THE NEW MUSICAL BOX

Variations On A Theme (Part 3 of 3)

1. From Soldier To Scarfe 

Welcome back to the third and final part of my look at the role of recorded music on the soundtracks of TV shows and movies. Last time, we started to look at the world of movies by tracking the musical contributions from the birth of the talkies in 1927 through to the death of the hippy ideal in 1969. This time, we pick up the story and bring it through to the present day.

It's a tough call.

I noted last time that the sheer scale of the enterprise meant that I was only going to skim the surface of the subject, dipping in and out with what I felt would be good examples. As we reach the 70s, the size of the task mushrooms and to really do it justice would require a massive tome with a highly detailed index of movies and their musical content. Perhaps, one day, I'll consider that enterprise, but until then, we have 40 years of music and movies to look at - and there are some fine and varied selections to consider.

Solider Blue (1970)

The 1970s introduced a grittier and more challenging approach to the making of movies. It didn't apply to everything, of course, but there seemed to be a greater awakening of the complexities of life and death and directors rose to the challenge. 1970 saw a fine example of this new approach, Soldier Blue. Directed by Ralph Nelson and starring Candice Bergen and Peter Strauss, it focused on a massacre of native Americans in 1864. The soundtrack was enhanced by the title track sung by Buffy Sainte Marie, herself part native-American and the song proved popular, reaching the top ten here in the UK. 

Buffy Sainte Marie: Soldier Blue

The film's look at this dark side of American history proved challenging: shortly before its release, a report into the notorious Mai Lai massacre in Vietnam was published, a report that demonstrated in no uncertain terms the futility of US involvement in the war. The New York Times praised the movie saying that it

"must be numbered among the most significant, the most brutal and liberating, the most honest American films ever made"

It was also pretty graphic and violent, far more so than the usual fare served up by Hollywood and this proved to be very much an undercurrent that would run throughout the rest of the decade.

Isaac Hayes - Theme Music

Another landmark movie followed a year later, this one also groundbreaking and - in its own way - trendsetting too. This was Shaft, an almost film noirish thriller starring Richard Rowntree as a private detective operating in the underbelly of New York. It started the whole  blaxploitation genre of movies, helped in no small measure by the excellent soundtrack by Isaac Hayes. Even today, the first few bars of the main theme are so recognisable and the movie, well it was one of the most profitable of the year. 

Isaac Hayes: Theme from Shaft

   

Lady Sings The Blues (1972)

A powerful movie was released a year later, 1972. This was Lady Sings The Blues, a biopic on the life and music of Billie Holliday starring Diana Ross in the leading role. Ross was very convincing as Holliday, not just in performing her songs but also in the seedier and more awkward sides of her life. Looking back, I can still vividly recall Ross's accomplished portrayal of Holliday locked in a small prison cell in the grips of coming off heroin. The soundtrack album was one of Ross' most successful and sold over two million copies in the first week of release alone. 

Roy Harper in Made (1972) 

Here in the UK, our movie industry was still very much second-fiddle to Hollywood. But what the UK lacked in scale and budget, it made up in creativity and enthusiasm. Several very interesting music-based movies emerged in the first half of the decade and one of my personal favourites was released in 1972. It was called Made, was directed by John MacKenzie and starred singer-songwriter Roy Harper as a somewhat insecure rock star trying to establish some semblance of normal life. Carol White played a young single-mum he befriended and in its almost documentary style, it opened a window on the less glamorous side of his world. It also featured a number of Harper's songs - some as soundtrack accompaniment and some performed live as part of the story-line. The movie is rarely seen: there's no DVD, it's hardly shown on TV and unless you know where to look on the internet, that's the way it seems destined to stay.

Here's a fine acoustic number from the film, Little Lady:

                                                                                       Roy Harper: Little Lady

That'll Be The Day (1973)
Small roles too for John Hawken,
Keith Moon and Billy Fury

1973 saw two films which took a fresh approach to music: both looked back to the early 60s and the move of rock and roll towards a greater ubiquity before the arrival of The Beatles and the British invasion. The UK entry was That'll Be The Day, a film scripted by Ray Connolly who was a journalist and writer for The Melody Maker. It starred David Essex as Jim McClaine, a would-be musician who'd just left school and was reluctant to take up a university place, such was his rock and role calling. He met up with a streetwise mentor, played convincingly by Ringo Starr, who showed him the ropes and helped him along his way. Connolly based it on the experiences of a number of the Merseybeat bands such as Rory Storm & The Hurricanes who, of course, Ringo Starr had left to join The Beatles. It also had small roles for Billy Fury and Keith Moon and in its depiction, successfully showed both the glamour and the grime of the rock and roll business. Songs on the soundtrack came from Neil Sedaka, The Beach Boys, The Zombies, Carole King and The Drifters, plus of course David Essex' own performances as part of the story line.

A sequel followed a year later - Stardust - this time showing Jim's journey through the 60s to national fame under his new manager played by Adam Faith. It doesn't end happily, perhaps foreshadowing some of the tragedies that befell such as Marc Bolan and Phil Lynott in later years. 

American Graffiti (1973)

The US entry couldn't have been more different: brighter, brasher, bolder - this was American Graffiti, an early George Lucas opus and set in small-town America. The budget was small too - just $775,000, but Lucas gave acting breaks to Ron Howard and Harrison Ford and never really looked back. It too featured youngsters who had just finished High School and their coming-of-age journey as relationships, music and hotrods all mixed together in a last summer before the world of work. It was a rare example of a soundtrack driving the movie along and featured over 40 numbers from acts such as Bill Hayley, Del Shannon, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and The Beach Boys. The album sold millions and was a wake-up call to movie studios in general that here was another useful money-spinner in addition to the usual theatre revenues.

George Lucas, of course, went on to create Star Wars.

Another movie in that year of 1973 took a new approach to recorded music: this was The Sting, a film directed by George Roy Hill and featuring messrs Newman and Redford as prohibition era con men who hit on a big idea to make money. The soundtrack was laden with ragtime music, especially that written in the early years of the century by Scott Joplin. With adaptations by Marvin Hamlisch, radios and TVs across the western world were awash with one of the hit numbers, The Entertainer.

                                            The Entertainer (Written by Scott Joplin) 

Meanwhile, back in the UK, change was under way. 

The Exorcist (1973)

Mike Oldfield had started out as one half of the brother-sister duo The Sallyangie: he was 16, shy and brought in to play guitars (good) and sing some backing vocals (not so good). In the early 70s, he started work on what would turn out to be his major opus, Tubular Bells. With all instruments painstakingly played and overdubbed by Oldfield himself, the almost completely instrumental album only made it through to completion courtesy of a young Richard Branson who had just set up Virgin Records. Tubular Bells was its first release and the timing couldn't have been better. A big Hollywood production was having problems with its soundtrack: Lalo Shiffrin's submission to The Exorcist was deemed to be too doom-laden. Director William Friedkin wanted something like Tangerine Dream, but he opted for some modern classical pieces and, fortuitously for both Oldfield and Branson, large extracts from Tubular Bells. The movie was a controversial success - and Oldfield's album went on to sell millions.

The Exorcist: Tubular Bells (Mike Oldfield)

British music continued to loom large in 1975.

Slade In Flame (1973)

One of the best fictional depictions of how a pop band starts out and gains due fame and fortune featured glam-rockers Slade. The movie, Slade In Flame, saw the quartet play the band Flame and it was (here's that word again) a gritty and pretty down-to-earth production. Film critic Mark Kermode (himself in a band these days called The Dodge Brothers) has likened the movie to "the Citizen Kane of rock musicals" and it does stand up very well today. Noddy Holder in particular was singled out for praise, especially as the reviewer from Sounds put it, "...for his scene-stealing ability". The accompanying book sold extraordinarily well and the soundtrack album with a number of Slade songs such as How Does It Feel was a success too.

Slade: How Does It Feel

Tommy (1975)

At the other extreme, we have a film directed by Ken Russell. Surreal. Flamboyant. Energetic. It could only be his cinematic version of The Who's rock opera Tommy. Russell had long had a liking for musical productions, both in his time with the BBC and with such movies as The Music Lovers. But here, with Tommy, his imagination knew no bounds. The band all had roles to play, but Roger Daltrey featured prominently as Tommy himself, the "deaf.dumb and blind kid" of the title. Other musical stars included Elton John, Tina Turner and Eric Clapton - plus roles for music-friendly actors such as Jack Nicholson too. Needless to say, the soundtrack was Pete Townshend's 1969 masterpiece, but with numbers  performed by some of the principle participants. Somehow it all worked and it got a great reception, although time hasn't always been as kind to it as a later Who production, Quadrophenia, of which, more later.

The Who: Tommy - "I'm Free"

The Man Who Fell To Earth - The Novel

A fascinating movie emerged in 1976, The Man Who Fell To Earth. Based on the SF novel by Walter Tevis, it starred David Bowie as the enigmatic alien who arrives on Earth in an attempt to save his family and his race from drought. At the time Bowie was in the middle of his cocaine period and appeared suitably "other-wordly" as a result. He was all too realistic as Thomas Newton, using alien technology to make enough money to build a massive ship to transport water back to his homeworld. The corrupting influence of human life sees Newton descend into alcoholism and depression. The soundtrack was never formally released due to "contractual disputes", but it included a range of work from Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan, Bing Crosby, Roy Orbison and The Kingston Trio. 

The Pre-Fab Four: The Rutles (1978)

Punk exploded in the UK in 1977, but as with all things to do with Hollywood, its effect on movies suffered a delay and we'll revisit that genre shortly. However, whilst punk turned the music world on its head, it was another British production (albeit financed by American money) that sowed the seed of another style of rock-music movie. It started life as a skit on Eric Idle's BBC Rutland Weekend Television and was, of course, The Rutles. Two further skits appeared, this time in the US on Saturday Night Live leading to funding being provided by NBC to go for a feature-length version, All You Need Is Cash. Although (strictly speaking) a TV movie, it's impact subsequently ensures its role here in this blog. Written by Eric Idle, it essentially was a parody take on the life and career of The Beatles. Using Neil Innes' clever Beatles song pastiches and top quality simulacra of Beatles publicity, albums, TV appearances and films, it delivered a great conceit in accomplished fashion. Directed by Rob Reiner, it was to be highly influential - as we shall see. 

                                                              The Rutles: Piggy In The Middle

If any year in the 70s was going to demonstrate the growing importance of recorded music to the moves, it was 1979. Three big and very different productions hit the screens - two very American and one very British.

Manhattan (1979)

Let's start with a black and white film homage to New York City, a film directed by Woody Allen and starring (alongside the man himself) Diane Keaton. This was Manhattan, a romantic comedy drama revolving around the tortured love-life of a 42 year-old comedy writer. Much of the soundtrack was given over to a fine series of George Gershwin numbers. The most memorable sequence is surely the opening few minutes, a montage of New York scenes played out to the strains of Gershwins Rhapsody In Blue with Allen narrating the first chapter from his character's latest novel. One of Allen's best movies, it was nominated for several awards and took over $40m at the US box-office.

Manhattan: George Gershwin - Rhapsody In Blue     

Apocalypse Now (1979)

The second in our threesome  was a film that had been a long time in production, Apocalypse Now. A tortuous year was spent on principal photography, a period during which one of the lead actors (Martin Sheen) had a heart attack, a typhoon wrecked sets, an actor was sacked and budgets spiralled out of control. The film, loosely based on Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness, was set during the Vietnam War and alongside Martin Sheen, starred Marlon Brando as a rogue Colonel. It was a mesmerising production and aside from a welter of late 60s songs on the soundtrack, was renowned for its extensive use of The Doors' song The End, a near twelve-minute opus that just seems somehow so appropriate to the movie and its subject.

Thankfully, the film was a success and drew almost universally positive reviews.

Apocalypse Now: The Doors: The End

Quadrophenia - 1979 Soundtrack

We switch back to the UK for our third *music* movie of 1979, a movie we've already briefly mentioned - Quadrophenia. Based on Pete Townshend's second Who rock-opera (1973), it's a wonderfully constructed paen to the days of mods and rockers and to the early years of The Who themselves. Of course it's much more than that: it's both bleak and historic, uplifting and modern and boasts a top-drawer cast of actors and musicians: Sting, Toyah Wilcox, Phil Daniels, Ray Winstone, Leslie Ash and many others. The soundtrack is awash with contemporary songs (James Brown, The Kingsmen, Booker T, The Crystals) as well as the whole of the Quadrophenia LP. 

Quadrophenia: The Who - 5.15 - Movie Extract 

Flash Gordon (1980)

We've already covered a movie that had a soundtrack written by a rock band (Slade In Flame) and here comes another, a movie that is so different in tone and content - but it still works. This was Flash Gordon, directed by Mike Hodges and produced by Dino De Laurentiis, a movie based on the old 1930s comic strip drawn by Alex Raymond. The soundtrack band? Queen, a highly suitable choice for the slightly camp and overblown approach the film took to its subject. With Brian Blessed being, well Brian Blessed, Max Von Sydow as Ming The Merciless and Peter Wyngarde, Richard O'Brien and Robbie Coltrane, it was a big hit in the UK - but didn't do so well around the rest of the world. 

Flash Gordon: Queen - Theme Music

1980 also saw that punk film I mentioned earlier, only by now with punk having *moved on*, the film -The Great Rock And Roll Swindle, starring The Sex Pistols - ended up as a somewhat tongue-in-cheek mockumentary directed by Julien Temple, better known for his pop videos. Although it features The Sex Pistols, there is a loose story attached to the proceedings which we needn't trouble ourselves with here other than to say it's a stylised story of the rise of The Pistols. It had actually been filmed two years earlier and it's telling that Johnny Rotten (who had left the band by 1980) only appears in archive material. The music? A mix of Pistols-penned numbers, some Pistol-performed covers and the bizarre sight of train robber Ronnie Biggs performing "No One Is Innocent".

Sissy Spacek as Lorette Lynn in
Coal Miner's Daughter (1980)

The thirst for genuine biopics was alleviated somewhat by a stylish and rewarding look at the life of country singer, Loretta Lynn - Coal Miner's Daughter. Sissy Spacek starred as Lynn and managed two difficult feats - ageing from a put-upon young teenage wife to an established singing star and, perhaps even more triumphantly, tackling many of the vocals herself. Several country stars played themselves (such as Ernest Tubb, Roy Acuff) and The Band's Levon Helm played Lynn's father. Spacek deservedly won an Oscar for her role (Best Actress). The world of country music provided rich pickings for the biopic and we'll return to the subject later on.

The Blues Brothers (1980)
Jake and Elwood

A variation on the biopic approach is the tribute movie, but we're talking here about one that pays homage to an era of music rather than a specific performer. The Blues Brothers was also released in 1980 and is a comedy-action picture that delights in the R&B and soul music of artists such as James Brown, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles and John Lee Hooker - all of whom feature and perform as part of the storyline. The main protagonists (John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd) had originally developed their characters in Saturday Night live on NBC TV, a show we've already looked at when we covered The Rutles. In the movie version, Belushi and Ackroyd as brothers Jake and Elwood attempt to save a Catholic orphanage from closure by putting their old band together to raise the $5000 needed. Just one problem: they're just out of jail on parole and the police are on their tail.  

An American Werewolf In London
(1981)

1981 witnessed a further twist in the use of recorded music in a movie. John Landis directed the ground-breaking An American Werewolf In London, a comic horrow movie featuring David Naughton and Griffin Dunne as two American student backpackers who make the mistake of getting stranded late at night out on the Yorkshire Moors. One is attacked by a strange beast and is killed: the other survives. The survivor though is injured and before he realises it, he's become a werewolf and must sate his lust for blood on a regular basis. To add to his complications, he falls for beautiful Jenny Agutter and is haunted by the increasingly rotting corpse of his dead friend. And all of this played out to a wonderful selection of songs such as Van Morrison's Moondance, Creedence Clearwater revival's Bad Moon Rising and three versions of Blue Moon by Sam Cooke, The Marcels and Bobby Vinton. Sadly, the one song which really matches the plot - Warren Zevon's Werewolves Of London - was *unavailable*. As a coda to the movie, there is a scene set in a desolate pub out on the Moors, The Slaughtered Lamb: there's now a music venue in London with that name.

                                                         Creedence Clearwater Revival: Bad Moon Arising

Pink Floyd's The Wall (1982)

As this part of our story comes to a close -  a new era is just around the corner - we must look at one further example of an album becoming a movie, Pink Floyd with their film The Wall. The Roger Waters-penned LP had been released in 1979 and was subject to extensive touring across Europe and the USA, a key component of Water's lyrics of alienation being the construction of a wall across the front of the stage, cutting off the band from the audience. A single from the album - Another Brick In The Wall - featured a memorable animated video designed by Gerald Scarfe and this approach was to form the basis of the movie. With a combination of live action and Scarfe's animations, the movie takes the viewer through the complete album. The songs are all there, linked by some minimal dialogue. The main character - Pink -  is played by Bob Geldof, Bob Hoskins is a band manager and a young Joanne Whalley appears as a groupie. It had a generally positive reaction on opening, but Roger Waters is on record as saying that he found it 

"so unremitting in its onslaught upon the senses, that it didn't give me, anyway, as an audience, a chance to get   involved with it"  

Pink Floyd: Another Brick In The Wall

And alongside the movie, another new development, the filming of "how it was made" which was aired late in 1982 on the fledgling music TV channel, MTV. It sounds very much like we're at the threshold of change.

2. From Tap To Tarrantino

I make no excuse for spending a little extra time on our next cinematic choice. Every once in a while, there comes a movie which resets the clock in terms of what has gone before - and in 1984, that film was This Is Spinal Tap. Directed by Rob Reiner, it's ostensibly a *mockumentary* telling the story of a fading British rock band, Spinal Tap and their last gasp efforts at a US tour to promote a new album. So far so good. The back story is well presented with the band featuring in *archive* footage from 1960s TV specials and news stories. As with The Rutles - which almost acted as midwife to Spinal Tap - the attention to detail is vital and the actors who play the members of the band rise to the occasion -  and speak with impeccable English accents.

Except of course, they're American actors and Spinal Tap is a fictitious band.

Spinal Tap - Montage 

The quality of the movie is the flurry of small pieces of throw-away details which, on reflection, can only have been added by a writer who has "been there, done that". The downtime between gigs, the relentless boredom, the over-enthusiastic manager, the bizarre venue bookings -  all these things and more are featured here. Michael McKean (David St Hubbins), Harry Shearer (Derek Smalls) and Christopher Guest (Nigel Tufnel) play the three main members of the band - with a host of other actors dropping in and out as a succession of drummers, a running gag throughout the movie. Reiner himself plays Marty Dibergi, the director of the documentary and there are guest appearances from Patrick McNee, Angelica Huston, Paul Shaffer (in real life, director of music on the Letterman Show), Billy Crystal and Ed Begley Junior.  

This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

Real-life bands up and down the land claim to identify with sequences in the movie, be it the "amps that go up to 11 - because it's one louder" to the complaints about the post-gig sandwiches, the failure of Derek Smalls' "pod" to open on stage and the design error in the Stonehenge set that renders the final version the same size as the original scale drawing. It bears repeat viewing and although there is no "recorded music" under the terms of this blog's rules, it does have an excellent array of back catalogue pieces written by the band which sound just like they could have been real. 

As a strange twist of fate, such was the success of the movie, that the fictitious band went out on tour, the actors all being accomplished musicians. An album was also released and the style and wit of the whole Spinal Tap brand has gone on to influence many others who followed in their footsteps.

The Killing Fields (1984)

An altogether more serious film that year was Roland Joffe's The Killing Fields an at times harrowing depiction of the rise of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and their ruthless desire to reset the clock to Year Zero. Based on the work of two journalists who were there at the time (Dith Pran and Sydney Schanberg), it traces the nightmare regime from its origins at the end of the Vietnam War through to the journalists' capture and later escape to freedom. The sequences featuring the huge pits filled with rotting bodies really do bring home the horror of what extreme regimes can do and it still shocks today. Much of the score was composed by Mike Oldfield and there's a highly moving end-sequence when freedom is reached, a sequence that plays out into the end credits with John Lennon's Imagine providing a sign of hope to come.

Streets Of Fire (1984)
Some good songs.

An unusual movie to complement the diverse approaches of This Is Spinal Tap and The Killing Fields was Streets Of Fire, described as "A rock and roll fable" in its pre-publicity. It's an odd movie, a strange mix of drama, comedy and musical - but it all hangs together pretty well. Directed by Walter Hill, it also contains retro elements dating back to the 50s and 60s as it tells the story of a soldier returning home to discover that his wife - lead singer in a band -  has been kidnapped by a biker gang. A witness joins forces with the soldier and the rest of the movie follows their attempts to challenge the bikers and rescue his wife. Some of the soundtrack was produced by Jim Steinman, but there are interesting numbers in there from Ry Cooder, Maria McKee and Dan Hartman. Sadly, it was a flop at the box-office despite a number of relatively positive reviews.   

Blue Velvet (1986)

We pass across 1985, noting the appearance of Tina Turner in Mad Max 3: Beyond The Thunderdome (a leading role as well as singing We Don't Need Another Hero on the soundtrack) and arrive in 1986 and a key film from the maverick director, David Lynch. This was Blue Velvet, a movie in the same mould as his later TV series, Twin Peaks, a surreal look at small town life and goings on. The seedy underworld is well depicted and Dennis Hooper gives a creepy performance as a psychotic criminal who gets his kicks from kidnapping locals and subjecting them to various forms of abuse. The soundtrack includes a lot of early 60s pop song such as  Bobby Vinton's number which forms the movies' title and Roy Orbison (In Dreams) and Julee Cruise - who would reappear on the soundtrack to Twin Peaks in 1990.

Bobby Vinton - Blue Velvet

Absolute Beginners (1986)

An ambitious British movie was also released in 1986, a movie that was - unfortunately - lumbered with a pre-release label as "the film to save the British film industry". Absolute Beginners was based on a 1950s novel by Colin McInnes, had a soundtrack supervised by jazz legend Gil Evans and in its sets and shooting had the look of an extended (and lush) pop video: which is no surprise as it was directed by Julien Temple (The Great Rock And Roll Swindle). It starred David Bowie, Sade and a young Patsy Kensit in its tale of late 50s London, still recovering from the war and facing the assault of rock and roll as well as a new phenomenon, the Notting Hill race riots of 1958. Despite being talked up, it failed at the box office, but looking back, it has a certain quality to it and it does have some great songs from Bowie (the title number), Ray Davies, Jerry Dammers and Eighth Wonder.     

David Bowie - Absolute Beginners

The late 80s were characterised by a number of biopics: The Buddy Holly Story in 1987; Bird - Clint Eastwood's homage to jazz great Charlie Parker - in 1988; Great Balls Of Fire - the life and times of Jerry Lee Lewis - in 1989. Alongside these, there was the Back To the Future trilogy with songs from Huey Lewis & The News together with some clever time-travel trickery in the first instalment resulting in Marty McFly (Michael J Fox) inadvertently providing Chuck Berry with some of his guitar licks and his famous duck-walk. These movies are good examples of the increasing use of  recorded music - at a time when MTV and its various cable clones were making music videos ubiquitous and thus, almost encouraging viewers and film-makers to do likewise. Movie music could now be dropped into a range of categories such as biopic, tribute, retro, story-integral, incidental and credits. Soundtrack albums were de rigeur and helped the bottom line too. And of course, VHS releases were becoming much more common - both to hire and buy - and the lead-in time from movie release to VHS production was falling. So, with production companies and record labels all taking a share of the profit, what would the next step be?

Two films illustrated different approaches in 1990. 

Goodfellas (1990)

Goodfellas was directed by Martin Scorsese, a great music enthusiast with a wide knowledge of its history and genres. It's an involving and absorbing movie showing the origins and rise of an American crime family from 1955 through to 1980. It starred Robert De Niro, Joe Pecsi and Ray Liotta as gangster members of the family and was brutal and honest about the world of organised crime. Scorsese carefully chose the soundtrack songs, using them to pinpoint exact moments in time and occasionally, with clever cutting, some song-lyrics "commented" on the action on screen. Bobby Darin, Cream, Derek & The Dominoes, Muddy Waters, Aretha Franklin and Tony Bennett all provided ideal moments and added something extra to the movie.  

Aretha Franklin - Baby I Love You   

Ghost (1990) - Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze

The second film eschewed the use of music as an integral part of the movie, but did cleverly use one number at a particularly emotional moment: the film was Ghost, starred Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore and had a soundtrack scored by Maurice Jarre. The number had originally been released by The Righteous Brothers back in 1965 (although the song was older than that) and Unchained Melody not only had a starring role in the movie, it re-entered the charts and, in the UK, went to number 1 for the fifth time and was the biggest selling single of 1990. This was a clear demonstration of the power of an existing song to add something extra to a movie, especially linked to a highly-charged scene.

One final movie before the next era begins came out in 1991.

The Doors (1991)
Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison

This was a big-budget biopic directed by Oliver Stone, a biopic which focused on the life and times of The Doors and in particular, its enigmatic leader Jim Morrison. Morrisons' death in Paris back in 1971 had led to all sorts of rumours about whether or not he was still alive, but there was no doubting his popularity and power to sell records: Rolling Stone magazine had recently put him on their cover, a head and shoulders shot, all tumbling curls, piercing eyes and with no shirt, the epitome of something charged and sexual. The time was right and Stone was a respected director and, importantly, like Scorcese, was a musicologist. The movie - The Doors - starred Val Kilmer as Morrison, his likeness bearing a more than uncanny resemblance to The Lizard King, whilst founder and keyboardist Ray Manzarek was played by Kyle McLachlan who was now high profile following his lead role in 1990's TV series, Twin Peaks. With careful attention to the quality of the music (some Doors originals, some with Val Kilmer providing strikingly authentic vocals) and some fine cinematography, it was set for success.

Or was it?

Stone adopted a somewhat mythical approach to his depiction of Jim Morrison: there was no holding back from his chronic alcoholism, his drug-taking and the obsessions he had with death and spirituality. His family and friends were not amused, and although the movie is based on real events, Stone's spin on them was viewed less than favourably. That aside, it was a well structured movie and I actually quite liked it. 

And so, to the start of a new era. Not ground-breaking at first, but a 1992 movie that became highly influential, not just in its directorial style, but also for the range and interest of the music selected to accompany it. The movie? Reservoir Dogs, directed by maverick new director, Quentin Tarrantino.

Reservoir Dogs - The essential Soundtrack (1992)

Ostensibly a violent and at times disturbing crime movie, Tarrantino - who also wrote the screenplay - plays with our sensibilities throughout. It's not a linear movie: it jumps from place to place, there are plenty of cultural references to pick up along the way, there are some superb moments from the fine ensemble cast (Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Chris Penn and Steve Buscemi amongst them) and - of course - the masterful use of sometimes obscure or forgotten songs to add impact to the action. Tarrantino allows some of the movie dialogue to spill across into the songs themselves and with numbers from Joe Tex, The George Baker Selection. Harry Nilsson and - most entertainingly (depending upon your point of view) Stealers Wheel with Stuck In the Middle With You. 

We'll return to Mr Tarrantino in the next section. 

3. From Repetition to Runaways 

It strikes me that as we get closer to the present day, it becomes more difficult to find a natural divide to break this blog down into manageable chunks. That's hardly surprising as sometimes, trends don't become apparent until some time afterwards. However, there is something else at work here which - from the early 90s onwards - was the growing ubiquity of recorded music in all manner of movies. It was no longer the exception and although original movie scores still trump in terms of their popularity, recorded music trends do seem to be characterised by this explosion, an explosion with lumps and and bits falling back to Earth into convenient genre boxes.

I chose 1992 as the most recent break-point because, looking back from my lofty position here at the tail end of 2012, I could detect in Quentin Tarrantino someone who did bring something new to movie production: almost a holistic approach whereby he wrote, directed, sometimes acted and most definitely ensured that the quirky musical selections added to the movie's value.

The genre-boxes I touched on earlier are useful handles, but that's all: ask ten people for how they'd categorise movie music, and they may well come up with something entirely different. So, to demonstrate their aid to my cause, here's another biopic to consider.

Tina Turner Biopic
(1993)

The subject is Tina Turner, an artist we've touched on a couple of times already and in 1993, What's Love Got To Do With It was a production that was very well received indeed. Ike and Tina Turner had had a stormy life together, but there's no doubting the quality of the music they made - but when things got really tough, she left, went solo, moved to Europe and pretty much reinvented herself. Angela Bassett played Tina Turner and won a Golden Globe for best actress whilst Laurence Fishburne played Ike, even singing Ike's parts in a version of Proud Mary. Tine Turner herself re-recorded her parts for the movie, but the original masters were used to provide the orchestration and music.

Tina Turner - What's Love Got To Do With It

Groundhog Day - Always coming
around again (1993)

This section's heading is "From Repetition To Runaways" - and here's the repetition reference right now: an original comedy-drama starring Bill Murray made in 1993, Groundhog Day. Directed by his Ghostbuster's chum Harold Ramis, Murray plays a local TV meterorologist who is sent to cover the appearance of Punxsutawney Phil, a groundhog who (it is said) can predict when spring will start - appearing on a cloudy day, for example, means it comes early. Murray is a cynical and somewhat self-centred individual who sees this task as being a bit beneath him. Forced to stay overnight following a blizzard, Murray awakes the following morning to the sound of the alarm radio blasting out Sonny & Cher's I Got You Babe. What he doesn't realise is that he's now - unaccountably - stuck in a timeloop, destined to relive that awakening and the subsequent day and night again and again, endlessly. 

Needless to say, he eventually breaks out of it and finds that life isn't so bad after all - but it's a good example of recorded music playing a key part in a movie storyline. 

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Quentin Tarrantino returned in 1994 with one of his most influential movies, Pulp Fiction. Starring John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson, it's (oddly enough) a violent and sometime comic crime drama packed full of memorable scenes and left-field musical selections. It's quite a complex and cut-up storyline, but Travolta and Jackson play a couple of crooks-cum-mobsters working for a manipulative crime boss. The soundtrack has no specially composed music at all being packed full of rock and roll, surf music, soul and pop - some  with original artists and some updated by a ecelectic mix of performers including Maria McKee and Samuel L Jackson himself. Ricky Nelson, Al Green and Dusty Springfield also rubbed shoulders with Kool And The Gang and Chuck Berry, all of which helped propel the soundtrack album to over two million sales. Not a bad return for the producers.

Urge Overkill - Girl You'll Be A Woman Soon

      

Jackie Brown (1997)

I used the word "Repetition" in this section heading not just because of Bill Murray's experiences in Groundhog Day, but also to reflect the energy being put into the movie business by that man Tarrantino. Using one of my genre boxes, I guess you can consider 1997's Jackie Brown a movie parody - or a tribute/homage if you prefer. It starred Pam Grier as the eponymous Jackie Brown: she plays an airline attendant with a small operator flying between Mexico and the USA: she supplements her meagre earnings by smuggling money into the USA for a notorious gun runner played by - again - Samuel L Jackson. The movie is based on Elmore Leonard's 1974 novel Rum Punch and takes the form of a tribute to the blaxpoitation movies of the 70s, a genre we touched on a while ago. 

The soundtrack is stuffed full of great music - Bill Withers, Johnny Cash, Randy Crawford, The Delfonics, Minnie Ripperton and Bobby Womack, for example. As is also customary for a Tarrantino soundtrack, there are dialogue clips galore: it sold very well indeed.

Pleasantville (1998) - In Black & White
and Colour

For a change, the following year (1998) witnessed three very good examples of the different treatment given to recorded music in the world of movies. A charming and cleverly made movie was Pleasantville, a fantasy drama (with a good dash of comedy) that used a time-travelling device to compare and contrast the lifestyles of the late 90s with the 1950s. For the sequences set in the 50s, black and white photography was used - and as the influence of two 1990s *travellers* bore fruit on the earlier era, people and objects started turning into full colour: the conceit was that not only could we see that happening, but the residents could too - and it wasn't always good news. It starred a young Toby Maguire and Reese Witherspoon as the time-travelling teenagers and of course, the 1950s was a minefield of period music from such as Gene Vincent, Etta James and Buddy Holly. An appropriate and well produced cover by Fiona Apple of The Beatles' Across The Universe neatly framed the time-travelling theme.

Fiona Apple - Across the Universe

The second - and very different movie - was Wayne's World, yet another production that grew out of a series of comedy sketches on Saturday Night Live. It stars Mike Myers (who we shall return to later) and Dana Carvey as the hosts of a late-night cable TV show in which they spend most of their time making fun of the guests and looking at glamour pictures of various celebrities. There are plenty of musical references and an integral part involves the playing of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, such exposure sending the song back to the top of the charts some 20 years after it was first released.

Trainspotting (1998) - Soundtrack

The last example is a landmark film in many ways, a sometimes gritty and downbeat drama laced with great wit and style by director Danny Boyle: it is Trainspotting, a take of heroin addiction in Glasgow and starring Ewan MacGregor, Ewen Bremner  and (possibly in the  role of his life) Robert Carlyle as the hard-case addict Begbie. It's won a shower of awards and praise and saw two soundtrack albums released, such was the quality of the musical content. Prominent in the opening sequence is Iggy Pop's wonderful Lust For Life - and of course, Lou Reed's paen to heroin, Perfect Day.

Iggy Pop - Lust For Life

   

And so we reach 1999 and one of my personal favourites, a film which uniquely ( I think) was deliberately based around the songs of one artist, Aimee Mann. Mann had been part of a 1980s new wave band, Til Tuesday, but decided that she needed more creative control and went solo. A couple of critically well received albums were released, but she started having problems with her record label - a label that wanted something "more commercial" than her artistic integrity would allow. She had completed a demo version of what was to become her third album, but the contractual disputes meant that not only would they not release it - she couldn't go off and do her own thing either. Film director Paul Thomas Anderson - fresh from his success with Boogie Nights (a movie that, possibly, we should have covered) - was allowed carte-blanche with his next; and as he started writing, he was listening to those Aimee Mann solo releases. He made contact with her and she let him have access to the demos which he then used as the basis for his film, Magnolia.

Aimee Mann: Magnolia (1999)

It starred Tom Cruise, William H Macy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jason Robards, Feliciity Huffman - and Melora Walters who speaks a superb line from Mann's song Deathly as the opening words of the film:

"Now that I've met you/Would you object to/Never seeing each other again" 

Eight other Mann songs appeared on the soundtrack - including a cover version of Harry Nilsson's One - and, somewhat incongruously, there were a couple of numbers by Supertramp too.

Aimee Mann - Deathly      

And as for Aimee Mann's music, the soundtrack album unblocked the contractual dispute and she released her finished album on her own Superego Records label as Bachelor #2.

So, with the millennium upon us what would the year 2000 bring? It's just a number after all, nothing special - but at least we did get three contrasting movies that further explore the relationship with recorded music.

American Psycho (2000)

First up was American Psycho, a satirical psychological thriller based on the novel by Brett Easton Ellis. It proved to be a little controversial - mentally unstable yuppie goes on a gore-filled killing spree - but thanks to a positive reception by The New York Times "A mean and lean horror comedy classic", it did pretty well at the box office. It starred Christian Bale (remember him as the young Jim in Empire Of The Sun?) as the deranged yuppie who leads a twisted double-life. William Dafoe is a detective brought in by Bale's character to search for a missing friend of his. Dafoe, of course, is not to know that the *friend* had already been murdered by Bale, the first of a long and bloodthirsty roll call of bloody dispatches. Our musical interest is peaked by the use of Huey Lewis And The News playing "Hip To Be Square as Christian Bale commits his first murder. The soundtrack itself was scored by John Cale (one time Velvet Undergorund Man) and also includes David Bowie, New Order, The Cure, Tom Tom Club and Eric B And Rakim. 

Almost Famous (2000) - and
almost autobioghraphical 
(Cameron Crowe)

The next production was Almost Famous, an excellent coming-of-age comedy drama directed by Cameron Crowe and, in no small part, autobiographical in content for this one-time Rolling Stone staffer. Patrick Fugit plays William Miller, a teenage aspiring rock writer - his mother would rather he be a lawyer - who sends rock critic Lester Bangs copies of his band reviews for various underground papers. Bangs - played by Philip Seymour-Hoffman - takes pity and assigns the young wannabee to review a Black Sabbath concert. He meets up with a groupie by name of Penny Lane - and well, one thing leads to another and his career on the road begins to open up.

It's a fine mix of reality (real bands, real people) and the imagined (such as Stillwater, the band that our hero falls in with) and the comic elements combined with the warmth of the scripting make for a fine production. As one would expect, the soundtrack is full of good things such as The Who, Simon & Garfunkel, Todd Rundgren, The Allman Brothers, Led Zeppelin and the ubiquitous David Bowie.

Oh Brother Where Art Thou
The Coen Brothers (2000)

The third millennium movie is a personal favourite. It's one of those rare things, a great story with music as an integral part - and a movie that bring back to life a musical genre of years gone by and helps to make it successful once again. The movie? Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? starring George Clooney, John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson as three escaped convicts back in 1930s America. It's a Coen Brothers comedy and a real homage to the period and the music, so don't expect slapstick fun, more a series of mishaps and adventures from the trio who - ultimately - turn out to be the good guys. They become - almost by default - an old-time country-folk band called the Soggy Bottom Boys and a recording they make of the well known traditional number Man Of Constant Sorrow turns out to be a big radio hit.   

The whole movie has been treated by a (then) new process to provide a sepia look to it - and this really sets off the soundtrack which is packed with bluegrass, folk, country and gospel music of the period. T-Bone Burnett produced the music and involved such luminaries as Alison Krauss, Gillian Welch, Ralph Stanley and Sam Phillips. The album was one of the biggest selling soundtrack releases ever with some 8 millions copies sold by 2007. 

Donnie Darko (2001)

Every now and again, there's a small movie that emerges that pretty quickly gains quite a following and becomes  a cult talking point. 2001 saw the release of Donnie Darko, a comedy fantasy-drama which cost just $5.4m to make - and initially took just $4m in box office receipts. It was the enigmatic content which drew the attention of movie enthusiasts - what did it all mean? Who is "Frank", a strange character who wears a rabbit costume? Why does a jet-engine fall off a plane and crash through the bedroom ceiling of the teenaged Donnie Darko? And was it all a dream - or some peculiar alternative time-line mystery? No matter - it's a movie that bears watching more than once and it also made excellent use of a Tears For Fears number, Mad World.

Tears For Fears - Mad World

Another brace of contrasting movies appeared in the following year, 2002. One was the third in a madcap series of spy-spoof extravaganzas from Mike Myers - the other, a heartfelt homage to the wild and exciting Madchester scene of the 1980s and early 1990s.

Goldmember (2002)

Let's start with Mike Myers and his Austin Powers alter-ego. His snaggle-toothed parody of a suave and sophisicated  swinging 60s London spy first appeared in 1997 in Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery. Filmed in the US with a wonderful approach to the creation of a faux-London environment (real enough to look, well, not American, but also sufficiently incorrect so that it was obviously how a movie maker approached their task), Myers himself was Austin Powers with his on-off upmarket girlfriend Vanessa Kensington played by Elizabeth Hurley. It was a bright and brash affair with numerous nodding winks to various Bond movies, music of the period and in its sequences set in the late 90s, a hark back to the BBC series Adam Adamant. The follow-up - in 1999 - was The Spy Who Shagged Me - and the final instalment (so far) was Goldmember (2002). 

Whether you like the style of humour, the constant need to include obscure musical pointers (at one stage, for example, Myers talks about a new secret project being started by a Mr Parsons - a reference to prog and rock outfit The Alan Parsons Project) and the convoluted set-ups to many of the visual gags, there's no doubting the fun they had - and we must be thankful for some interesting entries on the soundtracks. Burt Bacharach appeared as himself (one sequence showed him on an open-top bus complete with keyboards singing "What The World Needs Now") and there were great selections from The Strawberry Alarm Clock, Susannah Hoffs, Space, The Lightning Seeds (Man Of Mystery), Madonna, REM, Green Day, The Flaming Lips (Spy Who Shagged Me) and The Rolling Stones, Angie Stone, Beyonce and Quincy Jones (Goldmember).       

Susannah Hoffs - The Look Of Love

24 Hour Party People (2002)
The story of music in
Madchester

In the 1980s and 1990s, the city of Manchester was often known as Madchester, such was the loved-up and chemically enhanced power of the local music scene. At its heart was The Hacienda, a relatively short-lived club founded by Tony Wilson and various members of New Order. For a while it was Happening Central and is lovingly recreated in Twenty-Four Hour Party People, the other of our 2002 selections. What made it stand out was its' authentic approach to the bands that played there, the actors chosen to portray real individuals (some alive, some dead) and a central performance from Steve Coogan as Mr Manchester Music, Tony Wilson. Although it's a dramatisation (as opposed to documentary), it really does give a great feel to the era - and speaking as someone who lived in Manchester during the core of the 80s, I can vouch for that. 

The soundtrack was really special - a soundtrack for an era as much as just a collection of songs: The Happy Mondays, Joy Division, The Clash, Buzzcocks, New Order, 808 State and many more. As for The Hacienda, as was apparent from the movie, art was overtaken by financial reality and it closed in 1997. A block of luxury apartments now occupies the famous corner plot just off Lower Moseley Street.

Kill Bill Volume 1 (2003)

Maverick director Quentin Tarrantino returned in 2003 with another fine entry in his run of stylistic pulp-and-pop-art movies. Once more featuring Uma Thurman, Kill Bill turned out to be too long for most commercial movie-theatres to show and thus it was split into Volume 1 (2003) and Volume 2 (2004). Essentially an action-thriller, Thurman plays "The Bride", who seeks revenge on a secretive team of assassins who had burst in on her wedding party and in trying to kill her, murdered the guests. The movie takes its cues from a range of influences - spaghetti westerns, Japanese chanbara ("sword-fighting" movies) and the Hong Kong-based martial arts and kung-fu productions that were popular in the 70s and 80s. Volume 1 was also notable for the use of comic strip sequences for some of the more violent moments - and, of course, for the iconic yellow costume that Thurman wore for most of the movie. 

Mix in to all of that his usual eclectic approach to music - an odd mixture of originals (Nancy Sinatra, Quincy Jones, Isaac Hayes, Neu!) and new versions of songs ranging from garage rock to blues (The 5,6,7,8s, Santa Esmerelda, various members of the cast) and Volume 1 turned out to be a great success.

Kill Bill
Volume 2 (2004)

Volume 2 was equally well-received and added further musical treasures such as Malcolm McClaren (About Her), Johnny Cash (A Satisfied Mind) and The Wu-Tang Clan (Black Mamba). There was a different approach though inasmuch as Robert Rodrigues was brought into provide a thematic score into which the various recorded numbers were dropped at key moments of the action.

The 5,6,7,8s with Woo Hoo (Kill Bill Volume 1)


A complete contrast was another music-based production from the team behind This Is Spinal Tap. In A Mighty Wind, the focus of their clever parodies was the emergent folk boom from the early 60s represented by such bands as The Kingston Trio, The New Christy Minstrels and Ian & Sylvia. Filmed in mockumentary style, it revolves around the attempts of promoters to get three "legendary" folk bands to reunite for a TV special, the first time they will have played together for years. The bands - The New Main Street Singers, The Folksmen and Mitch & Mickey - all have issues and back-story galore which makes the putative concert a logistical nightmare. Harry Shearer, Christoper Guest and Michael McKean swap their heavy metal duds for those of The Folksmen - and a magnificent job they do.

A Mighty Wind (2003)

The music was specially recorded for the film by the cast, but with loving homage to familiar 60s numbers and styles: so it breaks one of our rules, but what's the point of a rule if it can't be twisted once in a while? The critical reception was largely positive and although clearly not another This Is Spinal Tap, one reviewer said it "...was more heartfelt" - and I'd definitely go along with that.   

In commercial terms, it was a slow burner, but it did well enough for the fictitious "The Folksmen" to go out on a US tour at various hallowed venues. 

A Mighty Wind - Concert Finale

We've already covered Kill Bill Volume 2 which came out in 2004: that year also saw another biopic, this one taking singer Bobby Darin as its subject. The title - borrowed from a Darin song - was Beyond The Sea and starred Kevin Spacey in the title role. Darin was a fascinating artist - he first made it in the late 50s on the coat-tails of rock and role and his first big hit was Dream Lover (1959). His next release was a superb jazz-pop version of a number taken from Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera (Mack The Knife) and from there, movies, a period focusing on country music and then a switch to more folk-related numbers. Looming over him though was a serious health issue: he'd had bouts of rheumatic fever which had weakened his heart and he knew that his life could come to and end at any time. He died in 1973 aged just 37.

Beyond The Sea
(2004)

In the movie, a narrative structure is abandoned in favour of a series of fantasy sequences based on fictionalised accounts of key points in his life: the device used is that of Darin as singing star talking to his younger self - and it works to a point. The movie received mixed reviews, bombed at the box office and made a big loss. But - and this is the thing - it was a fresh approach to a tried and trusted movie staple and deserved a better outcome.

Bobby Darin - Mack The Knife

I do believe it's worth watching, so try the DVD or watch out for it on late night TV.

A rather more accomplished and successful biopic arrived in the following year of 2005 - this was Walk The Line, a thoroughly entertaining and evocative look at the career of Johnny Cash. Joaquin Phoenix as Cash is mesmerising - and June Carter (later his wife) is as equally well portrayed by Reese Witherspoon. It was directed by James Mangold who took a fairly chronological approach to his story - but balanced this out with an early look at a pivotal moment in Cash's life, the 1968 Folsom State Prison concert. Cash was no angel - and in most respects, the movie doesn't pull its punches. But it does capture the raw energy and the talent that possessed Cash and it's one of the very best movies of its type. 

As with some previous bio-pics, the principal cast performed their own vocal versions of the songs. Unlike many others, Phoenix and Witherspoon absolutely nailed the performances, capturing not just the excitement and passion of the songs, but the stagecraft too. Other recorded performances include Farron Young, Guy Mitchell, Wanda Jackson, The Carter Family and Bob Dylan.

Last Days (2005)

One of the big rock sounds of the late 80s and early 90s was the "grunge" phenomenon associated with Seattle in Washington state. Possibly the biggest band to come out of the scene was Nirvana, fronted by Kurt Cobain. Despite all their success, Cobain was a troubled soul who suffered from a painful stomach condition which caused various weight and body-image issues: in 1994, at the age of just 27 he committed suicide. In 2005, Gus Van Sant wrote and directed a fictional account of Cobain's final days leading up to his death: called Last Days, it stars Michael Pitt as Blake - a character based on Cobain - and mirrors the reality to some extent, but also creates a mythology of its own. The soundtrack contains some original music as well as a vital contribution from The Velvet Underground, Venus In Furs, which plays a crucial role in the plot.  

Velvet Underground - Venus In Firs 

Grindhouse "Double Bill" (2007)

We reach 2007 with a further contribution from Quentin Tarrantino, a double-bill of movies created with Robert Rodrigues who had assisted with the soundtrack of Kill Bill Volume 2. The project title was Grindhouse, an attempt to recreate the era of American B movies - two features (Planet Terror and Death Proof) linked with spoof adverts and trailers for (fictitious) upcoming releases. Very much in the "exploitation" genre with depictions of zombies, psychopathic murderers and a rogue military unit, the soundtrack for Death Proof had an especially interesting line-up: T.Rex (Jeepster), Eddie Floyd (Good Love,Bad Love) and Pacific Gas & Electric (Staggolee) being just some of the highlights. 

Despite finding favour with Tarrantino's fans, the box-office performance was poor. To increase revenue, the rest-of-the-world release saw the films separated out as two individual productions and receipts rose accordingly.         

Two excellent biopics were also released in 2007.

Control - The Life Of Ian Curtis (2007)

First up was a Control, a lovingly crafted movie directed by Anton Corbijn and focusing on the troubled career of Ian Curtis, front-man with Manacunian band Joy Division. Corbijn had worked with Joy Division back in the early 1980s as a photographer and thus was pretty well qualified to portray Ian Curtis' time in music. Curtis' widow had written a biography (Touching From A Distance) which formed the basis of the movie and Curtis himself was played thoroughly convincingly by Sam Riley. Some new incidental music was provided by New Order (formed by his former band-mates in Joy Division after his suicide) and apart from a sprinkling of Joy Division numbers, other featured artists included David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Kraftwerk, The Velvet Underground and (the then relatively new rock ouftit) The Killers. Reviews were uniformly positive and (in biopic terms) it did well at the box office. 

I'm Not There (2007)

The other was a highly unusual movie that took a look at the many faces of Bob Dylan. It's a distinctly non-linear production and features six different actors playing Dylan and exploring various facets of his life and musical career. Not strictly-speaking a formal biopic, it does look at such areas as his influences from Woody Guthrie, the infamous period when he went "electric" (and starring in this segment is actress Cate Blanchett in a simply stunning performance as Dylan) and the creation of the renowned set of bootlegs which became known as the Basement Tapes. It's a fascinating movie and was welcomed by the critics and received numerous award nominations with Cate Blanchett winning most of those for which she was nominated. 

Even Dylan liked it judging by this quote he gave to Rolling Stone magazine:

"Yeah, I thought it was all right. Do you think the director was worried that people would understand it or not? I don’t think so. I think he just wanted to make a good movie. I thought it looked good, and those actors were wonderful." 

The soundtrack itself was released as a double-CD and aside from a good range of Dylan numbers, also saw a wealth of other fine artists such as Sonic Youth, Calexico, Cat Power, Yo La Tengo and Richie Havens all covering his numbers.

Stephen Malkmus - Ballad Of A Thin Man

Nowhere Boy - John Lennon's early years (2009)

We've barely touched on one of the world's best known bands, The Beatles. There were - of course -  their own movies which we did discuss in earlier parts of this blog, but for a band as well known and influential as they are, the use of their songs is relatively rare in Hollywood productions. They have always closely guarded their work and although we have had movies about them (such as Backbeat in 1994), they have had to manage without original Beatles numbers. The same was true of a rather fine movie made in 2009 and first-time directed by Sam Taylor-Wood. It was called Nowhere Boy and homed in on the formative years of John Lennon prior to The Beatles making it big. It's a very touching release and features some nuanced performances by Aaron Johnson (as Lennon), Kristen Scott Thomas (as his Aunt Mimi), Ann Marie-Duff (as his mother, Julia) and Thomas Sangster (as a very young-looking Paul McCartney). 

The soundtrack is a good one, showing as it does, the bands and performers who influenced Lennon and McCartney as they struggled with their writing -  so you get all the usual suspects (Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Fats Domino), some fine left-field choices (Screaming Jay Hawkins, The Bobby Fuller Four, Vince Taylor) - plus, some original performances by the cast as the proto-Beatles line-up, The Quarrymen.

The Boat That Rocked (2009)

2009 also bore witness to a mini-phenomenon: the recognition of the revolutionary role in UK pop radio played by the pirate stations in the mid 1960s. Prior to the creation of BBC Radio 1 in September 1967, most UK listeners sated their pop music requirements by tuning into Radio Caroline and Radio London (The Big L) out on the high seas. Well, the North Sea, anyway. The movie that was catalyst to this wave of interest was The Boat That Rocked, a witty and somewhat stylised look at life on board such a Pirate Radio Station, "Radio Rock". All the DJs and presenters on board are either direct takes on real stars or a curious amalgam of different presenters. So, for example, Philip Seymour-Hoffman gets to play someone with a passing resemblance and sound to The Emperor Rosko and Chris O'Dowd seems to be a Tony Blackburn-like DJ, complete with a love-fixation which he must play out with appropriate records and constant on-air mentions. 

It's a good fun movie - not to be taken too seriously - and boasts a fine cast (Bill Nighy, Nick Frost, Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, January Jones and Gemma Arterton. The soundtrack is filled with 32 great songs from artists such as The Kinks, The Turtles, Martha Reeves & The Vandellas, The Troggs, The Who and noughties singer-songwriter Duffy doing a creditable cover of Stay With Me Baby.    

The Runaways in 1976

One of the bands to emerge at the height of punk was an all-girl outfit, the Runaways: promoted as some energetic almost jail-bait rock and roll band, they were surprisingly good and yielded up such fine artists as Cherie Currie and especially Joan Jett. In later life, Cherie Currie wrote a pretty decent book about her time in the band ( Neon Angel: Memoir Of A Runaway) and this formed the basis of the 2010 movie The Runaways. Dakota Fanning played Currie and Kristen Stewart took on the role of Joan Jett - and a good stab of it they made. A fine movie resulted with the critics giving it a generally favourable response. Sadly, marketing and promotion was woeful and it did very poorly at the box office taking barely $3m worldwide. That's a sad result for a movie that  Cherry Currie praised highly (although she did observe that "some bits of my book "haven't been included") and from my viewing, got the style, visuals and feel of the late 70s pinned down very well indeed.

As for music - well, The Runaways (obviously), Joan Jett (solo), Suzie Quatro, David Bowie (again!), The Stooges. The MC5 and some vocal performances from Dakota Fanning herself.

The Runaways - Cherry Bomb

As we approach the end of 2012, it hasn't been a great year for recorded music in the movies: it's difficult to say whether this is just an "off-year" or the start of a trend. There have been several good documentaries that went on general release (particularly Searching For Sugarman about the efforts by two music fans to find out what happened to early 70s US folk-rock artists, Rodriguez - answer, he moved to South Africa in the late 70s and had enjoyed quite a career out there before it all went quiet again), there's also been the rejuvenation of the James Bond franchise with Skyfall and a particularly effective soundtrack song from million-selling songstress Adele and one movie based on a late 60s American TV soap, Dark Shadows.

Dark Shadows (2012)
Gothic Soap Opera

Dark Shadows is an interesting release. the soap - a gothic-opera affair concerning small town New England being host to a 200 year-old vampire  - ran for years, complete with hammy acting and creaky sets. It was wildly popular with the younger folks, but was almost unknown here in the UK. The movie, directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Helena Bonham-Carter, had a fine Danny Elfman score - plus, a not at all bad selection of early 70s numbers to help create the period in which it was set. Thus we have The Moody Blues (Nights In White Satin), Iggy Pop (I'm Sick Of You), T.Rex (Get It On) and Alice Cooper (No More Mister Nice Guy). In many ways, it's a slick packaging to a) enable soundtrack sales b) support the period setting and c) to underpin pieces of the action.

But, despite the calibre of those involved in its production, reviews were mixed, although the movie-goers must have thought differently as it took over $236m at the box office and there is talk of a sequel. 

Where Does This Get Us All, Then?

As I outlined right at the start of this massive three-part series of blogs, music and movies have been inextricably linked since the days of the first talkies in 1927. We've seen trends come and go, we've seen biopics, mockumentaries, movies about bands, songs playing critical roles in a plot, soundtracks stuffed full of period songs, soundtracks bursting at the seams with contemporary songs - and pretty much everything else in between.

There have been distinct trends that have reflected the times the movies were made (such as World War II, Vietnam) and trends that aped the musical preferences of the era (The Musicals in the 1930s, counter-culture movies in the late 60s). What is very clear is that as long as there are movies, productions that people want to go and see as a shared experience, there will be directors and movie makers who enjoy and understand the power of song to enrapture the audience.

And as long as that's still the case, then I for one will be very happy.

I often think about my ideal song, the perfect piece that when allied to moving pictures and a good plot, lifts me out of any cynicism I might be feeling and takes me on to an altogether different plane. Like all "best of" lists, it depends upon mood and temperament, prompted recognition and the inevitable "changing of mind" on a daily basis. 

But for all out pleasure, I have to go back to Magnolia, the 1999 movie directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and featuring all those songs by Aimee Mann. It might be because I really love her music and lyrics, it might be because of the stylish flow of the movie and its central performances - it doesn't really matter. What I do know is that, for me, this is how it all works.

Aimee Mann - Save Me   

Alan Dorey
December 2012