The Projector #72: When the Soundtrack Keeps Playing (Patreon)

by Keith Phipps

On upcoming episodes of The Next Picture Show we’ll be talking about American Psycho and Promising Young Woman. The two films have quite a bit in common (unless we’re all wrong in everything we say in those episodes), including strategic use of pop songs. It got me thinking about soundtracks and moments in which movies have opened up new musical horizons for me. And I asked my co-hosts to share similar moments. I’ll go first with three moments: One from 1991, one from 1996, and one from 2005.

1991: Boyz ’N’ the Hood features some great hip-hop songs, but it’s also the first time I heard the song “O-o-h Child” by the Five Stairsteps. That led me to purchase a volume of the Rhino Records great ‘70s soul compilation Didn’t It Blow Your Mind? featuring the song, which in turn opened new horizons of great, vintage soul music I never heard growing up in the Ohio suburbs (despite living near Dayton, which produced one amazing funk band after the other during my childhood). That CD series — I picked up all the other volumes over the years — remains a treasured collection and has led me down many different musical roads. Also, the Five Stairsteps story is itself pretty interesting.

1996: I spent the year after grad school working in a video store and catching up on as many movies as I could. That included Drugstore Cowboy, which plays Desmond Dekker’s “Israelites” over the closing credits. I’d never heard it before and my knowledge of Jamaican music was pretty much limited to the same dozen or so songs from Bob Marley’s Legend collection played over and over again. I knew then I had to know more.

2005: You could pick up a pretty decent musical education just listening to Jim Jarmusch soundtracks, and in 2005 Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers introduced me to the great Ethiopian jazz musician Mulatu Astatke which in turn led me to the great Éthiopiques compilations of Ethiopian music from the ‘60s and ‘70s. You can’t really go wrong with any of them, but if you’re looking for place to hop on, try the fourth volume, which focuses on Astatke.

Okay, now I’ll turn things over to my co-hosts:

Tasha Robinson: Neil Jordan's 2002 Bob le Flambeur remake The Good Thief didn't leave much of an impression on me, except in two regards: it gave me a new appreciation for Nick Nolte's seamy face, gravelly voice, and low-key acting, and it had me walking out humming Leonard Cohen's "A Thousand Kisses Deep." The song was off his then-recent album Ten New Songs, a collaboration with Sharon Robinson that became my addiction of the hour. (Appropriate, since The Good Thief is a movie about slow-burning addiction.) Unfortunately, it didn't leave me particularly primed for Cohen's other, non-collaborative work when I tried to branch out and discover the rest of his work. The growling, purring voice was sometimes the same, but Robinson's aesthetic is all over Ten New Songs, and it turns out that was the draw for me. But at least I got to spend a year with "Everybody Knows," one of the most cynical songs of the era, and one of the most compellingly sly.

Scott Tobias: When I was a teenager working as an usher at a movie theater, I got turned onto a lot of music, often while I was cleaning up the aisles during the closing credits. My first introduction to Lou Reed (and, later, Velvet Underground) was hearing "Busload of Faith" in the credits of True Believer. Roy Orbison? "Life Fades Away" in the credits of Less Than Zero. But the real boon for me was the soundtrack to Jonathan Demme's Married to the Mob, a film that made (and makes) me so happy that I developed a huge affection for Demme's typically eclectic song selections. The two life-changing tracks: The Feelies' "Too Far Gone," which led me to the classic LP Only Life and beyond; and New Order's "Bizarre Love Triangle," which took me down that particular rabbit hole, including an introduction to Joy Division.

Genevieve Koski: It’s always a little embarrassing to admit that you first encountered a revered artist through a less-than-revered avenue, especially when said artist is not exactly lacking when it comes to cultural tributes, but here we go: My first memorable exposure to Harry Nilsson was his classic version of “Without You” as heard the less-than-classic (but not necessarily terrible, in my admittedly fuzzy memory) 2002 Bret Easton Ellis film adaptation The Rules of Attraction. Yes, The Rules of Attraction, not Casino, where it is also memorably used, but what can I say, in 2002 I had yet to dive very deep into Scorsese’s filmography, but I was deep in the throes of a Shannyn Sossamon crush, so here we are. I don’t think I’ve revisited Rules of Attraction in at least 15 years, but Nilsson Schmilsson, the 1971 album on which “Without You” appears, still gets played at least once a month in my household. As it turns out, “Without You” is among my least-loved tracks on that album now, perhaps in part because, thanks to its use in Rules, it carries unpleasant associations with suicide and shitty men. But I take comfort in the knowledge that younger generations are much more likely to first encounter the wonder of Nilsson Schmilsson via a much higher-quality reference point.

And that’s that. Maybe we’ve put some good music on your radar, too. (And good movies, for that matter.)

Quick show notes: We hope you’re enjoying our current episode on Another Round. And Genevieve may have found a way to rescue our Best TV of 2020 bonus episode after all. While we wait to find out, here’s some pieces to read.

• For Vulture, Bilge Ebiri assembled a revealing oral history of The Emperor’s New Groove.

• For Polygon, Robert Daniels expands on some of his thoughts about Soul and its depiction of Blackness.

• Also at Polygon (and addressing a movie we’re set to do on the show soon), Delia Harrington argues that Promising Young Woman sends a dangerous message to rape survivors.

• For The Ringer’s cult movies week, Keith Phipps ponders whether or not Tenet had a future as a cult film.

• For the same package, Alan Siegel wrote about friend of the show Robert Siegel’s terrific 2009 movie Big Fan, starring Patton Oswalt.

• At Empire, Edgar Wright shares his favorite moviegoing experiences.

• For Crooked Marquee, Craig J. Clark wrote about the ‘70s films of Richard Lester.

• For Vulture, our pal Rachel Handler wrote a piece whose headline says it all: “Help, the Only Cinema I Can Handle Is Zac Efron Prancing Angrily in High School Musical 2.”