I really enjoy sound tracks. I believe most of my favorite songs come from movies, tv, and video games. Sometimes the use of the music is just perfect in the circumstance and it really becomes elevated to a point of becoming a favorite song of mine.
There are a lot of film scores produced by the likes of Danny Elfman, John Williams, Hans Zimmer, Alan Silvestri, and others that are brilliant. But I’m thinking of the music from movies by popular artists that become almost synonymous with the movie.
Anyone interested in sharing some of those songs?
Some of my favorites are:
“Maybe” by The Ink Spots at the conclusion of Fallout. The discordance of a lost love song with an apocalyptic wasteland with an underlying eerie quality to old recordings is just too perfect.
In a similar vein, Al Bowlly’s “Midnight, The Stars, and You” is the perfect romantic ballroom dance song to anchor The Shining and Doctor Sleep.
Cyndi Lauper did such a great job with “Goonies R Good Enough”
I am also really a huge Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan, and I would be remit if I left out one of the best from the Secret of the Ooze, Vanilla Ice’s “Ninja Rap”.
The Platters’ My Prayer is used twice in Twin Peaks: The Return, and it’s chilling both times.
Lynch has a history of using music well, of course, like Llorando (Crying) in Mulholland Drive.
The use of Stuck in the Middle With You in Reservoir Dogs is an excellent example of a well-known pop song being used in a surprising and unconventional way, which is one of the reasons I really enjoyed that film and have not enjoyed a Tarantino film as much since.
The first one that comes to mind for me was the movie My Favorite Year. Over the opening credits they played Nat Cole’s version of “Stardust”. I knew of the recording before, but when I saw it in the theater and got to hear Gordon Jenkins gorgeous string arrangement in full theater grade Surround Sound, it literally gave me goosebumps. It definitely set the nostalgic mood for the movie that followed.
I really liked this old forgotten show. It starred WKRP’s Tim Reid and was set in New Orleans. Any excuse to play Louis Armstrong is welcome by me.
There was an episode of The Wonder Years called “Mom Wars”. At the end of it, they played part of Joni Mitchell’s “The Circle Game” and it was absolutely beautiful and meaningful in the context of the story.
In fact, “Make 'Em Laugh” was very similar to Cole Porter’s “Be A Clown”. As in, almost note for note similar. As in, they were lucky they didn’t get their assets sued off for plagiarism.
I don’t think they were written for the movie, but “Cruel Summer” and “Your the Best” are hard for me to separate from the Karate Kid. And they fit so well.
It’s hard to pick a single song from that movie. It’s such a good musical. But I also really like “She Caught The Katy” and “Everybody Needs Somebody”. Or whatever the non mondegreen names of those songs are.
This one kind of fits because it fit the purpose of the breakup scene in which it was used soooo well, but the song didn’t really become popular until it appeared on the show.
It was one of those things where a ton of people went to the record store the next day looking for the record. That happened a few times in TV history, but probably won’t happen again on the same scale.
I heard this in a bar a couple of weeks ago and was talking with a friend about the way it became popular. The young bartender overheard and was surprised that this sort of thing used to happen.
Yeah, I think the song was in the Top 40 in just a week or two after that episode of Family Ties first aired. The same sort of thing happened when Tiny Tim sang “Tip Toe Through the Tulips” on Laugh-In. It became a radio and record chart hit only after that.
