Musician behind iconic ‘90s movie soundtrack dies at 66

World Party frontman Karl Wallinger, the musician behind one of the most iconic movie soundtracks of the 1990s, is dead at age 66.

Wallinger died on Sunday, according to a statement from his publicist. No cause of death was given, though Variety reports he suffered a brain aneurysm in 2001 that forced hm to pause his career for several years.

Born in Wales, Wallinger was best known as the founder and singer for World Party, a solo project that hit the Top 40 charts in the U.S. with the 1987 alternative rock single “Ship of Fools.” Wallinger wrote and composed nearly every song on World Party’s first two albums, “Private Revolution,” and “Goodbye Jumbo,” with support from session musicians like Sinead O’Connor on backup vocals.

World Party songs included “Way Down Now,” “Put the Message in the Box” and “She’s the One” (which became a hit when it was covered by Robbie Williams), plus contributions to the soundtracks for 1998′s “Armageddon” (”When the Rainbow Comes”), 1994′s “Reality Bites” (”When You Come Back to Me”) and 1995′s “Clueless” (a cover of Mott the Hoople’s “All the Young Dudes”).

Wallinger served as music director, orchestrator and score engineer for “Reality Bites,” widely regarded as one of the most defining films of Gen X. Directed by Ben Stiller and starring Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke, the movie’s soundtrack featured Lisa Loeb’s “Stay (I Missed You)” — the first song to hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 by an unsigned artist — and songs by The Knack (”My Sharona”), U2 (”All I Want is You”), Crowded House (”Locked Out”), Juliana Hatfield Three (”Spin the Bottle”), Squeeze (”Tempted”), Lenny Kravitz (”Spinning Around Over You”) and Hawke (”I’m Nuthin’.”)

“Sending love and condolences to Karl’s family,” Stiller wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “I had the opportunity to work with him when he scored the first movie I directed and he was…