Does it bother you when music gets associated with stupid tv shows/movies?

I enjoyed hearing weird Al’s “my bologna” in stranger things

To that end, it helps that the Shrek voice and the Fat Bastard voice are one and the same. xp

whenever i hear "hallelujah" anywhere i mentally substitute the can song "halleluwah", this makes it tolerable. if this isn't your preference, feel free to swap in the jeff buckley song "murder suicide meteor slave".

that volvo commercial that used zoogz rift's cover of tim buckley's "look at the fool" ruined the song for me. now every time somebody covers that song on the "voice" they do zoogz' version and it's like, why, zoogz rift couldn't even fucking sing! i know that tim buckley was well past his loss.jpg peak by the time he recorded that song, but he was still a better singer than zoogz!

some day "all flowers in time bend towards the sun" will actually be released and people will be so mad even though everybody's heard it by now

I guess the bone I have to pick with Stranger Things is that all the music in it is good & extremely hip, which makes sense because the creators (much like myself) were born in the 80s and therefore likely discovered the best stuff after it was all curated for them somehow. but the 80's had a lot of real shitty music too, and looking at the charts it must've been on the radio all the time, yet in the Stranger Things universe it's stuff like Joy Division and Kate Bush and The Psychedelic Furs. kinda gives me a Ready Player One vibe I guess.

it's just that Leonard Cohen sings the verse in a lower octave than Buckley/Cale, so he's actually jumping up one during the chorus, whereas the other two aren't.

― Slowzy LOLtidore (Neanderthal), Thursday, June 16, 2022 11:58 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is what i meant, sorry

I get mad when someone uses a song that I was going to use in my imaginary movie.

"Flowers On The Wall" in Pulp Fiction the first time I punched my thigh in the theater because of that.

imo hallelujah has not been ruined it’s a really good song - I didn’t spend the 10s watching tv singing contests tho (no judgment on ppl who did) & I’m not sure I believe its alleged ubiquity exists outside of that. I like the cale cover fine. It is definitely v funny that it was used in a sex scene in a superman movie, can’t imagine that ruining it

but the 80's had a lot of real shitty music too

Season 2 had Ted Nugent, Motley Crue, and the Scorpions; season 3 had Cutting Crew, Corey Hart, Foreigner, and the song from The Neverending Story, none of which are/were particularly hip at the time, and all of which are shitty (ymmv, of course).

And “Running Up That Hill” was a hit in the US in 1985. The first time I heard it was on Casey Kasem’s “American Top 40,” and it got substantial radio play.

hate to say it but that stupid Kate McKinnon sketch using the song right after Trump won just ruined that song forever for me

― frogbs, Thursday, June 16, 2022

I don't recall it being a sketch, she just sat at a piano and played. I really liked it--thought it caught the mood of the moment well--but I had no prior history with the song, so maybe that helped.

I like the Jeff Buckley version fwiw and used to sing it at karaoke night, after which the person who sang after me complained that i was hurting his mood

Season 2 had Ted Nugent, Motley Crue, and the Scorpions; season 3 had Cutting Crew, Corey Hart, Foreigner, and the song from The Neverending Story, none of which are/were particularly hip at the time, and all of which are shitty (ymmv, of course).

agreed but that stuff is at least endearingly shitty, it's "lol 80s" as opposed to some of the much more forgettable stuff that was clogging up the charts at the time

I've experienced "ambivalence" about a few songs I like being used by David Lynch – not b/c I'm not a fan of his stuff (quite the opposite) or necessarily think the songs were misused, but b/c he imprints them with a heavy "Lynch" context that makes me a little uneasy about its effect on the song somehow.

(Like I can imagine how a Roy Orbison fan must have felt about the way "In Dreams" was used in Blue Velvet... kind of the ultimate example)

agreed but that stuff is at least endearingly shitty, it's "lol 80s" as opposed to some of the much more forgettable stuff that was clogging up the charts at the time

― frogbs, Thursday, June 16, 2022 3:05 PM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Cutting Crew and Corey Hart define forgettable '80s top 40 for me, but why use an '80s song in an '80s-set show that doesn't evoke the '80s? I mean, where shitty '80s top 40 is concerned, if the show used Julian Lennon's singles, or Survivor's "High On You," or Sting's "Fortress Around Your Heart," or Billy Joel's "You're Only Human," they don't evoke "lol '80s" the way that Wham! does, you know?

idk I get it's a silly thing to complain about. when I watch the show now all I think of was that tweet that goes "nobody remembers how brown everything was in the 80s"

I would say a lot of period/historical/nostalgic stuff (esp. mid-late 20th c) tends to focus excessively on the various accoutrements that were brand new at the time, including songs, to really hammer you over the head with it. Whereas a more complete realistic picture would balance shit that was new then with shit that was recent-ish and older. Like play a song from the 50's or 60's when a character walks into a drug store ffs.

that is assuming realism/accuracy is the goal which of course it needn't be

Like play a song from the 50's or 60's when a character walks into a drug store ffs.

Like how "Feels So Good" is playing at Perkins during a scene in Fargo.

Billy Joel's "You're Only Human," they don't evoke "lol '80s" the way that Wham! does, you know?

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz

your mileage may very, "You're Only Human" seems VERY '80s to me

ICYMI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Www07ZpRPKQ

interior design is often the most heavy handed in establishing the period, like in reality most of the stuff in somebody's house would be at least 10-15 years old. xps

Under The Banner of Heaven did a good job of that, set in 1984-5 but visually it could have been 1970-onward.

Like play a song from the 50's or 60's when a character walks into a drug store ffs.

― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Thursday, June 16, 2022 3:39 PM (thirty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Jim Croce's "You Don't Mess Around With Jim" and Foreigner's "Hot Blooded" have prominent placement in Stranger Things. Not '50s or '60s, obviously, but decidedly pre-'80s.

Like I can imagine how a Roy Orbison fan must have felt about the way "In Dreams" was used in Blue Velvet... kind of the ultimate example

Think of the poor Stealers Wheel fans!

Lol

Yes, "Hot Blooded" is a great example of a recent-ish song that would have been part of the landscape in the mid 80's, though on the whole Stranger Things is not exactly an exemplar of restraint in establishing the period xp

the first episode of Stranger Things has two Jefferson Airplane songs (plus Pearls Before Swine and the Seeds)

Think of the poor Stealers Wheel fans!

― rare lipstick or mohawks that somehow make them more valuable (President Keyes)

they'll always have baker street

i was going to say "what stealers wheel fans" but then i remembered that i dig _ferguslie park_

the first episode of Stranger Things has two Jefferson Airplane songs (plus Pearls Before Swine and the Seeds)

― rare lipstick or mohawks that somehow make them more valuable (President Keyes)

was it "900 million people daily making love"

Like play a song from the 50's or 60's when a character walks into a drug store ffs.

Knowing my long running support of the CVS thread, it should come as no surprise that I loved that moment on Girls when Hannah went back to her hometown and ran into her old boyfriend at a drugstore as (IIRC) "Shake It" by Ian Matthews played over the muzak.

If shows want to be realistic, Sixpence None The Richer's "Kiss Me" needs to play every time a character enters a grocery store.

interior design is often the most heavy handed in establishing the period, like in reality most of the stuff in somebody's house would be at least 10-15 years old. xps

― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Thursday, June 16, 2022 3:07 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

The one show that absolutely nails this is Malcolm in the Middle

they'll always have baker street

I don't remember specifics, but I think "Baker Street" was used pretty well in Mindhunter. Sorry, Stealer's Wheel fans.

I associate Lisa Loeb’s “Stay” with grocery stores more than with Reality Bites nowadays

Think of the poor Stealers Wheel fans!

Haha... fwiw, I meant the ultimate "Lynch example"; though I guess superfans of the Platters' "My Prayer" may have a similar beef.

I don't remember specifics, but I think "Baker Street" was used pretty well in Mindhunter.

And used very strangely in Good Will Hunting, where it fades up during a fistfight and fades back out maybe 30 seconds later. Was it coming from a car driving past?

The one show that absolutely nails this is Malcolm in the Middle

― frogbs,

The visual realism of Malcom in the Middle was totally striking at the time, right?? Considering the dialogue was expositional and very stylized. It would have been a VERY different kind of show if they'd modeled its entire universe after a single "consumer aesthetic" like Frasier, or dressed everyone like a Banana Republic threw up.

"Kiss Me" was inescapable for a time, but i rarely hear it now (and my local supermarket recently switched to an eclectic 90's hits station from a kinda Yacht Rock station). So rarely, in fact, that i have forgotten it exists for years at a time between exposures, thank you so very much for the reminder.

Oh yeah, they had that inverse Hallelujah song that sounds like it's about sex but it's really about god. Ick.

Insofar as I can make out what they're saying, it seems to be about the experience of being awestruck and humbled in various situations, historical, mythical, or personal, so soulful and reverential doesn't seem that inappropriate to me

It's, not to sound too glib, about the sacred in the profane, with these dry, conversational statements leading into more proclamatory, spiritual lines as you head into the chorus. It also has all of these comedic lines that only really work with the pauses Cohen gives them (you say I took the name in vain/I don't even know the name/but if I did/well really what's it to ya?"; "you don't really care for music do ya?"). You need a conversational, chanson-style delivery to make that stuff work, it doesn't if you just sing it in quick succession.

I've not heard the Cale version but the Buckley and Wainwright flatten all these complexities into versions where it basically all sounds like a hymn and the spikiness, the sardonic side, the back and forth of it disappears. Meanwhile, "croak and casio preset" gives the lines full space to unfold and contributes to the song's ambiguous appeal; they make me constantly wonder "is this guy FOR REAL?", and that's what the song is designed to do.

A lot of that early 60's Pop sounded spooky and otherworldly to me before I ever saw a David Lynch film - he just kind of created a retroactive genre in the same way film noir or yacht rock did imo.

The songwriters and publishers certainly won't mind.

This discussion of “Hallelujah” now makes me want to go back and listen to the original, thx. Maybe now somebody can explain “Suzanne” to me, which I always thought of as a vastly inferior “Little Wing,” although I do like the Fairport Convention version and maybe the Roberta Flack one too.

Also Wikipedia WTF:

Martin Sharp wrote the lyrics for Cream's "Tales of Brave Ulysses" to the melody of this song, specifically the Judy Collins version. Eric Clapton later set Sharp's lyrics to his own music

This one’s for Leonard!

I’m sure it’s in a lot of tv shows and movies, so not a total derail, although I couldn’t tell you which.

A lot of that early 60's Pop sounded spooky and otherworldly to me before I ever saw a David Lynch film - he just kind of created a retroactive genre in the same way film noir or yacht rock did imo.

― Daniel_Rf

Since I first heard it I've thought that Dick and Dee Dee's "The Mountain's High" sounded particularly Lynchian.

Talking of Gerry Rafferty, I reckon 'The Ark' would make an amazing sync track for a movie.

”Tales of Brave Ulysses”

The crossover here is that Leonard-haters feel he has also been responsible for torturing their naked ears.

Appropriate well-chosen song + good film, obviously fine. May enhance pleasure of song.
Good song + bad film, also fine. This will pass from my mind and in the meantime I will shout at the screen to accuse the film of cheap piggybacking.
There are funny inbetween cases that stick in my mind tho'… like I was enjoying Palm Springs well enough, and then Barracuda by John Cale soundtracks a big montage… & I'm sort of thinking this is surprising and good to hear and I'm not sure it quite works, but actually maybe it does and it's great. Basically a slight dissonance or confusion means it's taken over Barracuda much more effectively than if it were a perfect or terrible choice.