adly Guirgis’ series The Get Down is one of Luhrmann’s most ambitious projects: a dawn-of-hip-hop/golden-age-of-disco snapshot that captures the social urgency of the music while also making it feel like the spectacle that it probably was. Pairing Christina Aguilera with Chic’s Nile Rodgers is a nice touch (“Telepathy”), especially alongside Donna Summer’s “Bad Girls” (toot toot, beep beep)—the kind of playful time-warping that makes Luhrmann great. But it’s also a treat to hear things like Malay and 6LACK’s “Shaolin’s Theme,” which, in the context of the show, feels like libretto: a modern rap song that tells an archetypal story.