November 6, 2020
As I have written many times over the last several months, when you decide to start a blog focused on movies and the movie industry effectively shuts down, it can become a little concerning trying to come up with new content. Luckily, I also like writing about music, so that’s given me some good ideas. Unluckily, we’ve had social, political, and pandemical (is that a word?) events that have at least given me content, even if it can sometimes make me a little stressful to write about those subjects. Maybe it makes sense to pause here.
I’ve had plenty to say about the election and the state of the country these last several months, so I won’t bore you with another 3,000 word rant, but I have a few thoughts. In late August, I shared a recollection from the 2000 election aftermath: “In November of that year I was working as an auditor and we were on site in upstate New York at one of my client’s manufacturing plants for a few weeks. A week or so after the election, when the results were still in doubt pending the recount in Florida, we were at lunch with the president of the division we were auditing. This was a multinational company, so he traveled to different locations around the world. I remember him saying that he was telling his overseas colleagues, “While it may look hectic because we don’t know who the president will be, this is not a big deal. We have laws, we have courts, we have a process, and when the process completes, we will have it sorted out. It’s under control – there are no tanks in the streets.” Deep breath….
Regardless of how this ultimately shakes out over the coming days, I find myself feeling pretty disappointed that we are still such a divided country. I still can’t believe that a massive health crisis coupled with four years of hateful rhetoric couldn’t galvanize the country for widespread change that could take us from a path of hate and division to one of unity and taking care of each other. It sure feels like division will reign supreme for an extended period of time.
I’ve previously written that it’s important to stay informed without swaying too far from one end of burying your head in the sand to avoid bad news, to the other end of letting every piece of news overwhelm your feelings of hope for things to improve. Upon reflection, I’ve definitely been swaying way too far to the latter end of that spectrum these last several weeks leading up to the election, and need to pivot back to the former end of that spectrum for a period of time. In the grand scheme of things, I’m very fortunate to have a number of good things in my life, including supportive family and friends, and exciting new experiences in my life over the last year that have helped me grow as a person. Diving back into the work of this blog will hopefully give me that reprieve, so once again, thank you for joining me on this ride. OK, back to the subject at hand.
Since there have been plenty of days when I wonder what I’ll write about, I was thrilled when my friend Jean suggested that I combine my two passions (movies and music) and write about my favorite movie soundtracks. It’s taken me a bit of time to pull this one together since I needed to do a little research, and of course, put way too much thought into my favorites.
The Art of the Movie Soundtrack
Maybe it’s my age and because my formative music and movie years were in the 1980s and 1990s, or it’s my taste in movies, but it seems like the movie soundtrack is kind of a lost art with films these days. There are a few examples from recent years that I find memorable (including A Star is Born, and others we will cover in this post), but it seems like the heyday of great movie soundtracks may have passed us by. In fact, after I came up with a list of soundtracks that I wanted to write about, I started searching for “Top Movie Soundtracks of All-Time” articles to see if there were any that I missed. Most of the choices were from the 1970s – 1990s, with some of the ones from recent years being more “score” than “soundtrack”. I don’t discount scores – in fact, there are a number of movie scores that I like a lot, but it seems like the art of a good soundtrack to complement a movie might be becoming a thing of the past.
There’s also a big difference between a great soundtrack and a great music moment in a movie. For example, when you hear In Your Eyes, you naturally think of Lloyd Dobler holding a boombox outside the window of Diane Court in Say Anything…. When I hear We Got the Beat, I think of the intro sequence of Fast Times at Ridgemont High. When I hear Try a Little Tenderness, I think of Ducky lip-synching in the record store in Pretty in Pink, or the brilliant version toward the end of The Commitments. Sometimes those great music moments in movies are part of a great soundtrack, and sometimes they are just great scenes. Every once in a while, you also have iconic songs that cannot be separated from a film, especially if they were written for the film. Think A Hard Day’s Night, Stayin’ Alive, or Summer Lovin’.
Sometimes, we also get albums that are technically soundtracks, but might be closer to concert performances – a few of my favorites in this genre include Stop Making Sense (by Talking Heads) and Western Stars (by Bruce Springsteen). Speaking of Talking Heads, a pause for a quick story. On Wednesday, I sent my friend Jean a text with a screenshot of the song that came up on shuffle on my phone that seemed appropriate for the moment – that would be World Leader Pretend by R.E.M. Jean is a fellow fanatic of the band and I knew she would appreciate the irony. She asked if I had watched American Utopia (the film of the David Byrne Broadway show, directed by Spike Lee). I was thankful for the reminder, as I hadn’t watched it yet and decided to check it out later that day. Let me tell you – if you want the perfect antidote to election doom scrolling, this is it. What a wonderful performance by an incredibly talented set of musicians, playing an eclectic blend of songs from different genres and cultures. The film delivers a message of hope and resiliency in our troubled times, that resonates long after it was filmed last year. OK, back to this week’s topic.
To me, a soundtrack has to have a good mix of songs that will resonate throughout the film, amplifying the director’s vision and storytelling style. It doesn’t mean it has to be a perfect album – most albums of any genre are not perfect. But if you have a handful of really good songs that can take you back to the moments in the movie while you listen to them, that’s a winner. A good soundtrack can give you songs written specifically for the movie that are integral to the story (like an example we’ll get to from 1984), or you can get songs that have been previously released, but still fit the story perfectly, which is where we are going to start.
My Introduction to the 60s – The Big Chill
I haven’t gone through the fruitless exercise to rank my favorite soundtracks, but if I did, this would certainly be in the top five. At the age of eleven in 1983, I thought The Big Chill was a good movie, but of course I didn’t have much appreciation for the excellence of the film until I was much older, and it still remains a favorite of mine. The soundtrack, however, was an instant classic for me, and was so successful that a second volume of songs from the film and the era was also released. The two albums includes some of the biggest songs and artists from the Motown era – Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Credence Clearwater Revival, The Band. I could go on and on. One downside – for some reason, the soundtrack didn’t include the Rolling Stones’ You Can’t Always Get What You Want, which was played as the characters left the funeral. What a great movie and soundtrack – this one might make an appearance in a future Comfort Movies post.
My love of Motown was born when I first listened to The Big Chill soundtrack and led to my fondness for other movies that had similar songs or sounds from that era. A few of those favorites include The Blues Brothers (which I wrote about here), Born on the 4th of July (featuring an excellent cover of Bob Dylan’s A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall by Edie Brickell, and American Pie by Don McLean), The Commitments (which I wrote about here), and the 1983 classic Eddie and the Cruisers. Maybe it’s the Springsteen-esque Jersey sound of the music from that film, but that cassette was in heavy rotation in the 1980s at my house.
Capturing the 1980s – Purple Rain
Let’s start with a few facts to point out how big this album was. It has sold 25 million copies since it was released, spending over 120 weeks on the Billboard 200, including 24 straight weeks at #1. Of the nine songs on the album, five were released as singles, with four of them cracking the top 10. And by the way, there were a few other artists that had big albums in 1984 that Prince was competing with. Perhaps you’ve heard of them – Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, and The Police to name a few. This was a true complete album, providing a perfect complement to the film Purple Rain, the story of a troubled musician, wrestling with demons from his upbringing by an abusive father. Featuring When Doves Cry, Let’s Go Crazy, I Would Die 4 U and the title track, this soundtrack still holds up very well in 2020.
Being a child of the 1980s, there were also a number of other formative soundtracks and movie moments that I thought of from this time. Some obvious choices like The Breakfast Club, Top Gun, and Footloose come to mind. There are a lot of great 1980s hits on those albums. There were also a few soundtracks from that decade that I like, but flew under the radar a bit, mostly because the films were not big hits, including Some Kind of Wonderful (a forgotten film from John Hughes), Bright Lights, Big City (Michael J. Fox as a troubled fact-checker with a drug problem), and Streets of Fire (a soundtrack that I liked a lot more than the movie, about the kidnapping of a band’s lead singer by a motorcycle gang). The MTV era certainly brought us a lot of great movie soundtracks.
A Soundtrack Leads to Stardom – When Harry Met Sally…
The movie and album that led most of us to learn the name Harry Connick, Jr., a talented piano-playing jazz singer from New Orleans. Featuring Connick’s take on old standards, and some wonderful instrumentals, this album is a great listen, especially during the fall and holiday seasons. It helps that the soundtrack is connected to one of the all-time romantic comedies, with one-liners that still crack me up. When I heard this album, I was instantly hooked on Connick’s music, which continues to this day.
Capturing the Moment – Singles
If there was ever a movie director who could perfectly capture the blooming sound of the Seattle music scene, it was Cameron Crowe with Singles, released in 1992. When I think of my introduction to the bands of this era, I travel back to my sophomore and junior years at UMass, when we immersed ourselves in the likes of Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and The Smashing Pumpkins, all of whom were featured in this film. The album also features Chloe Dancer / Crown of Thornes, by Mother Love Bone, the short-lived Seattle band, whose members included future founders of Pearl jam. Crowe perfectly captured the sound of Seattle in this story of a group of misfit single twenty-somethings. Crowe always has a great ear for the integration of music and film, much like he demonstrated with Almost Famous in 2000, as I wrote about here.
Underrated Soundtracks from Forgotten Movies – Vanilla Sky and Into the Wild
Speaking of Cameron Crowe, his 2001 fantasy Vanilla Sky was met with mixed reviews and is not one of his more popular films, but it’s one that I actually like a lot. I admire Crowe for taking a chance in telling an unusual story, which was a remake of a Spanish film from a few years earlier. The soundtrack features the title song (an original from Paul McCartney), two R.E.M. songs (including one previously unreleased), and one of Radiohead’s best songs (Everything in its Right Place). While Sean Penn’s Into the Wild received much better critical reviews, it’s also been kind of forgotten and not really talked about much. The film tells the true story of a hiker who travelled to the outskirts of Alaska, eventually dying when he was stranded without food and water. Penn asked Eddie Vedder (lead singer of Pearl Jam) to write the soundtrack for the film, and it features a wonderful mix of emotional lyrics and beautiful melodies, that reflect a folk feeling in a clear departure from the Pearl Jam sound. This is one of my all-time favorite albums, even if the film doesn’t get as much attention as it should.
The Deep Cut Master – Quentin Tarantino
When I think of music in a Tarantino film, my first thought is probably the gruesome ear-“removal” scene in Reservoir Dogs, set to Stuck in the Middle with You by Stealers Wheel. While that scene was memorable, the soundtrack to that film isn’t one that I have on my short list of favorites. But what Tarantino showed with the songs he picked for that film was his tendency to go deep into an artist’s catalogue, or pick a new spin on an old song, to fit the theme or mood of a scene, which I saw in two of my favorite movies (and soundtracks) – Pulp Fiction and Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. In the first film, we get a loaded set of songs, some of which are connected to iconic scenes, including Son of a Preacher Man by Dusty Springfield, Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon, a Neil Diamond song covered by Urge Overkill, and You Never Can Tell by Chuck Berry, played during the famous twist contest. In Once Upon a Time…, we get some deep cuts again – Good Thing by Paul Revere & The Raiders, Hush by Deep Purple, Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show by Neil Diamond, and Jose Feliciano’s cover of the Mama and the Papa’s California Dreamin’. There were a few good songs from the film that I was disappointed were left off the soundtrack, primarily Out of Time, by the Rolling Stones, but it’s still very good. The other unique feature of Tarantino’s soundtracks are the snippets in between songs – in Reservoir Dogs and Once Upon a Time…, we get DJ commentary and commercials, and in Pulp Fiction, we get snippets of dialogue that provide a bridge from song to song. You can tell that Tarantino puts just as much thought into the song choices for his films, as he does the dialogue, and it shows as the two go hand in hand perfectly.
Painting a Picture – La La Land
I know, shocker. If you’ve been reading this blog for any period of time, you’ve read about my love of this film, and a big reason is the soundtrack. It is a musical, after all. There are actually multiple albums that feature the music of La La Land. My preferred version is called The Complete Musical Experience and features all songs (with vocals) and all instrumentals, for a glorious 90 minutes of music from the film. Some of the tracks are only little snippets, but the majority of the tracks are either musical numbers featuring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, or beautiful orchestral pieces from composer Justin Hurwitz. My favorites include Another Day of Sun (the opening number), Mia & Sebastian’s Theme, A Lovely Night, City of Stars, and Audition (The Fools Who Dream). Listening to any of the tracks reminds me of the beautiful scenes in the film, and how Hurwitz’s score perfectly complements the vision of director Damien Chazelle to paint a picture of current day Los Angeles with a feel of 1940’s musicals. Another sign of a good soundtrack is if it leads to a top-notch trailer and this one is one my favorites here.
A Guilty Pleasure – Cruel Intentions
Let’s be honest – no one is going to claim the film Cruel Intentions as an essential work of art. If you haven’t seen this 1999 teenage take on Dangerous Liaisons, set at a New York prep school, it’s a movie version of junk food. The plot is shaky and there are a few cringe-worthy scenes that haven’t aged well, but it features good performances from Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe (they would marry after meeting during filming), and a scene-chewing performance for the ages from Sarah Michelle Gellar. While the movie may not have aged very well, the soundtrack still holds up. From the opening track (Every You Every Me) to the closer (Bittersweet Symphony), the soundtrack is loaded with great tunes, including Praise You by Fatboy Slim, the beautiful Colorblind by Counting Crows and the haunting You Could Make a Killing by Aimee Mann. I don’t care if the ice cream isn’t good for me – sometimes I just want something sweet.
A Bonus Pick – Charlie Brown’s Holiday Hits – Vince Guaraldi
OK, I’m cheating a bit here, because this isn’t the soundtrack to a movie, but it’s almost the holiday season, so I couldn’t resist. Released in 1988, this compilation features some of the best songs from all of your favorite holiday specials featuring Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang. A nice blend of jazz and holiday songs that will take you back to simpler times when all we worried about was if Lucy would let Charlie Brown kick the football this time, or what kind of trouble Snoopy would get into. A trip back to simpler times? Yup, count me in.
That’s it for this week. Thanks again for reading. I’ll be back next week for a look at one of the best directors of the last forty years who has a new film coming to Netflix later this month. If you’d like to be notified of future posts, you can subscribe here.
Thanks for a great blog.