Listen up, Teens. Here is a lesson in pop culture history. There was once a time when a blockbuster movie (or any potential blockbuster movie) simply had to have a catchy accompanying pop song. Titanic's"My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion wasn't just a weird, random thing that happened because the 90's were a weird time when strange and random things happened. That penny whistle was about marketing. It was serious.
Movies and music have obviously always been a thing because that's how movies got started: just pictures that moved and an accompanying soundtrack. The era of musicals created their own soundtracks, but the idea of a catchy song written specifically for a movie carried into movies without whole song and dance numbers. However it wasn't until the 1980's when it became A Thing and A Big Deal to have a song released in conjunction with a movie. The accompanying song became an obvious and important part of any big movie because it became an easy way to market the film. Radios would play the song, listeners would be reminded of the movie, they would go to the movie, buy the soundtrack so they could listen to the song, maybe they buy other things, maybe they see the movie again. Anything can happen! It's all about money!
This was a thing until about the early 2000's when it petered out, probably because of the Internet. Thanks Millennials. The radio isn't really a thing anymore, and we're all dirty, filthy thieves who pirate our music so it doesn't make sense for a studio to spend a bunch of money on a song and all that it would entail. Sure, Pit Bull had that song for Men in Black 3 a couple years ago, but that song wasn't that popular and that movie was not good. You can't compare a shitty Pit Bull single to a time when a song from a movie could be so popular it was like the studio was paying for its air time. And as shady as that sounds, I think it sucks, absolutely sucks that today most movies just use music that's already popular instead of having something made up to accompany it.
As an Old, I miss being overwhelmed by a pop song that no one in America hasn't heard, and I miss being forced to like said pop song against my will. What fun our Hollywood overlords could produce for us today! Imagine a Katy Perry ballad to go along with a Katherine Heigl romantic comedy. Imagine a Mumford and Sons song that's actually about the Civil War or an old Irish thing or something, I don't know. Imagine Drake composing a song about fighting bad guys for Captain America and maybe Chris Evans and Anthony Mackie provide backup vocals and it's adorable but also terrible and kind of embarrassing. Because that's the other thing about the accompanying hit song: it was often really, really bad. But that was part of the fun! Not everything has to be cool all the time, Teens.
Armageddon was a big deal and if you live in this house it still is. Ben Affleck was still a hot twink and Liv Tyler wasn't an elf and we all forgot for a minute that Aerosmith is a shitty band full of 1,000 year old coke heads. Harry Stamper is An American Hero!!!!!!!!!!!
Puff Daddy (Today: Diddy; bring back Puff Daddy Classic though!) teamed up with The Actual Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin to sample an Actual Led Zeppelin Song ("Kashmir") to make this abomination for an equally awfulGodzilla remake starring Matthew Broderick. I actually really liked this song and it did pump me up to see the movie. I was 12.
Will Smith was really the guy to go to if you wanted a hit movie + a hit song. He did this one and one for Wild Wild West and Miami some other things, and we were all into it! We loved it! We all bought those sunglasses and we all saw the movie and How We Laughed. It was a simpler time and it was a fine one, indeed. So sorry to say that Will Smith is no longer with us. RIP MIB.
Deepest Bluest is a movie starring Tom Jane as a homeless dad who is trying to get his sharks back. LL Cool J, now a relic rapper who I think stars in a detective TV show?, was also in the movie as a chef with a bird. ***SPOILERS*** He kills one of the sharks. Working on the film must have inspired him deeply as he wrote this companion song. He doesn't really have a hat like a shark fin in the video, but he does wear black contacts and a corset???
You know how I know The Addams Family had a big budget? Because all of the actors that played an Addams, including Anjelica God Damn Huston who has an Academy Award, have a cameo in this music video. Bored, broke, or just under contract? All three?
I was 7 in 1993 and I loved Free Willy more than my God and my country. Every day I came home from school and listened to this song on my tape player over and over and it enraged my brother so much that he would scream and scream and I simply did not give a single fuck because I was so enveloped in the magic of whale/boy love. Nobody was mad at Michael Jackson, we just wanted more whales in more tanks all across America so that children could break the law and risk their lives to free them. We didn't have Pokemon back then, we had real animals, and we were ready and willing to enslave them. Michael Jackson was our Whale Master and we sacrificed the whales to him. The harvest in 1993 year was more than plentiful.
Movies and music have obviously always been a thing because that's how movies got started: just pictures that moved and an accompanying soundtrack. The era of musicals created their own soundtracks, but the idea of a catchy song written specifically for a movie carried into movies without whole song and dance numbers. However it wasn't until the 1980's when it became A Thing and A Big Deal to have a song released in conjunction with a movie. The accompanying song became an obvious and important part of any big movie because it became an easy way to market the film. Radios would play the song, listeners would be reminded of the movie, they would go to the movie, buy the soundtrack so they could listen to the song, maybe they buy other things, maybe they see the movie again. Anything can happen! It's all about money!
This was a thing until about the early 2000's when it petered out, probably because of the Internet. Thanks Millennials. The radio isn't really a thing anymore, and we're all dirty, filthy thieves who pirate our music so it doesn't make sense for a studio to spend a bunch of money on a song and all that it would entail. Sure, Pit Bull had that song for Men in Black 3 a couple years ago, but that song wasn't that popular and that movie was not good. You can't compare a shitty Pit Bull single to a time when a song from a movie could be so popular it was like the studio was paying for its air time. And as shady as that sounds, I think it sucks, absolutely sucks that today most movies just use music that's already popular instead of having something made up to accompany it.
As an Old, I miss being overwhelmed by a pop song that no one in America hasn't heard, and I miss being forced to like said pop song against my will. What fun our Hollywood overlords could produce for us today! Imagine a Katy Perry ballad to go along with a Katherine Heigl romantic comedy. Imagine a Mumford and Sons song that's actually about the Civil War or an old Irish thing or something, I don't know. Imagine Drake composing a song about fighting bad guys for Captain America and maybe Chris Evans and Anthony Mackie provide backup vocals and it's adorable but also terrible and kind of embarrassing. Because that's the other thing about the accompanying hit song: it was often really, really bad. But that was part of the fun! Not everything has to be cool all the time, Teens.
Armageddon was a big deal and if you live in this house it still is. Ben Affleck was still a hot twink and Liv Tyler wasn't an elf and we all forgot for a minute that Aerosmith is a shitty band full of 1,000 year old coke heads. Harry Stamper is An American Hero!!!!!!!!!!!
Puff Daddy (Today: Diddy; bring back Puff Daddy Classic though!) teamed up with The Actual Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin to sample an Actual Led Zeppelin Song ("Kashmir") to make this abomination for an equally awfulGodzilla remake starring Matthew Broderick. I actually really liked this song and it did pump me up to see the movie. I was 12.
Will Smith was really the guy to go to if you wanted a hit movie + a hit song. He did this one and one for Wild Wild West and Miami some other things, and we were all into it! We loved it! We all bought those sunglasses and we all saw the movie and How We Laughed. It was a simpler time and it was a fine one, indeed. So sorry to say that Will Smith is no longer with us. RIP MIB.
Deepest Bluest is a movie starring Tom Jane as a homeless dad who is trying to get his sharks back. LL Cool J, now a relic rapper who I think stars in a detective TV show?, was also in the movie as a chef with a bird. ***SPOILERS*** He kills one of the sharks. Working on the film must have inspired him deeply as he wrote this companion song. He doesn't really have a hat like a shark fin in the video, but he does wear black contacts and a corset???
You know how I know The Addams Family had a big budget? Because all of the actors that played an Addams, including Anjelica God Damn Huston who has an Academy Award, have a cameo in this music video. Bored, broke, or just under contract? All three?
I was 7 in 1993 and I loved Free Willy more than my God and my country. Every day I came home from school and listened to this song on my tape player over and over and it enraged my brother so much that he would scream and scream and I simply did not give a single fuck because I was so enveloped in the magic of whale/boy love. Nobody was mad at Michael Jackson, we just wanted more whales in more tanks all across America so that children could break the law and risk their lives to free them. We didn't have Pokemon back then, we had real animals, and we were ready and willing to enslave them. Michael Jackson was our Whale Master and we sacrificed the whales to him. The harvest in 1993 year was more than plentiful.