Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Movie Music: The Early Years

So, I love movies. Like, it goes my fam/friends, movies, music, my own life. But maybe the coolest gift movies and TV ever gave me was my appreciation for good tunes. Like, one lead to the other, get it? I have very specific and distinctive memories of certain songs in certain movies awakening in me a deep love for a jam. Here are some songs from some films that opened my eyes to the power of music and images paired together (lately I have been typing very scary/cheesy sentences like this, go with it):

1) "Olympia" by Hole from Stealing Beauty (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDr-HZzNGOQ) So, okay, I was twelve when this movie came out and it just blew my world right open. It's probably one of Bernardo Bertolucci's LEAST acclaimed films, but man does it hit a nerve with girls who were "coming of age" at the time. Basically, 19-year-old Liv Tyler goes to Italy for the summer to figure out who her father is and lose her virginity. I literally experienced puberty as I watched journey. The entire soundtrack is amazing (Portishead, Liz Phair, Stevie Wonder) and I bought it immediately (which was not easy as I was living in Hong Kong at the time...I know, jetset, me). However, I was disappointed to discover that the song from the scene where Liv Tyler angrily rocks out to her headphones was not on the CD! I searched desperately to figure out what this raging anthem was called and then FINALLY I stumbled upon Hole's Live Through This...and went through puberty all over again.

2) "Would?" by Alice in Chains from Singles (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nco_kh8xJDs&ob=av2e) I was obsessed with this movie. OBSESSED. I wanted to move to Seattle and go to concerts and drink coffee all the time and be Bridget Fonda and show up at somebody's doorstep and be all, like "I was just nowhere near your neighborhood." More than anything else, I was obsessed with a gentleman named Eddie Vedder. He had the TINIEST part in the movie but as soon as he opened his pretty bow-mouth I was like, WHO WHAT WHERE HOW DO I GET? Anyway, this soundtrack is BOMB. Like, defined my childhood. I remember hearing Chris Cornell's voice for the first time and just being like, oh cool, I can die now. But this AIC song is really representative of the soundtrack and of that time in general and guys, remember what a great band this used to be before they got a doody new singer? Remember when Cameron Crowe was a good writer? He made me want to be a screenwriter! And then he made Elizabethtown...

3) "Big Empty" by Stone Temple Pilots from The Crow (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv5LEdLZJqk) Okay, so all of these songs are obviously of a specific time period. This movie was a really big deal because Brandon Lee died while shooting it and it was a whole cult thing blah blah. I actually never even watched the movie until a boy made me see it like three years ago. It's dated, but very cool. But I remember the trailer running constantly on TV and the chorus of this song playing over it and thinking that the music combined with the images was just the greatest thing ever. I have to tell you though, I made up some crazy lyrics to make the song about ME. I don't remember what they were but it was something like "tiiiimeeeee to take her home her pretty brown hair is long and shiiiinnnyyyy."

4) "Blister in the Sun" by The Violent Femmes from My So-Called Life (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aljlKYesT4&feature=related) This video is from Grosse Pointe Blank, but I first heard this when I watched Angela Chase decide she was like, totally over Jordan Catalano and proceeded to dance like a dork all over her bedroom. This Violent Femmes song, along with "Kiss Off" that appeared in Reality Bites made me realize how important music could be to a film and how much I loved records. Also, MSCL was the best show EVER. My college girlfriends will attest to the fact that Freshman year I would sit on my bed and watch every episode on my computer, breaking only for visitors and runs to Gourmet Heaven. It was a weird time; I listened to a LOT of Coldplay. But I mean, DUDE, remember this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IucL7_szrHw. Yeah, you're all welcome.

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