MW explores the creative process behind making a hit soundtrack.(Movie review)

A blood-thirsty pastiche of the perennially successful US buddy cop genre, Hot Fuzz finds the creative team behind Shaun Of The Dead and Spaced mixing gun-fuelled drama with distinctly British humour and directing it at the heart of middle England.

With the music as fundamentally British as the wit, writer/director Edgar Wright penned the film's screenplay while listening to a wealth of quintessentially home-grown musical talent and the result finds songs by The Kinks, The Fratellis, Supergrass, T. Rex and The Troggs interwoven with the action.

Nick Angel, the man responsible for orchestrating the soundtrack, inadvertently ended up providing more than just the music. As Working Title's music supervisor, Angel was approached by Hot Fuzz's co-writer and leading man Simon Pegg, who asked Angel if he could use his name for the lead character: the result was Sergeant Nicholas Angel. "All my life people have been telling me it's a perfect name for a private detective," he laughs.

Having worked with Pegg and Wright on Shaun Of The Dead, Angel knew they would be heavily involved in selecting the music. "Simon and Edgar had a very clear idea about whatthey wanted and came to me with a CD's worth of material," says Angel.

"We would make endless soundtracks for the film while Simon and I were writing," says Wright. "We would not only make up big iMixes of music by Lalo Schifrin and all the great Seventies cop movie music but, for some reason, the sound that kept coming into my head was glam rock. I've always been a big glam rock fan and loved the idea of using The Sweet, Marc Bolan and lots more obscure stuff like tracks from the compilation Velvet Tinmine, which features loads of glam no-hit wonders. Maybe it's just the beat in glam rock, that Glitter Band stomp, the rhythm of it feels like the plod walking along."

For Angel the biggest challenge wasn't sourcing the material, but working within the financial ...