Blondie, The Clash and Queen: is the Trainspotting 2's soundtrack as good as the original?

Student posters haven’t changed much in the last 20 years. Look at the bestselling college posters and, alongside Kurt Cobain, Pulp Fiction and an alien smoking a spliff you’ll always see the Choose Life monologue from Trainspotting. It’s a searing attack on growing up, good health and choosing a suite “in a range of fucking fabrics”. It’s no wonder students still love it.

This unchanging uni-halls decor is reflective of pop culture slowing down: more sequels, less new blood, our former icons – Jonathan Creek, Cold Feet, Star Wars, Gilmore Girls, Twin Peaks, Ghostbusters, Bridget Jones, Noel Gallagher – never allowed to rest.

Now add to the list T2, the new Trainspotting film. In the trailer, the Choose Life monologue has been updated with fewer sneering stereotypes, more grim reality: “Choose Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and hope that someone, somewhere cares.”

Like a lot of middle-aged reboots, T2 faces a music problem. The original soundtrack, as well as reviving Iggy Pop’s career by opening with Lust For Life, was a perfect snapshot of 1996, a time when Britain was boiling over with era-defining youth culture, from the arty end of Britpop (Blur, Sleeper, Elastica) to big-beat rave (Underworld, Leftfield). Should T2 relive all those past glories or try to create another landmark OST by bringing together the disparate sounds of 2017?

In the end, it does both. T2 The Album is bookended by updated versions of songs from the original film: a Prodigy remix of Iggy’s lusty anthem and something called Slow Slippy, presumably a mid-life, where-did-I-leave-my-car-keys sequel to Underworld’s Born Slippy. But it also features three tracks by experimental hip-hop Scots Young Fathers – who, despite a Mercury win, remain underappreciated – alongside the smacked-out shoegaze-grunge of Wolf Alice and the brilliantly grotty Fat White Family.

None of these acts are likely to enthral your average grime’n’GTA 21-year-old, but they seem like a decent compromise. Spud, Renton and Sick Boy are now in their 40s and this “angry, but in a 6 Music kind of way” comp fits as snugly as Begbie and his ’tache.

The bigger issue is that this constant recycling of old icons makes it harder for another film to have a Trainspotting moment. One of the few to truly understand the musical landscape of today’s youth culture was last year’s American Honey: a road-trip story told in trap, hip-hop and modern country. The film has had cult acclaim and now a Bafta nomination, but with so many rehashes and sequels cluttering up the cultural consciousness, it seems doubtful its poster will ever make it into student bedrooms.

T2 is out in cinemas on Friday 27 January

• This article was amended to correct the word “suit” to “suite”.