March 2, 2025 • 36 mins
From spine-tingling orchestral swells to unforgettable anthems, some movie soundtracks don’t just complement the film—they elevate it to a whole new level. In this episode, we compile a list of iconic soundtracks that transcend the screen, embedding themselves into pop culture and our collective memories.
Tune in and take a cinematic sonic journey with us!
🔗 Get visuals, links, and show notes for this episode at SpeakingHuman.com or MOMApodcast.com.
#Movies #Marketing #Podcast #Soundtracks #BoxOffice #Cinema #Theaters #SpeakingHuman #MOMA #Retrospect #Opinions #Reviews
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/moma-movies-marketing--3296937/support.
Tune in and take a cinematic sonic journey with us!
🔗 Get visuals, links, and show notes for this episode at SpeakingHuman.com or MOMApodcast.com.
#Movies #Marketing #Podcast #Soundtracks #BoxOffice #Cinema #Theaters #SpeakingHuman #MOMA #Retrospect #Opinions #Reviews
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/moma-movies-marketing--3296937/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
In a world where movies rely on marketing more than
ever to connect with audiences, one podcast aims to make
sense of it all. This is movies and marketing. Next
Saturday Night, where's sending you back to the future?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Go ahead, make my day?
Speaker 1 (00:23):
How about now you're crazy Dutch past.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
What we've got here is failure you milligate? Take them
around where across.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
All of how we might as well?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Good time. I am an f B I agent.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Movies. Shad, we're back to movies.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I mean, it's a weird topic for us to be
covering movies. On movies and marketing, surprising, it's a twist
in many ways.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, but once again we're back to the sounds of
movies versus the visuals the soundtracks.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah, the audio aspect, rather than what we're seeing. It's
about what we're hearing, and sometimes what we're hearing, not
even when we're in the theater watching the movie. Sometimes
what we're hearing before we've even seen the movie.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
It's true. George Lucas famously once said that sound is
fifty percent of the movie going experience.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, I mean it's fifty high. I don't know. We've
had silent.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Films, Yeah, but were they good? I mean really, it's.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
A great point. And even even a lot of them
had like music, you know, wouldn't somebody like playing an
organ over on the side. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
If you didn't have the organ and you just had
dead silence, I think people would have walked out. It'd
been like, what is this? What are these pictures you
showing me?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Sound? That's where it's at, and there's a lot to that.
There's this sound you hear, the ambient sound, the score,
pop tunes, all those different aspects of audio that go
into the mix of a movie.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, but before we get into all that, Shad, I
got a good trivia question for you today. I think
you're gonna love it. I think you're gonna do really
well on this one. Okay, okay, mayonnaise, mayonnaise. Yeah, I'm like,
oh for oh, I'm not doing great on the trivia lately,
but that's okay. Listeners have told me, hey, I didn't
get it either, Patrick, so no harm, no foul. Other
(02:32):
listeners have said you might be really letting us all
down because you can't get any of the trivia questions.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
So I don't know, you know, it depends who you
listen to. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Anyway, I wanted to see if you could tell me
which of the following artists was not approached to record
danger Zone for Top Gun before Kenny Loggins was ultimately chosen.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Ooh, this is a good question.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Was it a Total B, Brian Adams, ce Rio Speedwagon,
or D Phil Collins?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
So the question is which of these artists was not
approached before Kenny Loggins? Right? Which means three out of
those four were approached before Kenny Loggins.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Correct.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Give me the choices again.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
A Toto, B, Brian Adams, ce Rio Speedwagon, or D
Phil Collins Top.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Gun eighty six somewhere around there. All those artists are
around that time period. So I don't know if that
helps me too much. I'm gonna say, even though he's
super popular, Phil Collins, I just can't picture him doing that,
So I go with Phil Collins.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
You are correct. Phil Collins was the only artist out
of those not approached to do danger Zone for the
Top Gun soundtrack. Now, sting factoid about this is that
Toto was originally intended to perform the track danger Zone,
but they had some legal conflicts. Then they went to
Brian Adams, but he refused any involvement in the film
(04:12):
because he said it glorified war and he didn't want
to have his work linked to it.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
He also refused to allow his song Only the Strong
Survive to be featured in the film. So I don't
know how the producers felt about that, but I feel
like maybe a cut like a knife, you know, little
Brian Adams humor.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
There, Brian Adams. Okay, you know with the warring taking
place in Robin Hood, Yeah, there's no problem. Well people
shooting each other with arrows. But that was about love.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
That was a movie about everything I do.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Ario Speedwagon was the choice. I almost picked. That's the
other one where I'm like, man, that would have been weird.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Ario Speedwagon.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Corey Hart also declined they didn't know it was going
to be as big of a hit as it was.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Now.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
I think artists are probably a little bit more inclined
to do soundtracks. I mean, even if it's a dud.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, real miss though, danger Zone big hit and Kenny Loggins,
this guy knows how to get that soundtrack money.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
You could be getting a lot of money just from
all of the trivia that you are winning at.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
I've been crushing the trivia. I find a way, I
find a way. I don't know if you're just your
questions are easier than my questions. Yeah, that could be
part of it. You do more multiple choice, which is helpful.
Maybe I should do that more often.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah, I make it easy on you.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
You make me look good, I make you look bad.
I'll try to help you out in the future a
little more.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
No, don't tell people that, because then that makes me
even look worse.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
All Right, I'll keep going the way and go. So
today we're talking about movie soundtracks. When I say soundtracks,
we're not talking about movie scores. I'm not talking about
you know, John Williams doing Star Trek Star Our Trek
Star Wars or Hans Zimmer that type of music that
(06:04):
you hear like orchestral music. I'm talking about collections of
license songs, you know, grab together as you're talking about
like the Top Gun soundtrack Danger Zone, all those songs
kind of put together on an album that people can buy.
That's what I'm talking about when I'm when we say
soundtrack here going back to the late sixties. It's a
(06:27):
while ago, but it's not that long ago in the
history of movies. You know, you had this whole sixty
years plus where they were just it was always if
you had music in their orchestral music, you know, that's
how we're getting our music until you kind of get
to this late sixties period where it's like, ah, what
if we do like songs people know. So from that
point on, soundtracking a movie with familiar songs or artists
(06:50):
kind of caught fire. Then we got soundtracks packed with
popular artists becoming another way to market a movie, particularly
to young audiences. By the nineteen nineties when this was
probably at its peak, you know, maybe even going into
the two thousands, before music went streaming, and I think
the soundtrack faded away in some sense, not like it's
(07:12):
not still there, but it kind of changed. So some
of the first notable movies to soundtrack with songs versus
orchestral music nineteen sixty seven's The Graduate, which featured the
pop folks songs of Simon and Garfunkel, and nineteen sixty
nine's Easy Rider, which featured a soundtrack made up entirely
(07:35):
of pre existing rock songs. They originally intended this as
a temporary soundtrack, but the movies creators, Dennis Hopper and
Peter Fonda decided to keep them in since we're in
a moment of music flicks. You know, We've had the
Bob Dylan biopick A Complete Unknown, which features a soundtrack
that includes some Dylan songs sung by the star of
(07:57):
the movie, Timothy Schallome. We've got Better Man, the story
of British pop superstar Robbie Williams featuring an Ai Monkey.
You heard that right, an Ai Monkey. And we've got
the just released new led Zeppelin doc Becoming led Zeppelin.
These have all come out in recent months. We figured
(08:20):
it was a good time to talk about the power
of a killer movie soundtrack. So let's start here, Patrick,
How does a great soundtrack work as a marketing tool?
How does it help sell a movie?
Speaker 1 (08:34):
So thinking through this a little bit deeper than I
typically do, because I'm not a deep thinker for any
of those listeners out there who think, yeah, that makes sense.
But based on definition of a soundtrack, it impacts a
movie by setting the mood, enhancing the emotional connection to
characters and plot points, foreshadowing events, and guiding the audience's
(08:55):
perception of scenes through the use of musical cues. Essentially
an invisible narrator that helps tell the story beyond just
visuals and dialogue. Typically that's what a soundtrack does.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Thinking through this, I thought, let me see what other
people say. And the best way to do that, best
way to see what the people are saying about something
is he go to Reddit.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
That's where the people are. Yep.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
So I came across this great Reddit thread from about
ten years ago that really summarizes the concept we're talking
about today. In the thread titled how a movie's soundtrack
affects success? I thought, how could I not find an
answer in this? The original poster op, as we all know,
in Reddit, ask the question how much does the quality
(09:39):
of a soundtrack affect the quality of the movie, and
vice versa. Now he's talking about the quality of the movie. So,
like most posts on Reddit, there are answers all over
the place, right, Some people are answering his questions. Some
people are trying to redefine the question and then answering
their own version of that question. But I pulled three
answers that made a lot of s sense to me
(10:00):
from small but Slow. That's the Reddit user which small
but Slow says, there's a funny story about the film
Lost Weekend. It was initially released without a soundtrack and
nobody liked the movie. Then they added music and re
released it and it won an Oscar for Best Picture.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
True.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
I don't know. I have a fact checked that story,
but it's interesting, right, And even if it's not true,
it's believable, right, No. Joe par Another reddit user stated,
I don't think the majority of eighties teen o is
it O war?
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah? I think so. Quick correction, it's ovra ovra.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Oh, thank you. Sorry, I'm just playing around with that word. Now.
I like it. Yeah, it feels good in the mouth,
it really does. Mostly thinking hughes here can be separated
from its soundtrack. I mean, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast
Club and even sixteen Candles are so tied to their
associated tunes. So from Honey in the Rock on Reddit
(11:05):
says music is naturally a perfect way to find those
feelings again without sitting through the film over and over.
Here's what I love about what they say. How often
do you listen to something that you saw in a
movie that you loved. You might have loved the movie,
or you might have loved the music from it, and
you listen to that music, and you remember the movie
because you're listening to it, that feeling that you got
(11:27):
so together. I think they really craft how music improved
the success of the movie.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
You know, I always like tapping into Reddit, a well
of information and as you say, you know, getting into
the people and you usually find some good thoughts there
that articulate things pretty well. I like this idea of
you've seen a movie, you go to the soundtrack. It
kind of gives you that feeling again, you can kind
of return to it. It's something outside the movie experience
(11:55):
where you can tap into that mm hmm. And I'm
pretty interested in the soundtrack adds this thing that exists
from a movie because of the movie, but it's not
the movie, right yeah, And I think that's the marketing value.
And it works in these inverse ways. And one of them,
you know, you kind of hit on there. You've seen
(12:15):
the movie, you hear this, you know, you hear some
of this music. You're like a man, I want to
get that soundtrack. And then every time you listen to
that soundtrack, it takes you back to the movie. And
then there's that other flip side where you haven't seen
the movie. Maybe you hear a song and then you Okay,
it's on the kill Bill soundtrack. I'm gonna get the
kill Bill soundtrack. Maybe Now I'm thinking of that movie
(12:38):
differently because of the song or the music. Now I
have that relationship with the thing that I didn't have before.
So it's kind of like the marketing breadcrumb. It's another
thing that's out there that's connecting you to the movie.
I think we kind of talked about online. Particularly in
an era before now, these soundtracks were more valuable in
(12:58):
the way that they were like mixtape. You couldn't just
go and grab these songs individually all the time. So
the fact that you're like, man, I can get a
bunch of these songs together that I can't really access
in other places was super valuable, particularly you know in
the nineties. Now we can just pop on iTunes and
like grab whatever songs we want.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
It's a great point. I mean, we've talked about this
on many podcast episodes about the relationship we have with
music and sound today versus when we were younger, when
it was just wasn't as always accessible.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Yeah, so let's get into that. You know, we're each
going to kind of share some iconic soundtracks that we
picked out, maybe some different criteria here and how we
got there. We can talk about that a little bit.
What are the rules, Patrick?
Speaker 1 (13:47):
One? I had to be connected to the music that
I was choosing in some way. Two it had to
have some success as a standalone, And three it had
to have at least somewhat appear two have helped the movie.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Yeah, mine similar highly personal. Anybody who's listening, who's like,
where is Saturday Night Fever? Where is you know, the Bodyguard?
Where are some of these greats of all time? You're
not gonna find them on my list. Mine's pretty much
personal to me, and maybe as anybody's list would be here.
(14:22):
I wasn't going for these are the most important soundtracks
of all time, or these are the best selling soundtracks
of all time. I was just going for these are
the ones that kind of hit me the most.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
The few that we picked. I mean, it's hard to
break it down to three, I gotta be honest.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
There's a lot. Yeah, so we each have three. We'll
start at the back like we always do.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
All right, So my first pick is into the Spider
Versus soundtrack, based around the movie with the same name.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
It is the same poky, but checked she was up.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
The film premierred in twenty eighteen, and the film grossed
three hundred and ninety four million dollars worldwide against an
ninety million dollar budget. Critical acclaim blah blah blah, tons
of accolades, right, so the movie did really well. The
album The Spider Man Into the Spider Verse Soundtrack debuted
(15:12):
number five on the US Billboard two hundred with fifty
two thousand album equivalent units, but the soundtrack moved up
to its peak position at number two, mainly due to
its lead single Sunflower, which was a big song from
the album What's Up. Danger was also on that which
was a very big hit. That soundtrack just everybody was
(15:33):
talking about it more so than any other soundtrack that
I can think of recently. So Into the Spider Verse.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
That's a really good one. Have this one on vinyl,
do you? Yeah? It looks cool, you know that. I
think that's what drew to me. And it's a good.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Vibes you know, Yeah, it's got good vibes. It really
pulls you along in that movie because it's meant to
sort of be the soundtrack to Miles Morales, who is
the main character in that movie, you can hear this
through his headphones as he's making his way through the city.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Yeah. No, that's a really good one. It's just an eclectic,
sonic landscape going on there. So that's a really good
example of I think, a modern one that does it
really well and kind of captures what's going on in
the movie. So my number three, I think similarly, you know,
captures the tone of the movie and the main character
(16:24):
of the movie, and that is nineteen ninety four's The Crow.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Oh Okay, shuttles.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
This is one where the soundtrack becomes almost bigger than
the movie. So now, The Crow when it came out
was a modest, a pretty decent hit at the US
box office and made fifty million. The Crow soundtrack, though,
was a little bigger, I would say, peaked at number
one on the Billboard Top two hundred and sold over
(16:57):
three million copies. This was kind of a big deal
when it came out. Had the Cure, nine inch Nails,
Rollins Band, Helmet, Rage against the Machine, stp Stone, Temple
Pilots for those who don't know, so a lot of
like harder rock bands of the time, you know, doing
songs you couldn't necessarily get on other albums in some cases,
and it just does what great soundtracks do, really kind
(17:19):
of encapsulates, you know, as I mentioned the vibe of
the movie in musical form while giving you, you know,
fans of this music and these artists are reason to
buy that soundtrack something they couldn't get somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Not one that I thought would be on your list.
I gotta be honest, what's your personal connection to that?
If you don't mind me asking.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
My personal connections that I got that when I was
you know, I was probably like fourteen or fifteen a
big fan of the movie The Crow. My uncle got
that for me for birthday present. I just listened to
it NonStop. Really. That was the first time I heard
Big Empty by Stone Double Pilots because it was before
that album came out, which I really liked. And the
(18:01):
nine Inchnail's song on there, which I think is a
cover of like a Joy Division song which is featured
pretty prominently in the movie. Those are kind of the
big ones for me.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
It also is a great example of again music that
sets the mood for the movie, right. Yeah, all of
those songs slash artists feel very much of that that
genre of movie, a little dark.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Little leedgy, you know, kind of like takes you takes
you there. All right.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Well, my number two something I talked about at the
beginning of the episode. Top Guns soundtrack from nineteen eighty six,
released by Columbia Records, had the hit song danger Zone,
which we talked about in the trivia by Kenny Loggins,
who you know, was not the first pick, but he
(18:51):
did well. He did well the movie. When Top Gun
was released eighty six, the film received mixed reviews from
film critics, but four weeks after its release, the number
of theaters showing it increased by forty five percent and
it became a huge commercial hit, grossing three hundred and
fifty seven million dollars globally against a production budget of
(19:13):
fifteen million. As we all know in movies and marketing,
as we always talk about, that is a hit. You
can't beat that, you know, from a budget standpoint, and
it was the highest grossing domestic film of eighty six
as well as the highest grossing film of nineteen eighty
six worldwide. So movie did fantastic. Now, the soundtrack was
released in eighty six and a lot of people think
(19:36):
that it's become an instant classic because it's captured its
high octane energy. It went on to top the Billboard
two hundred chart for five consecutive weeks. It was the
best selling soundtrack of nineteen eighty six and one of
the best selling of all time of all time Chad
top Gun. According to AllMusic dot com, the album remains
(19:58):
a quintessential artifact to the mid eighties, and danger Zone,
which was in the original soundtrack, is also featured in
the twenty twenty two sequel film. So that's how good
that soundtrack title song was. Is that they brought that back?
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah? What can you say? This is one of the
bohemoths of all time. This is one of those things where,
like I was a pretty young kid when this movie
came out. I remember seeing this movie like right around
when it came out. I was aware of the song,
you know. I mean I knew danger Zone when I
was probably like seven or eight years old. I knew
this song. It was just like in the culture, these
(20:38):
things are just like part of it. Everybody knew Top Gun,
everybody knew danger Zone. Take My Breath Away was probably
like on the radio that was pretty popular too, So
it was just like everywhere it was just seeped in.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Yeah, and I think it takes you back. It creates
a feeling in you, the feeling you had when you
watched the movie. And I think it does that very well.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
I'd argue, even if you were not alive in the eighties,
if you listen to that soundtrack, it'll give you the
feeling of what it was like to be alive in
the eighties.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Yeah, the very least, like you're a Navy fighter pilot. Yeah,
in the eighties, in the eighties, of course.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yeah, Well, let me take you from the eighties back
to where we were before. They're nineteen ninety four and
I'm going with the pulp fiction soundtrack. How could I
not put a Tarantino soundtrack on here. I feel like
every soundtrack he makes is kind of a masterclass in
(21:40):
how to do this. Just he makes eclectic mixes of
kind of these unique songs you haven't heard of, you know.
I think that's part of his thing, is like I'm
going to introduce people to kind of these different things,
or put these different sets of songs together, you know,
assemble them in a way to kind of just have
these great needle drops throughout a movie. Pulp fiction though
in particular, I think is a soundtrack where it's almost
(22:03):
like cliffs notes for the movie. It has these dialogue
inserts throughout, you know, it's kind of like the ultimate
movie recreation soundtrack, giving you an almost sonic summary of
the film. So you get you know, a song, a
dialogue snippet, a couple other songs. Here's another piece of dialogue.
It's like taking you back to a like short abbreviated
(22:25):
version of the movie. In some way. You get surf music,
you get jungle boogie, you get al Green, you get
the centerpiece, I think, which is Urge Overkills Girl You'll
be a Woman Soon, which you'll probably say this is,
you know, sinful to say, but I think it's way
better than the Neil Diamond version. And then you get
those you know, snippets of like Royal with Cheese and
(22:46):
Zed's Dead Baby and things like that that just kind
of elevated to this it's almost like entire experience where
it's it's more than just even one song. It's like
this whole you got to listen to the whole soundtrack.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Yeah, I love that you brought up the fact that
it is a totally different type of soundtrack experience because
he does include those little snippets of dialogue from the
movie in it. I do appreciate those soundtracks that do
that because, like you said, it's almost like a sonic
summary of the movie. It's a great way to describe that.
(23:21):
Something he was involved with. Is a soundtrack that I
did not make my list, but also makes me think
of that is the Desperado soundtrack, which that movie had
Antonio Benderaz, but Quentin Tarantino makes an appearance in that movie.
I believe it's a Robert Rodriguez movie.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Yeah, he has like a monologue. He comes in and
does like a monologue.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Yeah, but it's kind of funny how the fact that
that soundtrack does that. So I don't know if he
had a hand in that, but it does really take
you back to the movie. I don't know how that
lives differently than the ones that don't, because I think
you have to have some relationship to the movie to
maybe get what's happening with that.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yeah, it's a little bit of a different experience, you know.
It just gives you something to say. It's kind of
different way of presenting the material.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
I guess yeah, So all right, my number one. Whereas
all my other ones had various artists, this has one artist,
Purple Rain from nineteen eighty four, Prince in the Revolution.
I mean, when it comes to music and movies, you
(24:27):
can't get any truer than this. It's regarded as one
of the greatest albums of all time by numerous publications.
Rolling Stone ranked Purple Rain number two on its list
of one hundred best Albums of the nineteen eighties, number
eight on its list of five hundred greatest albums of
all time. Not just the soundtrack, right, it's not on
(24:50):
those just those lists. It's also on the greatest albums list.
So a little bit about the movie. The movie it
grows seventy million worldwide against the seven onzeo point two
million dollars budget Boom Movies and marketing success.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Right.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
It won an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score.
There's a lot of people that believe that Purple Rain
is one of the greatest musical films. All these new ones, notwithstanding,
you know, maybe the Bob Dylan one that just came out,
maybe that takes the cake. I doubt it. But Purple
Rain in twenty nineteen, The film was selected by the
Library of Congress for preservation. Tells you a little bit
(25:28):
of the significance of this movie. The album, though after
four weeks on the charge, it reached number one in
nineteen eighty four. The album spent twenty four consecutive weeks
at number one on the Billboard two hundred from eighty
four to eighty five, and more than thirty two weeks
in the top ten, becoming one of the most successful
(25:50):
soundtracks ever. Prince, everybody knows Prince. If you don't know Prince,
let's turn this podcast episode off right now, because I
don't know who you are. But Prince, it's just such
a rich album. You got Let's Go Crazy, Computer Blue Darling, Nikki,
When Doves Cry, so Let's Go Crazy and When Doves
Cry absolute the top two on this album, I Would
(26:11):
Die for You, and You've got Purple Rain, which is
the title. I mean, you can't go wrong if you
don't have this album in your library of music, not
just your playlist. You have to have a physical copy
of this thing.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
These are stone cold classics. Do you have this on vinyl?
Speaker 1 (26:29):
I absolutely have this on vinyl. I should have five
copies of this on vinyl, just in case one of
them wears out. You know, it's just it's that good.
It's that good. Do you agree? You disagree?
Speaker 2 (26:41):
I cannot disagree. The soundtrack is impeccable. There's not a
bad song on there. It's Prince at his peak and
everything's good. My great shame, I will say, is I've
never seen the movie Purple Rain.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
You've never seen that.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
No, I've never actually seen. I should probably get on that.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
It's a really like it really takes you back when
you watch it today versus then people went go go
over this movie back then. When you watch it today,
it's clearly like a moment in time, so you feel
a little disconnected from it there, but it takes you back.
And he was such he was just he was such
a personality like a character. I mean, there's nobody like
(27:19):
Prince No, I mean, and he is exactly how you
picture him. Plus you get a little Morse day in
the time in that movie, which I absolutely loved that
rivalry between them too. Like whether it was fabricated or
if it was real, I don't really care. It was
just so good. It was just something that made that
time very special. And that movie has a little bit
(27:40):
of that in there.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
So don't you think Morris Day and the Time should
have been on the soundtrack though?
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Yeah, I just think that this was Prince in the Revolution,
like all all Prince promotion. Yeah, yeah, so, but I
do agree. Like the song that he sings in there,
you know, Jungle Love is just like so good. It's
like one of his classics. But you had to that
on another album.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
What can you say? That's a must own? You're right,
every song on there is good. Usually you get a
soundtrack and you're like, I like these four songs, and
that makes it worthwhile. Yeah, this one is like obviously
it's one artist doing it, but it's every song is good.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
It's a very different feeling when you have just one
artist who sort of like crafted that soundtrack. There is
a fluidity, and I'm sure there's an art to the
people who are putting that soundtrack together of making the
flow happen in a very logical way. But Prince just
had a way of telling stories. It was just fantastic.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
So for my number one, I know you're probably thinking
I'm going to take you back to nineteen ninety four.
I'm not. I'm going to take you back to nineteen
ninety two, and like you said, Purple Rain, you know,
takes you back to a very specific moment. My number
one does the same thing, different moment, this moment being
the apex of grunge. This is the singles soundtrack. This
(29:07):
you know movie, some would say minor, not a huge hit.
This is Cameron Crowe before he did Jerry Maguire or
almost Famous. I think it's a really good and enjoyable movie.
I like it a lot, but you know, not a
huge box office hit or anything like that. But the
soundtrack really captured the zeitgeist of what was happening with
music at that moment. We've got two Pearl Jam songs.
(29:30):
Pearl Jam actually in the movie appearing as the band
Citizen Dick. Unfortunately we don't get their song touch Me
I'm Dick on the album, but we do get two
Pearl Jam songs. We get Alison Chains, we get Soundgarden,
we get Mother Lovebone, Screaming Trees, Smashing Pumpkins, you know,
(29:51):
and Jimmy Hendrix ton thrown in there. It's just a
great front to back album that really captures a point
in time when this was the music you were listening
to and you know, the Pearl Jam songs at the time,
you couldn't get them anywhere else. They weren't on the
album Tan Edge just come out, those those songs weren't
(30:13):
on there, So this was like a real treasure if
you are a Pearl Jam fan, so singles my number one.
I still still think it's a great album and really
something that takes you back to that time. If you
want to know what was going on with music, this
is it.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yeah, I knew this was going to be on your list.
This is actually one of my honorable mentions because of
its enormous blend of grunge bands and like just that
time period. My connection to this beyond everyone knows, or
maybe the listeners don't know this. You know my love
for that band. I mean, you would think it would
be those two songs. Now, I would argue that at
(30:50):
the time, it was really the song that stood out
to me and became my favorite was Alison chains Would,
which I don't really remember if their album was out
yet or if you could get then anywhere else, but
that was what I associated with the movie mentally associated
with the movie. You know, whether I liked the movie
(31:10):
more because of that, or wanted to see the movie
because of that. I can't really remember that feeling, but
I do know that that song held a place in
my soul. It was good, it was different than anything else.
So that's a great pick.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Yeah, and that's another one. Alison Chains has a short appearance.
You see them performing in the movie. Chris Cornell shows
up shortly in the movie. You know, filmed around Seattle,
so it had that kind of bonafide feeling to it,
and it just got lucky that it happened to integrate
all this or you know, had the foresight to see
this kind of scene was blossoming. Let's like make this
(31:47):
the backdrop for this movie right as it blew up.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
And that's the beautiful thing about some of like the
soundtracks and the movies that go with them, is that
they're a snapshot in time. Like Purple Rain. Although you
know you could argue, wow, that eighties Top Gun soundtrack, Man,
it's really not my cup of tea. I would say,
you know, give it a chance. You'd be stepping back
into the danger zone.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
You know. Yeah, I mean, same thing with the Crow.
You know, it might not be quite your thing, but
let it take you into the moment, or take you
into the vibe of the movie and you're like, oh, okay,
I see what it's doing here, and you get an
experience and then watch the movie, or watch the movie
and listen to the soundtrack. I don't know what you
should do first.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
I think if you don't have like something that ties
you to the music or the movie, I think you
watched the movie first. Like people who are younger, they
watch the movie first. I think they will appreciate the
music more.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
I think that's mostly how I've gotten two soundtracks.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Mm hmm, so.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Honorable mention, Shad, Yeah, I have a ton Do you
just want to like throw some out you just want to, like,
you know, spitball some out here.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Yeah, so my wife would be mad at me because
she was all about like, so this will tell you
the ones I had to choose from that time period,
Dirty Dancing, Footloose, and Flash Dance. Those all felt of
that time period. You know, they're all good soundtracks. They
all have popular songs from that time period, but those
three I think stuck out to me from the top
(33:16):
gun era.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Yeah, that Dirty Dancing one in particular, I remember being
pretty big time and has a song by Patrick Swayze
on it.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
That is the third best selling soundtrack of all time,
behind The Bodyguard and Saturday Night Fever.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Did you know that I didn't not, so I would
not have got that trivia question.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
I should have asked you that.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Here, I'll throw a few more at you. So the
one that I was very close to making my list,
let me say here the short couple years of the nineties.
Why was I fixated on this period? It was either
because I was in my very influential musical years of
my early teens, or this was just when soundtracks were
at their peak. I'm not sure what the answer to
(33:57):
that is. But here's another one. Ninety three Dazed and Confused,
just jam packed with classic rock hits. Two thousand and four,
will Take You Up There, Garden State. This was like
an indie rock soundtrack. Another sort of classic Forrest Gump.
This was a double disk with a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
On that one. Here's one eight mile eminem Yeah, that
was such a big part of not only this artist's
legacy if you want to call it that, but the
movie was really well done.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Another popular one that won some awards was The Oh Brother,
where Art thou soundtrack.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
That's a funny one. I didn't even think, yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
It's a funny one. It was like you would hear
that song like played at bars and stuff for a while.
The song that got super popular the Man of Constant Sorrow,
which is kind of a weird, weird moment.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Last almost made my list, believe it or not. I
don't know if this classifies as a score or a soundtrack.
Tron Legacy Punk does every song on there. That soundtrack
made me love Daft punk. I wasn't a huge like
Daft punk person before that, but man, I was like, I.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Remember when you got super into that and then you
started wearing that helmet to work.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Yeah, and I picture myself riding the little Tron cycles
around the.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
God.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
I loved Tron all right. Well, you know, lots of
lots of soundtracks to consider today. Hopefully we gave you
some options when you're going out and you're thinking about
purchasing a physical copy of a soundtrack, which you know
you you might you should, or put it on your
playlist Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora, whatever you listen to.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
You know what a great commercial.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Yeah they're paying us to say that anyway, that's it
for today's episode of Movies and Marketing. Until next time,
let's fade to black. I'll be back.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
It's not coming back. Eight
In a world where movies rely on marketing more than
ever to connect with audiences, one podcast aims to make
sense of it all. This is movies and marketing. Next
Saturday Night, where's sending you back to the future?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Go ahead, make my day?
Speaker 1 (00:23):
How about now you're crazy Dutch past.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
What we've got here is failure you milligate? Take them
around where across.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
All of how we might as well?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Good time. I am an f B I agent.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Movies. Shad, we're back to movies.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I mean, it's a weird topic for us to be
covering movies. On movies and marketing, surprising, it's a twist
in many ways.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, but once again we're back to the sounds of
movies versus the visuals the soundtracks.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yeah, the audio aspect, rather than what we're seeing. It's
about what we're hearing, and sometimes what we're hearing, not
even when we're in the theater watching the movie. Sometimes
what we're hearing before we've even seen the movie.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
It's true. George Lucas famously once said that sound is
fifty percent of the movie going experience.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yeah, I mean it's fifty high. I don't know. We've
had silent.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Films, Yeah, but were they good? I mean really, it's.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
A great point. And even even a lot of them
had like music, you know, wouldn't somebody like playing an
organ over on the side. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
If you didn't have the organ and you just had
dead silence, I think people would have walked out. It'd
been like, what is this? What are these pictures you
showing me?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Sound? That's where it's at, and there's a lot to that.
There's this sound you hear, the ambient sound, the score,
pop tunes, all those different aspects of audio that go
into the mix of a movie.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, but before we get into all that, Shad, I
got a good trivia question for you today. I think
you're gonna love it. I think you're gonna do really
well on this one. Okay, okay, mayonnaise, mayonnaise. Yeah, I'm like,
oh for oh, I'm not doing great on the trivia lately,
but that's okay. Listeners have told me, hey, I didn't
get it either, Patrick, so no harm, no foul. Other
(02:32):
listeners have said you might be really letting us all
down because you can't get any of the trivia questions.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
So I don't know, you know, it depends who you
listen to. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Anyway, I wanted to see if you could tell me
which of the following artists was not approached to record
danger Zone for Top Gun before Kenny Loggins was ultimately chosen.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Ooh, this is a good question.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Was it a Total B, Brian Adams, ce Rio Speedwagon,
or D Phil Collins?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
So the question is which of these artists was not
approached before Kenny Loggins? Right? Which means three out of
those four were approached before Kenny Loggins.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Correct.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Give me the choices again.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
A Toto, B, Brian Adams, ce Rio Speedwagon, or D
Phil Collins Top.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Gun eighty six somewhere around there. All those artists are
around that time period. So I don't know if that
helps me too much. I'm gonna say, even though he's
super popular, Phil Collins, I just can't picture him doing that,
So I go with Phil Collins.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
You are correct. Phil Collins was the only artist out
of those not approached to do danger Zone for the
Top Gun soundtrack. Now, sting factoid about this is that
Toto was originally intended to perform the track danger Zone,
but they had some legal conflicts. Then they went to
Brian Adams, but he refused any involvement in the film
(04:12):
because he said it glorified war and he didn't want
to have his work linked to it.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
He also refused to allow his song Only the Strong
Survive to be featured in the film. So I don't
know how the producers felt about that, but I feel
like maybe a cut like a knife, you know, little
Brian Adams humor.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
There, Brian Adams. Okay, you know with the warring taking
place in Robin Hood, Yeah, there's no problem. Well people
shooting each other with arrows. But that was about love.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
That was a movie about everything I do.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Ario Speedwagon was the choice. I almost picked. That's the
other one where I'm like, man, that would have been weird.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Ario Speedwagon.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Corey Hart also declined they didn't know it was going
to be as big of a hit as it was.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Now.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
I think artists are probably a little bit more inclined
to do soundtracks. I mean, even if it's a dud.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, real miss though, danger Zone big hit and Kenny Loggins,
this guy knows how to get that soundtrack money.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
You could be getting a lot of money just from
all of the trivia that you are winning at.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
I've been crushing the trivia. I find a way, I
find a way. I don't know if you're just your
questions are easier than my questions. Yeah, that could be
part of it. You do more multiple choice, which is helpful.
Maybe I should do that more often.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah, I make it easy on you.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
You make me look good, I make you look bad.
I'll try to help you out in the future a
little more.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
No, don't tell people that, because then that makes me
even look worse.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
All Right, I'll keep going the way and go. So
today we're talking about movie soundtracks. When I say soundtracks,
we're not talking about movie scores. I'm not talking about
you know, John Williams doing Star Trek Star Our Trek
Star Wars or Hans Zimmer that type of music that
(06:04):
you hear like orchestral music. I'm talking about collections of
license songs, you know, grab together as you're talking about
like the Top Gun soundtrack Danger Zone, all those songs
kind of put together on an album that people can buy.
That's what I'm talking about when I'm when we say
soundtrack here going back to the late sixties. It's a
(06:27):
while ago, but it's not that long ago in the
history of movies. You know, you had this whole sixty
years plus where they were just it was always if
you had music in their orchestral music, you know, that's
how we're getting our music until you kind of get
to this late sixties period where it's like, ah, what
if we do like songs people know. So from that
point on, soundtracking a movie with familiar songs or artists
(06:50):
kind of caught fire. Then we got soundtracks packed with
popular artists becoming another way to market a movie, particularly
to young audiences. By the nineteen nineties when this was
probably at its peak, you know, maybe even going into
the two thousands, before music went streaming, and I think
the soundtrack faded away in some sense, not like it's
(07:12):
not still there, but it kind of changed. So some
of the first notable movies to soundtrack with songs versus
orchestral music nineteen sixty seven's The Graduate, which featured the
pop folks songs of Simon and Garfunkel, and nineteen sixty
nine's Easy Rider, which featured a soundtrack made up entirely
(07:35):
of pre existing rock songs. They originally intended this as
a temporary soundtrack, but the movies creators, Dennis Hopper and
Peter Fonda decided to keep them in since we're in
a moment of music flicks. You know, We've had the
Bob Dylan biopick A Complete Unknown, which features a soundtrack
that includes some Dylan songs sung by the star of
(07:57):
the movie, Timothy Schallome. We've got Better Man, the story
of British pop superstar Robbie Williams featuring an Ai Monkey.
You heard that right, an Ai Monkey. And we've got
the just released new led Zeppelin doc Becoming led Zeppelin.
These have all come out in recent months. We figured
(08:20):
it was a good time to talk about the power
of a killer movie soundtrack. So let's start here, Patrick,
How does a great soundtrack work as a marketing tool?
How does it help sell a movie?
Speaker 1 (08:34):
So thinking through this a little bit deeper than I
typically do, because I'm not a deep thinker for any
of those listeners out there who think, yeah, that makes sense.
But based on definition of a soundtrack, it impacts a
movie by setting the mood, enhancing the emotional connection to
characters and plot points, foreshadowing events, and guiding the audience's
(08:55):
perception of scenes through the use of musical cues. Essentially
an invisible narrator that helps tell the story beyond just
visuals and dialogue. Typically that's what a soundtrack does.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Thinking through this, I thought, let me see what other
people say. And the best way to do that, best
way to see what the people are saying about something
is he go to Reddit.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
That's where the people are. Yep.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
So I came across this great Reddit thread from about
ten years ago that really summarizes the concept we're talking
about today. In the thread titled how a movie's soundtrack
affects success? I thought, how could I not find an
answer in this? The original poster op, as we all know,
in Reddit, ask the question how much does the quality
(09:39):
of a soundtrack affect the quality of the movie, and
vice versa. Now he's talking about the quality of the movie. So,
like most posts on Reddit, there are answers all over
the place, right, Some people are answering his questions. Some
people are trying to redefine the question and then answering
their own version of that question. But I pulled three
answers that made a lot of s sense to me
(10:00):
from small but Slow. That's the Reddit user which small
but Slow says, there's a funny story about the film
Lost Weekend. It was initially released without a soundtrack and
nobody liked the movie. Then they added music and re
released it and it won an Oscar for Best Picture.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
True.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
I don't know. I have a fact checked that story,
but it's interesting, right, And even if it's not true,
it's believable, right, No. Joe par Another reddit user stated,
I don't think the majority of eighties teen o is
it O war?
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah? I think so. Quick correction, it's ovra ovra.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Oh, thank you. Sorry, I'm just playing around with that word. Now.
I like it. Yeah, it feels good in the mouth,
it really does. Mostly thinking hughes here can be separated
from its soundtrack. I mean, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast
Club and even sixteen Candles are so tied to their
associated tunes. So from Honey in the Rock on Reddit
(11:05):
says music is naturally a perfect way to find those
feelings again without sitting through the film over and over.
Here's what I love about what they say. How often
do you listen to something that you saw in a
movie that you loved. You might have loved the movie,
or you might have loved the music from it, and
you listen to that music, and you remember the movie
because you're listening to it, that feeling that you got
(11:27):
so together. I think they really craft how music improved
the success of the movie.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
You know, I always like tapping into Reddit, a well
of information and as you say, you know, getting into
the people and you usually find some good thoughts there
that articulate things pretty well. I like this idea of
you've seen a movie, you go to the soundtrack. It
kind of gives you that feeling again, you can kind
of return to it. It's something outside the movie experience
(11:55):
where you can tap into that mm hmm. And I'm
pretty interested in the soundtrack adds this thing that exists
from a movie because of the movie, but it's not
the movie, right yeah, And I think that's the marketing value.
And it works in these inverse ways. And one of them,
you know, you kind of hit on there. You've seen
(12:15):
the movie, you hear this, you know, you hear some
of this music. You're like a man, I want to
get that soundtrack. And then every time you listen to
that soundtrack, it takes you back to the movie. And
then there's that other flip side where you haven't seen
the movie. Maybe you hear a song and then you Okay,
it's on the kill Bill soundtrack. I'm gonna get the
kill Bill soundtrack. Maybe Now I'm thinking of that movie
(12:38):
differently because of the song or the music. Now I
have that relationship with the thing that I didn't have before.
So it's kind of like the marketing breadcrumb. It's another
thing that's out there that's connecting you to the movie.
I think we kind of talked about online. Particularly in
an era before now, these soundtracks were more valuable in
(12:58):
the way that they were like mixtape. You couldn't just
go and grab these songs individually all the time. So
the fact that you're like, man, I can get a
bunch of these songs together that I can't really access
in other places was super valuable, particularly you know in
the nineties. Now we can just pop on iTunes and
like grab whatever songs we want.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
It's a great point. I mean, we've talked about this
on many podcast episodes about the relationship we have with
music and sound today versus when we were younger, when
it was just wasn't as always accessible.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Yeah, so let's get into that. You know, we're each
going to kind of share some iconic soundtracks that we
picked out, maybe some different criteria here and how we
got there. We can talk about that a little bit.
What are the rules, Patrick?
Speaker 1 (13:47):
One? I had to be connected to the music that
I was choosing in some way. Two it had to
have some success as a standalone, And three it had
to have at least somewhat appear two have helped the movie.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Yeah, mine similar highly personal. Anybody who's listening, who's like,
where is Saturday Night Fever? Where is you know, the Bodyguard?
Where are some of these greats of all time? You're
not gonna find them on my list. Mine's pretty much
personal to me, and maybe as anybody's list would be here.
(14:22):
I wasn't going for these are the most important soundtracks
of all time, or these are the best selling soundtracks
of all time. I was just going for these are
the ones that kind of hit me the most.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
The few that we picked. I mean, it's hard to
break it down to three, I gotta be honest.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
There's a lot. Yeah, so we each have three. We'll
start at the back like we always do.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
All right, So my first pick is into the Spider
Versus soundtrack, based around the movie with the same name.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
It is the same poky, but checked she was up.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
The film premierred in twenty eighteen, and the film grossed
three hundred and ninety four million dollars worldwide against an
ninety million dollar budget. Critical acclaim blah blah blah, tons
of accolades, right, so the movie did really well. The
album The Spider Man Into the Spider Verse Soundtrack debuted
(15:12):
number five on the US Billboard two hundred with fifty
two thousand album equivalent units, but the soundtrack moved up
to its peak position at number two, mainly due to
its lead single Sunflower, which was a big song from
the album What's Up. Danger was also on that which
was a very big hit. That soundtrack just everybody was
(15:33):
talking about it more so than any other soundtrack that
I can think of recently. So Into the Spider Verse.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
That's a really good one. Have this one on vinyl,
do you? Yeah? It looks cool, you know that. I
think that's what drew to me. And it's a good.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Vibes you know, Yeah, it's got good vibes. It really
pulls you along in that movie because it's meant to
sort of be the soundtrack to Miles Morales, who is
the main character in that movie, you can hear this
through his headphones as he's making his way through the city.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Yeah. No, that's a really good one. It's just an eclectic,
sonic landscape going on there. So that's a really good
example of I think, a modern one that does it
really well and kind of captures what's going on in
the movie. So my number three, I think similarly, you know,
captures the tone of the movie and the main character
(16:24):
of the movie, and that is nineteen ninety four's The Crow.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Oh Okay, shuttles.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
This is one where the soundtrack becomes almost bigger than
the movie. So now, The Crow when it came out
was a modest, a pretty decent hit at the US
box office and made fifty million. The Crow soundtrack, though,
was a little bigger, I would say, peaked at number
one on the Billboard Top two hundred and sold over
(16:57):
three million copies. This was kind of a big deal
when it came out. Had the Cure, nine inch Nails,
Rollins Band, Helmet, Rage against the Machine, stp Stone, Temple
Pilots for those who don't know, so a lot of
like harder rock bands of the time, you know, doing
songs you couldn't necessarily get on other albums in some cases,
and it just does what great soundtracks do, really kind
(17:19):
of encapsulates, you know, as I mentioned the vibe of
the movie in musical form while giving you, you know,
fans of this music and these artists are reason to
buy that soundtrack something they couldn't get somewhere else.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Not one that I thought would be on your list.
I gotta be honest, what's your personal connection to that?
If you don't mind me asking.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
My personal connections that I got that when I was
you know, I was probably like fourteen or fifteen a
big fan of the movie The Crow. My uncle got
that for me for birthday present. I just listened to
it NonStop. Really. That was the first time I heard
Big Empty by Stone Double Pilots because it was before
that album came out, which I really liked. And the
(18:01):
nine Inchnail's song on there, which I think is a
cover of like a Joy Division song which is featured
pretty prominently in the movie. Those are kind of the
big ones for me.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
It also is a great example of again music that
sets the mood for the movie, right. Yeah, all of
those songs slash artists feel very much of that that
genre of movie, a little dark.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Little leedgy, you know, kind of like takes you takes
you there. All right.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Well, my number two something I talked about at the
beginning of the episode. Top Guns soundtrack from nineteen eighty six,
released by Columbia Records, had the hit song danger Zone,
which we talked about in the trivia by Kenny Loggins,
who you know, was not the first pick, but he
(18:51):
did well. He did well the movie. When Top Gun
was released eighty six, the film received mixed reviews from
film critics, but four weeks after its release, the number
of theaters showing it increased by forty five percent and
it became a huge commercial hit, grossing three hundred and
fifty seven million dollars globally against a production budget of
(19:13):
fifteen million. As we all know in movies and marketing,
as we always talk about, that is a hit. You
can't beat that, you know, from a budget standpoint, and
it was the highest grossing domestic film of eighty six
as well as the highest grossing film of nineteen eighty
six worldwide. So movie did fantastic. Now, the soundtrack was
released in eighty six and a lot of people think
(19:36):
that it's become an instant classic because it's captured its
high octane energy. It went on to top the Billboard
two hundred chart for five consecutive weeks. It was the
best selling soundtrack of nineteen eighty six and one of
the best selling of all time of all time Chad
top Gun. According to AllMusic dot com, the album remains
(19:58):
a quintessential artifact to the mid eighties, and danger Zone,
which was in the original soundtrack, is also featured in
the twenty twenty two sequel film. So that's how good
that soundtrack title song was. Is that they brought that back?
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah? What can you say? This is one of the
bohemoths of all time. This is one of those things where,
like I was a pretty young kid when this movie
came out. I remember seeing this movie like right around
when it came out. I was aware of the song,
you know. I mean I knew danger Zone when I
was probably like seven or eight years old. I knew
this song. It was just like in the culture, these
(20:38):
things are just like part of it. Everybody knew Top Gun,
everybody knew danger Zone. Take My Breath Away was probably
like on the radio that was pretty popular too, So
it was just like everywhere it was just seeped in.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Yeah, and I think it takes you back. It creates
a feeling in you, the feeling you had when you
watched the movie. And I think it does that very well.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
I'd argue, even if you were not alive in the eighties,
if you listen to that soundtrack, it'll give you the
feeling of what it was like to be alive in
the eighties.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Yeah, the very least, like you're a Navy fighter pilot. Yeah,
in the eighties, in the eighties, of course.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yeah, Well, let me take you from the eighties back
to where we were before. They're nineteen ninety four and
I'm going with the pulp fiction soundtrack. How could I
not put a Tarantino soundtrack on here. I feel like
every soundtrack he makes is kind of a masterclass in
(21:40):
how to do this. Just he makes eclectic mixes of
kind of these unique songs you haven't heard of, you know.
I think that's part of his thing, is like I'm
going to introduce people to kind of these different things,
or put these different sets of songs together, you know,
assemble them in a way to kind of just have
these great needle drops throughout a movie. Pulp fiction though
in particular, I think is a soundtrack where it's almost
(22:03):
like cliffs notes for the movie. It has these dialogue
inserts throughout, you know, it's kind of like the ultimate
movie recreation soundtrack, giving you an almost sonic summary of
the film. So you get you know, a song, a
dialogue snippet, a couple other songs. Here's another piece of dialogue.
It's like taking you back to a like short abbreviated
(22:25):
version of the movie. In some way. You get surf music,
you get jungle boogie, you get al Green, you get
the centerpiece, I think, which is Urge Overkills Girl You'll
be a Woman Soon, which you'll probably say this is,
you know, sinful to say, but I think it's way
better than the Neil Diamond version. And then you get
those you know, snippets of like Royal with Cheese and
(22:46):
Zed's Dead Baby and things like that that just kind
of elevated to this it's almost like entire experience where
it's it's more than just even one song. It's like
this whole you got to listen to the whole soundtrack.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Yeah, I love that you brought up the fact that
it is a totally different type of soundtrack experience because
he does include those little snippets of dialogue from the
movie in it. I do appreciate those soundtracks that do
that because, like you said, it's almost like a sonic
summary of the movie. It's a great way to describe that.
(23:21):
Something he was involved with. Is a soundtrack that I
did not make my list, but also makes me think
of that is the Desperado soundtrack, which that movie had
Antonio Benderaz, but Quentin Tarantino makes an appearance in that movie.
I believe it's a Robert Rodriguez movie.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Yeah, he has like a monologue. He comes in and
does like a monologue.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Yeah, but it's kind of funny how the fact that
that soundtrack does that. So I don't know if he
had a hand in that, but it does really take
you back to the movie. I don't know how that
lives differently than the ones that don't, because I think
you have to have some relationship to the movie to
maybe get what's happening with that.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Yeah, it's a little bit of a different experience, you know.
It just gives you something to say. It's kind of
different way of presenting the material.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
I guess yeah, So all right, my number one. Whereas
all my other ones had various artists, this has one artist,
Purple Rain from nineteen eighty four, Prince in the Revolution.
I mean, when it comes to music and movies, you
(24:27):
can't get any truer than this. It's regarded as one
of the greatest albums of all time by numerous publications.
Rolling Stone ranked Purple Rain number two on its list
of one hundred best Albums of the nineteen eighties, number
eight on its list of five hundred greatest albums of
all time. Not just the soundtrack, right, it's not on
(24:50):
those just those lists. It's also on the greatest albums list.
So a little bit about the movie. The movie it
grows seventy million worldwide against the seven onzeo point two
million dollars budget Boom Movies and marketing success.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Right.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
It won an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score.
There's a lot of people that believe that Purple Rain
is one of the greatest musical films. All these new ones, notwithstanding,
you know, maybe the Bob Dylan one that just came out,
maybe that takes the cake. I doubt it. But Purple
Rain in twenty nineteen, The film was selected by the
Library of Congress for preservation. Tells you a little bit
(25:28):
of the significance of this movie. The album, though after
four weeks on the charge, it reached number one in
nineteen eighty four. The album spent twenty four consecutive weeks
at number one on the Billboard two hundred from eighty
four to eighty five, and more than thirty two weeks
in the top ten, becoming one of the most successful
(25:50):
soundtracks ever. Prince, everybody knows Prince. If you don't know Prince,
let's turn this podcast episode off right now, because I
don't know who you are. But Prince, it's just such
a rich album. You got Let's Go Crazy, Computer Blue Darling, Nikki,
When Doves Cry, so Let's Go Crazy and When Doves
Cry absolute the top two on this album, I Would
(26:11):
Die for You, and You've got Purple Rain, which is
the title. I mean, you can't go wrong if you
don't have this album in your library of music, not
just your playlist. You have to have a physical copy
of this thing.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
These are stone cold classics. Do you have this on vinyl?
Speaker 1 (26:29):
I absolutely have this on vinyl. I should have five
copies of this on vinyl, just in case one of
them wears out. You know, it's just it's that good.
It's that good. Do you agree? You disagree?
Speaker 2 (26:41):
I cannot disagree. The soundtrack is impeccable. There's not a
bad song on there. It's Prince at his peak and
everything's good. My great shame, I will say, is I've
never seen the movie Purple Rain.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
You've never seen that.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
No, I've never actually seen. I should probably get on that.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
It's a really like it really takes you back when
you watch it today versus then people went go go
over this movie back then. When you watch it today,
it's clearly like a moment in time, so you feel
a little disconnected from it there, but it takes you back.
And he was such he was just he was such
a personality like a character. I mean, there's nobody like
(27:19):
Prince No, I mean, and he is exactly how you
picture him. Plus you get a little Morse day in
the time in that movie, which I absolutely loved that
rivalry between them too. Like whether it was fabricated or
if it was real, I don't really care. It was
just so good. It was just something that made that
time very special. And that movie has a little bit
(27:40):
of that in there.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
So don't you think Morris Day and the Time should
have been on the soundtrack though?
Speaker 1 (27:45):
Yeah, I just think that this was Prince in the Revolution,
like all all Prince promotion. Yeah, yeah, so, but I
do agree. Like the song that he sings in there,
you know, Jungle Love is just like so good. It's
like one of his classics. But you had to that
on another album.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
What can you say? That's a must own? You're right,
every song on there is good. Usually you get a
soundtrack and you're like, I like these four songs, and
that makes it worthwhile. Yeah, this one is like obviously
it's one artist doing it, but it's every song is good.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
It's a very different feeling when you have just one
artist who sort of like crafted that soundtrack. There is
a fluidity, and I'm sure there's an art to the
people who are putting that soundtrack together of making the
flow happen in a very logical way. But Prince just
had a way of telling stories. It was just fantastic.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
So for my number one, I know you're probably thinking
I'm going to take you back to nineteen ninety four.
I'm not. I'm going to take you back to nineteen
ninety two, and like you said, Purple Rain, you know,
takes you back to a very specific moment. My number
one does the same thing, different moment, this moment being
the apex of grunge. This is the singles soundtrack. This
(29:07):
you know movie, some would say minor, not a huge hit.
This is Cameron Crowe before he did Jerry Maguire or
almost Famous. I think it's a really good and enjoyable movie.
I like it a lot, but you know, not a
huge box office hit or anything like that. But the
soundtrack really captured the zeitgeist of what was happening with
music at that moment. We've got two Pearl Jam songs.
(29:30):
Pearl Jam actually in the movie appearing as the band
Citizen Dick. Unfortunately we don't get their song touch Me
I'm Dick on the album, but we do get two
Pearl Jam songs. We get Alison Chains, we get Soundgarden,
we get Mother Lovebone, Screaming Trees, Smashing Pumpkins, you know,
(29:51):
and Jimmy Hendrix ton thrown in there. It's just a
great front to back album that really captures a point
in time when this was the music you were listening
to and you know, the Pearl Jam songs at the time,
you couldn't get them anywhere else. They weren't on the
album Tan Edge just come out, those those songs weren't
(30:13):
on there, So this was like a real treasure if
you are a Pearl Jam fan, so singles my number one.
I still still think it's a great album and really
something that takes you back to that time. If you
want to know what was going on with music, this
is it.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
Yeah, I knew this was going to be on your list.
This is actually one of my honorable mentions because of
its enormous blend of grunge bands and like just that
time period. My connection to this beyond everyone knows, or
maybe the listeners don't know this. You know my love
for that band. I mean, you would think it would
be those two songs. Now, I would argue that at
(30:50):
the time, it was really the song that stood out
to me and became my favorite was Alison chains Would,
which I don't really remember if their album was out
yet or if you could get then anywhere else, but
that was what I associated with the movie mentally associated
with the movie. You know, whether I liked the movie
(31:10):
more because of that, or wanted to see the movie
because of that. I can't really remember that feeling, but
I do know that that song held a place in
my soul. It was good, it was different than anything else.
So that's a great pick.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Yeah, and that's another one. Alison Chains has a short appearance.
You see them performing in the movie. Chris Cornell shows
up shortly in the movie. You know, filmed around Seattle,
so it had that kind of bonafide feeling to it,
and it just got lucky that it happened to integrate
all this or you know, had the foresight to see
this kind of scene was blossoming. Let's like make this
(31:47):
the backdrop for this movie right as it blew up.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
And that's the beautiful thing about some of like the
soundtracks and the movies that go with them, is that
they're a snapshot in time. Like Purple Rain. Although you
know you could argue, wow, that eighties Top Gun soundtrack, Man,
it's really not my cup of tea. I would say,
you know, give it a chance. You'd be stepping back
into the danger zone.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
You know. Yeah, I mean, same thing with the Crow.
You know, it might not be quite your thing, but
let it take you into the moment, or take you
into the vibe of the movie and you're like, oh, okay,
I see what it's doing here, and you get an
experience and then watch the movie, or watch the movie
and listen to the soundtrack. I don't know what you
should do first.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
I think if you don't have like something that ties
you to the music or the movie, I think you
watched the movie first. Like people who are younger, they
watch the movie first. I think they will appreciate the
music more.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
I think that's mostly how I've gotten two soundtracks.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
Mm hmm, so.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Honorable mention, Shad, Yeah, I have a ton Do you
just want to like throw some out you just want to, like,
you know, spitball some out here.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Yeah, so my wife would be mad at me because
she was all about like, so this will tell you
the ones I had to choose from that time period,
Dirty Dancing, Footloose, and Flash Dance. Those all felt of
that time period. You know, they're all good soundtracks. They
all have popular songs from that time period, but those
three I think stuck out to me from the top
(33:16):
gun era.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Yeah, that Dirty Dancing one in particular, I remember being
pretty big time and has a song by Patrick Swayze
on it.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
That is the third best selling soundtrack of all time,
behind The Bodyguard and Saturday Night Fever.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Did you know that I didn't not, so I would
not have got that trivia question.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
I should have asked you that.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Here, I'll throw a few more at you. So the
one that I was very close to making my list,
let me say here the short couple years of the nineties.
Why was I fixated on this period? It was either
because I was in my very influential musical years of
my early teens, or this was just when soundtracks were
at their peak. I'm not sure what the answer to
(33:57):
that is. But here's another one. Ninety three Dazed and Confused,
just jam packed with classic rock hits. Two thousand and four,
will Take You Up There, Garden State. This was like
an indie rock soundtrack. Another sort of classic Forrest Gump.
This was a double disk with a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
On that one. Here's one eight mile eminem Yeah, that
was such a big part of not only this artist's
legacy if you want to call it that, but the
movie was really well done.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Another popular one that won some awards was The Oh Brother,
where Art thou soundtrack.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
That's a funny one. I didn't even think, yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
It's a funny one. It was like you would hear
that song like played at bars and stuff for a while.
The song that got super popular the Man of Constant Sorrow,
which is kind of a weird, weird moment.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Last almost made my list, believe it or not. I
don't know if this classifies as a score or a soundtrack.
Tron Legacy Punk does every song on there. That soundtrack
made me love Daft punk. I wasn't a huge like
Daft punk person before that, but man, I was like, I.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Remember when you got super into that and then you
started wearing that helmet to work.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
Yeah, and I picture myself riding the little Tron cycles
around the.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
God.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
I loved Tron all right. Well, you know, lots of
lots of soundtracks to consider today. Hopefully we gave you
some options when you're going out and you're thinking about
purchasing a physical copy of a soundtrack, which you know
you you might you should, or put it on your
playlist Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora, whatever you listen to.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
You know what a great commercial.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Yeah they're paying us to say that anyway, that's it
for today's episode of Movies and Marketing. Until next time,
let's fade to black. I'll be back.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
It's not coming back. Eight
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