If Marty McFly went back in time thirty years ago today, what song does he play at the dance to blow everyone's mind?

xpost hahaha

My vote is "King Of Rock"

If we're talking 1976, he should introduce the crowd to some NYC hip-hop or Bay Area thrash metal.

Eminem would turn the movie into Scanners.

"I just need the drums from the Ronettes' Be My Baby. That's great. Can you just repeat that for the next four minutes or so? Beautiful."

that or, say, slayer, or maybe "screaming at a wall" or early sonic youth.

(I don't actually know what key it's in)

Not many of the rock answers on here would sound unprecedented in '76, if you had any knowledge of Krautrock, the VU, contemporary Classical, avant-garde etc. So the real answer pretty much has to be Hip Hop.

That one is from 1977 though.

Not many of the rock answers on here would sound unprecedented in '76, if you had any knowledge of Krautrock, the VU, contemporary Classical, avant-garde etc. So the real answer pretty much has to be Hip Hop.

What kind of hip-hop was being made in 1976?

(Maybe U-Roy if you are stretching it)

I'm not sure about the history, but by '76 turntablism would exist I think? And as you say, MCing at least in its Jamaican form.

"If you're from the future, tell me who's President of the United States in 2006."
"George W. Bush??? The alcoholic??!!??"

I could see that working!

wuthering heights, bitches

Now More Than Ever, Humanity Needs My Back To The Future Fan Fiction

It's entirely possible Fab Five Freddie was emceeing high school proms in 1976, too.

Maybe if you wanted to turn people away from music altogether. Could you imagine 30 years of silence?

So he should start off with a lite-funk proto disco thing and start doing some light MC-ing over it. Everyone would be all "hey, this is pretty cool" until he ran out of "hip-hop don't stop" stuff and started doing lines from "Like A Pimp" or "Freek-A-Leek"

You don't think they would have cast Nick Cannon if they were making this today?

"one, two, three, four...............ma baby don't mess around because she loves me so, and this I know for shuuuuure.........."

play till minds are blown.

"Roll Over Beethoven"
Clara and Calpurnia travel to 1965 to watch the Beatles perform at Shea Stadium. And then, they wind up having the Fab Four as passengers as they accidentally wind up in 1824 Vienna, Austria where they meet Beethoven.

Well it might be different if somebody else played Marty. I just had Michael J. Fox in mind all the while. But don't tell me there's gonna be a better replacement for Doc Brown!

I think this nails it - the timeline is right, the progression of the scene is right, the idea of the hip band being able to play it is right...this is exactly what it should be. Not sure about Freek-A-Leek, mind you. How about "Wait"? Love to hear that over a Kurtis Blow beat...

"Ok guys, play some double-time in 7/8 with every fourth bar in 4/4, watch me for the changes."

He's playing to a bunch of square middle-class high-school kids so anything too alien e.g. hip-hop is just gonna get him kicked off the stage and beaten up by the football team. My Sharona works in that it feeds off (or in the context of this discussion, anticipates) punk and disco, and condenses them into a safe pop song for cheerleaders everywhere. Also, it's simple and repetitive so would have been easy to pick up by the band.

Or Squarepusher's "My Red Hot Car"

For hip-hop - "play the drum intro to Bowie's "Five Years."

it would blow everybody's mind to the moon

"And you, the bass player. Take a lap."

Reviving this thread is the inevitable intersection of the Chuck Berry poll and the revival of the "1984-1994 time travel" poll.

All great threads!

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd120/hipsterrunoff/oi5gmw.jpg

nobody would time travel to 1978.

anyway though the 1978 options that wouldn't really break for another three years: kraftwerk, speed metal and grandmaster flash

Kings of Leon are from the US?

Question answered!

I love this: "Not many of the rock answers on here would sound unprecedented in '76, if you had any knowledge of Krautrock, the VU, contemporary Classical, avant-garde etc. So the real answer pretty much has to be Hip Hop."

I love it because it's like, yeah, totally, prom bands in '76 would totally be into krautrock, contemporary classical and the VU.

I mean, fuck, Chuck Berry wasn't even unprecedented in '55—there's jump blues, Rocket 88, etc.

"Kick Out The Jams"

Hmm. I realise we are speaking 1978 here, not 1968.

Well, make that "Don't You Want Me" instead then.

The Run-DMC version of "Walk This Way." A familiar song in 1978 given a twist that absolutely nobody would expect, yet might actually work in a school dance setting.

Either that or the intro from Gang of Four's "Love Like Anthrax."

UPTOWN TOP RANKING

pass the dutchie

Has to be hip-hop, still. This question will be a lot harder in 2010.

had "Ace of Spades" been released?

Mark OTM with this really. Has a drastically different general genre like hip hop and other electronically based genres come along since 1980? I can't really think of one...

Chuck Berry was about to become one of the biggest musical acts in the world - much bigger than any hip-hop artists until the late-80s (or any electronic-a/ally/etc. artists to this day).

If you stretch the time out, "Walk This Way" might work. (Also mirrors the movie in use of familiar elements in a new setting)

MATTHEW WILDER BREAK MY STRIDE

oops wrong thread

...or is it?

nah i was just kidding. right thread, wrong time, SUNG TO TUNE OF RIGHT PLACE right oooof. boring self. high. leaving.

first of all - brilliant thread. king james and i have come up with a lot of them (i'll let him post his), but i think that "don't stop believin'" would pretty much kill.

Mark OTM with this really. Has a drastically different general genre like hip hop and other electronically based genres come along since 1980? I can't really think of one...

House was only in its proto stages in 1980, techno would take 5-6 more years to emerge, and even electro was still a couple of years ahead. There was synth pop, of course, but the coming electronic genres would be quite different to it formally. So I guess the Marty McFly of 2010 could easily confuse people with house or techno. The question becomes more difficult if we move 10 years ahead, though - I can't think of any radically new genres to have been born since the late 80s.

WANGO TANGO

COMPUTER LOVE

For pure sonic shock, Dimmu Borgir's "Progenies of the great apocalypse"

The Smiths.

"Wow, and I thought this newfangled disco thing was gay!"

I can't think of any radically new genres to have been born since the late 80s.

let's ask Lex

Burial's Unite, off the Soul Jazz Box Of Dub: Dubstep And Future Dub compilation.

Or the F---k Buttons.

My Neck, My Back

What about pig fuck?

(I like to ask that question in any discussion about music, no matter what the specific topic)

1978? "Blue Monday"

1978? "Blue Monday"

Quite a good answer, actually. People were kind of getting at this above with the post-punk and all the British rock, but this is a damn good example.

Although "Confusion" would add some American electro, I think that'd be too much to handle.

Surely some Soulja Boy.

it's your cousin, MARVIN ASTLEY

"Head" by Prince.

Voodoo Ray.

Fight For Your Right

Surely some Soulja Boy.

― Cunga, 28 January 2009 06:30 (7 hours ago)

yeah, first thought exactly

Loveless, duh.

Hey, I got some runner up prize for Resident Advisor where: I get to ask one of the artists a question about a song that is close to them. The question must begin with: "What song would you listen to whilst...."

Here are the people you're able to ask: DJ T, Gilles Peterson, Storm, DJ Hell, Kevin Saunderson, Laurent Garnier, Chloe, David Holmes, Ewan Pearson, Ricardo Villalobos, Richie Hawtin, Francois K and Coldcut.

I'm thinking of borrowing this question, otherwise help me brainstorm!

it's a good question!

Okay so seriously, what would win in a fight, a silverback gorilla or a grizzly bear?

So who to ask "What song would you listen to whilst taking stage at a high school dance in the fifties, a la Marty McFly, in order to blow people's minds?" to, since I'm guessing the other people who get to ask are all going to jump on 'cardo, richie, and kevin right away.

No, no, you're not at a dance in the 50s, it's in the late seventies now...that's really the beauty of the whole thing.

anyway though the 1978 options that wouldn't really break for another three years: kraftwerk, speed metal and grandmaster flash

― El Tomboto, Tuesday, August 5, 2008 9:08 PM (6 months ago) Bookmark

Pocket Calculator was the first thing that came to mind.

Great Scott! Doc!/We need to go back in time to when motherfuckers could rock!/88 miles per hour, bring it back to the block!/
Peel the fuck out before the lightning hit the clock!

― Whiney G. Weingarten (whineyg), Friday, March 24, 2006 10:11 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark

i am fucking dying here

omg

Those bastards didn't print my question, Argh!

I think we need to remember that what freaked out the crowd was not Marty playing 'Johhny B. Goode.' After all, he told the band to play a simple blues riff and they kept up just fine. When he started to shred, that's when he lost the crowd and the band. Based on this, the song we're looking for has to include the instruments and sound familiar from the time period but used in a completely foreign style.

Synthesizers would have been familiar to a high school crowd in 1979, what with Bad Girls being the #2 song of that year. Just like the electric guitar; a bit novel but still accepted.

Taking all this into account, my answer is Crank That (Soulja Boy). It's made using cheap synths and drum machines, but used in a way totally foreign to a 1979 crowd. All that technology and what he produced was Crank That? Awesome

For '79, I'd say "Fuck wit' Dre Day."

Or "Groove is in the Heart."

"Gimme a blues riff in B, yeah, you know what you wanna do with that, you wanna put a bangin' donk on it"

hahaha

OV by Orthrelm would be pretty sweet.

At a dance in 1979? Bombs Over Baghdad - Outkast

In 2020, the answer to this question will be Firestarter by Prodigy or Block Rockin' Beats.

Torn between Blue Monday, Upside Down, and Walk This Way (Run-DMC ft. Aerosmith).

So it's 1980 now.

At a dance in 1979? Bombs Over Baghdad - Outkast

I think this would still fit the bill.

Naw more like Wu Tang - C.R.E.A.M

real estate - fake blues

and they all get kinda misty-eyed in unison

he plays "Biko" by Peter Gabriel

I'd just like to point out that Craig Robinson's character in Hot Tub Time Machine has the chance to do just this and chooses fucking "Let's Get It Started" by the fucking Black Eyed Peas.

Skrillex.

"Gimme a blues riff in B, yeah, you know what you wanna do with that, you wanna put a bangin' donk on it"
--Hreidarsson The Storm (Matt DC)

Oh man

xp skrilla would be what he plays via walkman (now a droid) when he tells george mcfly he's darth vader from planet vulcan

Or that he's Donnie Darko from Planet Matrix.

He'd have to start out with some mid-80s-ish shit before moving onto Skrillex: "King of Rock"? "Fight for Your Right"? "Music Is the Key"?

Someone in Hollywood is going to realize this is a good idea and remake the movie with just this premise.

There was already some talk of a remake, but it's apparently been halted. Justin Bieber was the name floating around for the Marty role.

"Fight for Your Right"

came here to post that. marty plays what's about to break. in the backbround, there's some A&R dude on the telephone saying, "mr. rubin? i think i just found that new sound you've been looking for." then he goes all skrillix at the end and looses the band/audience.

I seriously would wanna write this reboot treatment with you guys.

Someone in Hollywood is going to realize this is a good idea and remake the movie with just this premise.

The "Let's Get It Started" bit in Hot Tub Time Machine comes to mind.

It's your cousin, MARVIN SKRILLEX.

What would play during the Mr. Sandman sequence? I can't think of anything that makes the era sound so sweet and innocent. They could play Power of Love, I guess.

Or that he's Donnie Darko from Planet Matrix.

― pplains, Sunday, July 1, 2012 1:44 AM Bookmark

hahahaha!

I really like the earnest tack '06 whiney took to this thread

what's changed?

'06 ILX generally held a nice balance of earnestness and zingy wit, IMO - though I know this is perhaps a challops to some!

oh guys no

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtzxhJFxC9M

thats p great

i'll admit i lol'd

What song blares out of Al Czervik's golf bag to irritate Judge Smalls in 2012?

My first answer was going to still be "Any Way You Want It", but hell, George W. Bush probably has that on his iPod these days.

"Gangam Style"

http://i.imgur.com/MY6SJ.jpg

xp skrilla would be what he plays via walkman (now a droid) when he tells george mcfly he's darth vader from planet vulcan

YES

It's your cousin, MARVIN PSY.

For some reason I can't see audiences in 1982 being blown away by a cover of "gangam style," that it could be processed as new wave.

Probably go with something like "Let's Go Crazy."

They did this in Hot Tub Time Machine, set in 1986, and the song was "Let's Get It Started".

I haven't read the whole thread so sorry if it's been written already.
great thread idea but I don't agree exactly with the initial description : in "Back to the future", he plays a song that's just about to be released and be a huge innovative hit that will influence many but not necessarily change everything (since Elvis had already released "Hound Dog", for instance).
So 30 years ago, in 82, it would be a song soon to be a huge innovative and influential hit.
I'd say "billie jean" !
(I could a guy calling MJ from McFly's gig saying : "Michael you gotta to come right now and listen to this" while McFly does the moonwalk for the first time !)

i think you have the principle right, but wouldn't it have to be some sorta hip hop like sugar hill gang

McFly does the moonwalk for the first time

on tony basil thread i learned talking heads vid for crosseyed and painless has extended moon walk at 3:34. nobody lost their mind until michael i guess. though.

yeah, a hip hop hit would be also a good answer but "rapper's delight" was like 1979 so it was already old news in 82... maybe RUN DMC's "walk this way" for the hiphop/rock mix. but it wasn't released until 85...
so, to stay with MJ and the funk/rock mix, maybe "beat it" ?

about the moonwalk, yeah, I guess it existed before MJ's motown thing...

ha both of the ppl who saw crosseyed and painless vid in 1980 or 81 thought it was pretty rad im sure, i think one was michael.

Or Grandmaster flash's "the message" in 82.

Wikipedia say the dance routine later named "Moonwalk" is decades old, and it was already called Moonwalk in a 1969 children's show.

did toni basil choreograph that too

yeah, it existed prior to MJ's motown performance, of course, but really, who knew or cared before that !

Jeffrey thingybob of Shalamar did it on TOTP a couple of years previous to MJ's Motown thing.

It was a tap dance routine, and tap dancing was pretty popular, so I'm sure people cared. By the time MJ revived it it probably wasn't used much by dancers anymore, though.

(x-post)

baseball players been wearing one glove since like end of 19th century, but michael does it and BOOM

And golfers, golfers too.

um james brown was doing the moonwalk from the beginning of his career,very nearly.

Jackson took most of his dance inspiration from Brown.

Whereas Jackson Browne was never a dancer...

ahah. yeah, MJ "stole" many dance moves from all over the place, of course (Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, street dance, etc) but the fact that if you show someone doing the moonwalk to 100 persons and ask them who invented it, I'm pretty sure you'll be close to 100% answers for MJ ! (except if you ask 100 dance experts !)

anyway, back to the thread, if McFly covered "Beat it" or "Billie Jean" and made the moonwalk, I guess it would blow 82s people's mind !

Basically, he needs to do "Beat It," having them (ironically) totally on board through the Eddie Van Halen guitar theatrics... then lose everybody by trying to take it into a chopped-and-screwed Skrillex treatment of same. "Your kids are gonna love it."

So, there was a remake project of the film and it was scrapped ?
in the current state of the hollywood film industry it just seems insane that this movie hasn't been remade yet !

Hopefully some properties are too iconic even for Hollywood execs to tamper with... I mean it would only be step or two down from remaking Star Wars.

By the way, I think Blue Monday is the best answer on this thread so far.

I suppose there are a lot of kids out there who have never seen this film. Maybe instead of a remake they should remaster it. in 3D !

One of my housemate's twelve year-old students recommended BTTF to him the other day.

this thread makes me want to watch this again !

more mj dancing inspiration

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUlEBhGgEe0

Not sure how we missed doing this one last year, but, whatever: it's 1986, a full decade after this thread first went back in time and found Marty easing the audience in with some good-time hip-hop, then losing them completely with an aggressive turn into crunk stylings. What now?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCUPc9zVfyo
(Phuture - Acid Trax)

Made only a year later, but would totally blow the minds of 1986 suburban teenagers.

And then he would alienate them by seguing into this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MoFEomFmLU
(Squarepusher - Acid Tape Track)

What a perfect thread

I vote Pump Up The Volume or It Takes Two for 86 - the audience will be familiar with some elements but also blown away

No twists though, guess he should segue into something even wilder

Blue Monday maybe?

coldplay

"two phones"

If it's 86, it's gotta be something with a sampler, right? Like he builds a track in front of an audience of confused teenagers, but with each element he adds, the kids are more and more into it, eventually going totally nuts at a certain point. It takes two is probably a good choice.

"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," segueing into idk "Pompeii" or something

ya

the obvious answer is he takes out his macbook pro and goes aphex twin on them with a synchronized light show

2 Live Crew "We Want Some Pussy"

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/bttf/images/0/06/Erasedfromexistance.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/300?cb=20070614134919

"you made me realise"

just the "holocaust" section

i change my answer

if johnny b good was a hit the song we choose must also be a hit

so i'm going to say he performs a miley cyrus track and starts twerking in a bikini

sorry michael

Remember: the song he starts with is soon to be a hit, symbolizing a revolutionary new sound, in the period he's visiting. What he transitions into is hip with his generation and totally offensive and inaccessible to his old-timey audience.

Starts with Push it by Salt N Pepa and transitions into I've Seen Footage by Death Grips? Or are those too similar?

there's nothing he can do with a fucking guitar, that's for damn sure. i suggest he introduce his good friend hatsune miku.

i would modify that and say biff is on stage and forces him to dance and sing push it

kind of like how he makes him dance in part 3 by shooting his feet and marty starts to moonwalk

beastie boys - fight for your right

"Then tell me futureboy - who's the President of the United States in 2017?"

well, looking at the biggest hits from 1987 et 1988, I don't see anything that he could play to them shortly before it hits that would be a shock...
but "Pump up the volume" seems a good answer. Or maybe some new jack swing ?

or "Straight outta compton" released in 88.

Voodoo Ray? A bit late maybe, having been released in 89.

Though recorded June 88.

actually, in the movie, he plays jonnhy b good 3 years before it's released.
so we're looking for something from 1990 !

snap : the powa !

Killer - Adamski

91, but whatevs.

I'm not sure some of these would be especially out-there to people who were used to some of the more epic synthpop of the mid-80s. Like at this stage he'd be playing some house music and people would be into it but they really wouldn't be expecting a veer into, say, 'Original Nuttah' by Shy FX. Or any jungle really.

Actually that's probably the metal guitar solo bit rather than the Chuck Berry bit.

oh I've got one : "Smells like teen spirit" ! "91, the year punk broke" !
for mainstream kids from 87, that would be a big wtf, I guess.
and exactly like in the movie, I could see the actor smashing everything at the end of the performance in front of the audience in awe and struck by feedback.
on the other hand, that wouldn't sound much like the future in a "this will change everything" way...

I was thinking about this thread recently and reckon it misses an important point - Chuck Berry was not the unpredicted future of pop music in 1955, music along the lines of rock & roll had been around for a decade by that point. Rock & roll as a cultural phenomenon was just taking off, but the music itself was around already - it just hadn't made its way to Hill Valley yet. So the contemporary example for 1996(!) now would have to be something already existing and gaining popularity but which hadn't penetrated small town America yet.

something already existing and gaining popularity but which hadn't penetrated small town America yet.

1996? Got to be something from Vision Creation Newsun, then.

Roni Size/Reprazent

Well, bear in mind that, as poster xgurggleglgllg observed early on, the scene has two parts: Johnny B. Goode, which the crowd is feeling... and then the Van Halen shredding, which blows everybody's minds (in a bad way). Chuck Berry's first singles dropped in 1955, and "Johnny B. Goode" is just two years away, so this fits for something "already existing and gaining popularity but which hadn't penetrated small town America yet." Whereas the second part is something that was officially mainstream (but still annoying parents) in Marty's home time of 1985, and which had its fresh-and-new moment about 5-6 years before that.

So for 1996, the first part would be a trend that was bubbling up circa 1995-1996 and breaking through majorly to define the late 90s. The second part would be something that was a hot, mind-blowing new sound circa 2020-2021, and had peaked by 2026, ideally in the same family tree as the previous genre. This makes me think he's doing a Backstreet Boys number that turns into a K-Pop showstopper.

but isn't part of the point also that Johnny B. Goode wasn't released until 1958? so the answer is "Believe" followed by Marty going way too hard on the autotune and alienating everyone

xp

Okay, yeah, rob's idea fits all of the criteria and I'm into it.

lol rob

Ms. Jackson > Suddenly dropping into a dissonant modern rap verse.

sub Q: what song does he play when he puts headphones on his dad to scare the hell out of him?

instead of walkman it'll be iphone, and he carefully places bluetooth earbuds in george's ears.

instead of vader mask, he does full darth maul makeup, keeping with the star wars theme.

but what does he play instead of (uncredited) eddie van halen shredding?

Three 6 Mafia

but what does he play instead of (uncredited) eddie van halen shredding?

sings like the Geese guy

*terrifying*

https://i.imgur.com/ICeaoWP.png

The second part would be something that was a hot, mind-blowing new sound circa 2020-2021, and had peaked by 2026, ideally in the same family tree as the previous genre.

"I Gotta Feeling" falls apart as Marty McFly starts doing ASMR whispering and close-mic-ed crinkling of bubble wrap.