By Scott Roxborough & Patrick Brzeski, Hollywood Reporter | Music has been an indivisible part of movies from the start, or at least since cinemas begin hiring piano players to provide live accompaniment to silent features. The first sound movies were musicals. Studios were worried audiences wouldn’t stick around just to hear actors talk. By the ’30s, the symphonic soundtrack had become an essential part of any feature.
But we had to wait for the rock ‘n’ roll revolution to bring us the needle drop, the use of a preexisting track that complements, collides with or completes the images onscreen, creating something bigger than either alone. The cue of Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” in Blackboard Jungle (1955) is one of the Ur-drops. Directors never looked back.
A great needle drop can set a tone or define a character. It can elevate or undercut the action or emotion onscreen. The best reframe one’s relationship with the song — does anyone, after seeing Reservoir Dogs, listen to “Stuck in the Middle With You” the same way again? — and deliver a pop music distillation of a movie’s mood and message. Do the Right Thing is “Fight the Power.” “Fight the Power” is Do the Right Thing.
Our first draft of the best needle drops in film history ran to more than a hundred tracks. You could fill a top 40 list with just a handful of directors. The films of Quentin Tarantino, Danny Boyle, Sofia Coppola and Paul Thomas Anderson are essentially mixtapes in movie form. As for Martin Scorsese … don’t get us started. So we set a few ground rules: just one song per artist and one song per director (Marty being the sole exception). We tried to embrace a range of film styles and musical genres, with a bias toward tracks that, once heard in their movie context, are never quite the same again. We picked head-banging triumphs, karaoke sing-alongs and can’t-stop-dancing tunes. Some are anthems of rebellion. Some are whispered laments. All are unforgettable.
When The Fast & the Furious was still a glint in the eyes of a wee Vin Diesel, George Lucas was showing how you soundtrack a drag race. The slow-rolling cool of this Stax soul classic, with its effortless swagger, is a sonic shortcut to American Graffiti‘s early ’60s nostalgia (“Where were you in ’62?”), a world of hot rods, diner pit stops and backseat romance. The soundtrack to Lucas’ ode to post-war Americana features nonstop pop and rock hits of the era, starting with Bill Haley & His Comets’ “Rock Around the Clock” and ending with The Beach Boys’ “All Summer Long.” Securing the rights to all these songs reportedly cost so much that it left no room for a traditional score (Elvis Presley is notably absent because he was too expensive).
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Read about the rest here, along with photos of the movies to jog your memory:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/best-needle-drops-movies/zodiac-hurdy-gurdy-man-by-donovan/?utm_source=yahoo-editorial&utm_medium=feeds&utm_campaign=best_of_brands
Photo: Bill Haley – 100 Years Poster | Bill’s DOB: July 5, 1925
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