A couple of nights ago I was watching Sarah McLachlan perform at the Nokia Theater here in downtown Los Angeles. Midway through the set she introduced a song she wrote “a few years back for a little indie film called The Brothers McMullen.” That song was “I Will Remember You”, one of Sarah’s first big hits and one I’d almost forgotten she wrote for the film and not for an album. But she did. It’s probably the most memorable thing about Ed Burns’s early ’90s indie darling.
Back in the 1990s there were a lot of great tunes written for films. Songs that instantly remind the listener of a specific film as soon as they hear it on the radio or in the produce aisle. How can one not hear Celine Dion sing “My Heart Will Go On” and not think of Titanic, or Whitney Houston’s re-imagining of the Dolly Parton classic “I Will Always Love You” and not think of The Bodyguard. You can’t.
That’s not even talking about the many soundtrack CDs that dominated the 1990s. Everything from the mega-selling Singles soundtrack to the music from O Brother, Where Art Thou? That soundtrack shocked everyone when it dominated the charts for several weeks back in 2000.
In the ’80s, it was the same thing. Whether it was Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” from Rocky III or a whole slew of Kenny Loggins tunes from Footloose, Top Gun and Caddyshack II. You also have the ’80s new wave hits that littered John Hughes’s teen flicks throughout the decade and even the Beach Boys got into the swing of things with “Kokomo” from Cocktail. Music and movies were a match made in cinema heaven.
There were also several films during that period that gave old songs new life by using them in crucial scenes in great movies. Examples would be Tarantino’s clever use of the Stealers Wheel classic “Stuck in the Middle With You” in Reservoir Dogs or Scorcese’s use of Nilsson’s “Jump into the Fire” in Goodfellas.
Something has happened to the marriage between film and song in the last ten years and I’m not sure what it is. Where have all the great movie songs gone? Where are the tunes that leave the audience humming along as they exit the theater? I can’t remember many.
The one that stands out most to me was the use of Hall and Oates’s “You Make My Dreams Come True” in 500 Days of Summer. But that song was well known before it was used for 500 Days and when I hear it in the supermarket I don’t immediately think of Zooey Deschanel. And I can usually find almost any reason to think about Deschanel.
There haven’t been any great song soundtracks recently either. And before you blame the decline of the music industry, let me remind you that song soundtracks from TV shows like “The OC”, “One Tree Hill” and “Glee” have sold extremely well during this period. Both digital downloads and on CD. The fact is there just haven’t been any movie soundtracks that have excited the public in the past few years. Which is why they don’t sell.
I have a few ideas why this is currently the case. First of all, with the decline of the record business the studios don’t have the same kind of monetary incentive to add songs to their movies. This is especially true now that most of the studios have sold off their music divisions.
But the biggest reason may be that Hollywood is plain out of touch with today’s best musicians. Young people have flocked to music festivals around the world to see The Killers, Oasis, the Kings of Leon and Arcade Fire throughout the aughts, yet it has been rare that anyone has used music from these acclaimed bands in films during that time. I will, however, give kudos to David O. Russell for using The Heavy in The Fighter, but even “How You Like Me Now” was used in a Kia commercial before Russell used it several times throughout his Best Picture nominated film. To that effect, you’re more likely to hear current music on a TV show like “Entourage” or used as drops on NPR’s All Things Considered.
And yes, I do know that Spike Jonze used an Arcade Fire as the background music for the trailer for Where The Wild Things Are, which was probably the best trailer produced in years. I also know that PT Anderson got Jonny Greenwood to do the soundtrack music for There Will be Blood, just as David Fincher used Trent Reznor for The Social Network and Daft Punk scored TRON: Legacy. But those instances have been the exception rather than the rule.
I’ll concede, the songs in Slumdog Millionaire caught on, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova were a sensation with “Falling Slowly” from Once, Eminem’s Oscar win for “Lose Yourself” from 8 Mile was a huge hit and Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” from Armageddon caught fire back in the late ’90s. But when do we stop looking backward? That’s four or five songs in the span of twelve years. The Rocky IV soundtrack alone stands out better as does Dirty Dancing. I remember a time when the songs on a film’s soundtrack were actually promoted in trailers. That’s not the case any longer.
Take a look at this year’s Best Song nominees for the upcoming Academy Awards. We begin with another crappy Randy Newman song from Toy Story 3. In most areas Pixar can do no wrong but there continued reliance on Newman who hasn’t penned a decent song since he wrote “Baltimore” in the late 70s continues to baffle. Next is the overproduced Alan Menken song from Tangled, the mediocre country song from the little seen Gwynth Paltrow starrer Country Strong and the Dido song from 127 Hours. I’ve seen all four of these films and I can’t remember one of these songs, and other than Dido there isn’t a single songwriter in the bunch that could be considered current. The others are all ancient songwriters and it shows in the songs they’ve produced. As for Country Strong, the music in Crazy Heart was better and I don’t remember people adding even those songs to their iPods.
Things have gotten so bad the Academy can’t even find enough reason to nominate five songs. It’s the second time in Academy history they’ve nominated only four songs (1939 was the other). They couldn’t even find reason to nominate a single song from Burlesque even though one of them took home the Golden Globe.
So, here’s a question. Does anyone else miss the great movie song the way I do or, unlike me, are you satisfied with the current selections?
