Director Nicolas Winding Refn and his production team went out of their way to get the retro-'80s feel that permeates this art-house action film, and that extended to the soundtrack.

But rather than actually delve into the back catalogs for music from the era, they mined the modern electronic-music scene for acts with a similar love of neon and synthesizers.

The artists chosen were College, Kavinsky, Desire and The Chromatics. If the latter two sound especially similar, it's because they both feature underground-retro superstar Johnny Jewel.

In fact, Jewel was the director's original choice to score the entire film, but, according to Jewel in an interview with the British newspaper "The Guardian," the studio insisted on the more established film score composer Cliff Martinez (who's scored 33 films since starting with 1989's "Sex, Lies, and Videotape") to provide the rest of the background music.

Jewel, apparently, was a little bitter. "I know it's not a nice thing to say, but my score was superior: it was the director's choice, Ryan's choice -- but in movie production, there's a money side and a creative side, and they don't always meet in the middle."

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