Word: pop
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Movie moments like this transcend conventional cross-marketing. The recent vogue of movie scores peppered with the past and present of pop is a great return, allowing us new levels of association, and exposing great music to new audiences...
DREW: I’m glad you invoked The Graduate’s legacy here. Although I think there is a vast qualitative difference between it and Garden State, they both share a heavy reliance upon pop music that unifies the film’s “sound” with its overall artistic sensibility. Certainly, there are times when pre-released pop music can be used well in an original film, but far too often it’s an easy out for a studio that needs something for their sister record company to sell...
...often, pop music in a film is a sign of laziness. There’s not a weak song on the Garden State soundtrack—but do any of them really need to be in the film? Unlike Coldplay’s “Don’t Panic” or Frou Frou’s “Let Go,” “Mrs. Robinson” was written expressly for The Graduate, and there is something to be said for original music that supports an original film. Granted, the Shins?...
...scoring can do some movies some good—where there’s a clear artistic statement, one which can be easily translated to a single musician or band. But it’s transitive—there are times when the associations already present in a written pop song bring something to a movie. What would it have been like if anything other than Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” played during the reflective scenes of Trainspotting...
...Anderson’s recent soundtrack vogue (last seen with the excellent Life Aquatic, musically curated by Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh) is the best example of this, culling from all realms of pop music. A filmmaker with an encyclopedic knowledge of pop becomes a disc jockey in this process, and perhaps that’s responsible for our difference in opinion...