AND WHILE WE’RE ON THAT SUBJECT: Last...

AND WHILE WE’RE ON THAT SUBJECT: Last month, MCA Records execs were grumbling privately that the sound track to John Hughes’ recent “Planes, Trains & Automobiles” film wasn’t ready until nearly six weeks after the film had been released. The label refused to complain publicly--but is it just coincidence that the sound track to Hughes’ next film, “She’s Having a Baby” (due to open Friday), is now being released by I.R.S. Records, MCA’s iconoclastic, low-budget sister label?

“We have no problems at all,” said MCA chief Irving Azoff. “(I.R.S. chief) Miles Copeland really wanted the sound track because it features one of their artists, Dave Wakeling, and Miles thinks Dave’s song can be a big hit. They had so much enthusiasm for the project that it made perfect sense to have them release it.”

Azoff insisted there were no strings attached to the deal, though there’s been speculation that giving I.R.S. the sound track might have been a way of soothing the label’s ego after it lost top artist Belinda Carlisle to MCA--which recently landed her a No. 1 single with “Heaven Is a Place on Earth.”

As for “She’s Having a Baby,” it seems to mark a refreshing return to the type of adventuresome music Hughes featured in earlier sound tracks. Due out Feb. 8, it features ex-General Public frontman Wakeling (who performs the title song), Love & Rockets (who supply a previously unreleased track called “Haunted When the Minutes Drag”), Brian Ferry (with a remake of Van Morrison’s “Crazy Love”) and Gene Loves Jezebel (who are represented with their KROQ-hit “Desire”) plus new songs from XTC (“Happy Families”), Everything but the Girl (“Apron Strings”) and Kate Bush (“This Woman’s Work”).