Hey, do you remember high fidelity?

Hello and welcome Hey Do You Remember Hey Do You Remember, a show where we reminisce about a movie or TV series we grew up with, then take off the rose tinted glasses to see how it holds up.

I'm Chris.

I'm Donna.

And I'm Carlos.

And today we're revisiting High Fidelity.

Music And I'm Carlos. And today we're revisiting High Fidelity. Way back in 1995, whenever author Nick Hornby was asked what his new novel High Fidelity

was about, he would reply, it's about England. So you might imagine the film adaptations

decision to change the location from London to Chicago raised a few eyebrows. But at that point,

a more literal translation of the

material had been in development for three years, and there was very little to show for it.

So when John Cusack and his writing and producing partners from Gross Point Blank were offered

the opportunity to take a crack at it, relocating it was the first thing they all unanimously agreed

on. And according to Cusack, that was actually the easiest part of

adapting the story. Having grown up in the Chicago area, he saw a perfect transposition with the

subculture that Hornby had described in his book. Some of the UK-specific jargon had to be

jettisoned, but by and large, their script perfectly captured the heart and soul of the material.

The specificity of

Chicago's alternative music scene at the time certainly gave it a sense of authenticity, but it

was its more universal themes, like a 30-year-old realizing it might be time to grow up that

really struck a chord with audiences. When discussing the process of choosing the music for the

film soundtrack, Cusack spoke about how the same song can take on dramatically different meanings depending on what point in your life you're listening to it.

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