With the release this week of Toy Story 5’s official song from Taylor Swift, and my recent rabbit hole of movie song playlists on Spotify, I’ve been thinking a lot about the iconic movie songs of yesteryear and their absence in modern cinema. It feels like a true movie soundtrack hit is so rare these days, despite films of the past producing enduring classics that we still listen to and associate with their movies today. Are we losing the impact of cinema on other areas of culture or have we been served a dearth of top-quality songs that perfectly capture a film or scene?
The charts used to be full of original songs that soundtracked iconic film scenes. Think back to classics like My Heart will Go On (Titanic), Eye of the Tiger (Rocky III), (I’ve Had) The Time of my Life (Dirty Dancing) or Take My Breath Away (Top Gun), to name just a handful. Everything I Do (I Do it For You), whilst less familiar with us generations born after the release of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, still holds the record for longest consecutive run at Number 1 in the UK. These songs are not only great in their own right but are so integrated into a scene or manage to capture a film’s story or themes in mere minutes that they have become inextricable from the films themselves. However, in recent years, when did we last get one that broke through? The only example I can think of is What Was I Made For? from Barbie, a perfect encapsulation of the protagonist’s emotions that spoke to people. However, culturally, the song’s success doesn’t feel strictly tied to the film; it is successful as a separate entity, a Billie Eilish hit that is about different things for different people. I don’t feel that it is inextricably linked to Barbie, although it certainly captures the film. Other examples fail to come to mind. Ask me to make a list of iconic movie songs and it will be almost exclusively songs from last century. The only other exception seems to be new James Bond songs but these are a cultural institution in and of themselves at this point, not to mention a huge marketing tool. It feels as though the art of a great movie song is being lost. The alchemy of great songwriting and synergy with a film or scene seems to be disappearing.
[N.B. I’m fully excluding musicals from the mix as that is a whole other situation where a song is performed by characters and even written by them. It is a different form of musical storytelling to (primarily) non-diegetic soundtracks where these songs are put front and centre in a different way. So, rare more recent hits in that arena, like Golden (Kpop Demon Hunters), Shallow (A Star is Born) or most of The Greatest Showman soundtrack sit in a category of their own.]
We still have songs in movies but they seem to either be forgotten in the credits (or maybe never even heard if watching on streaming with autoplay), or serve more as glossy marketing that isn’t linked emotionally to the story or given much of a place in it. Here, I’m thinking of Runway from The Devil Wears Prada 2, a song about the general setting of the film (the fashion world) but without resonance with the story – it also wasn’t used significantly or emotionally within the film itself. Is it that the songs aren’t as good anymore or that they feel like more of an afterthought than something consciously worked into the film? It certainly seems part of it – original music rarely features and when it does it fails to make much impact either down to the song itself and/or its use in the film. Even reviewing recent years’ nominee lists for the Best Original Song Oscar, most are completely unfamiliar, with very few most people would recognise, be able to sing along to, or even name the film they belong to. They are just not breaking through. But beyond the songs themselves and their place in their respective films, is this a wider indicator of cinema’s changing place in the cultural landscape?
There is no denying that the cinema has lost a lot of ground in this new world of streaming, an evolution exacerbated by the global pandemic. So, with less people going to the cinema and more people second-screen watching at home (and worse films being released on streamers as a result), are these films and their songs just getting less of a chance to make an impact? Songs would gain the popularity to push the cycle of perpetual radio play into motion from mass audiences being introduced to it by a film, particularly if the film itself was a huge hit. If this isn’t happening, perhaps the songs just aren’t reaching people. The way people listen to music has also been drastically changed by streaming; back in the day you would have to go out and buy individual songs or albums, so you would be more likely to purchase a film’s soundtrack if it was full of great songs. Then, each time you listen to it, you are see the film’s artwork and it reinforces that cultural connection. Now, with pretty much every songs ever at your fingertips, people are less likely to listen to an album as a whole anyway, let alone one curated around a film. All of this has an impact, but if recent movie song examples aren’t at the tip of the tongue for obsessed cinephiles like myself, this feels like a secondary issue.
We haven’t even really had many non-original songs essentially co-opted by a film, works that are so woven into a story or integral to a certain scene that they cannot be listened to the same way again. Who can hear the first notes of Old Time Rock and Roll without Tom Cruise in a shirt and pants sliding into view or hear Stuck in the Middle with You and not picture Michael Madsen cutting off an ear. Just try and listen to All Star without seeing a big green ogre burst out of an outhouse. For a song-scene combination that made an even stronger impression, just the sight of a pottery wheel is enough to start up Unchained Melody in many minds. Many of these songs aren’t explicitly about the scene but capture its mood and form an alchemy with the rest of the filmmaking so that they meld together seamlessly. We’ve seen some modern films essentially relaunch older songs into the charts a la Murder on the Dancefloor in Saltburn or Unwritten in Anyone but You, but neither of these films were powerful enough to rewrite the experience of the song. Perhaps that is down to the film’s quality and reception; maybe a stronger film would have had a greater influence. The most we get now is a song featured in a film becomes the latest trending TikTok sound for a while, often accompanying videos unrelated to the movie.
Do we really just need to bring 80s anthems back? Are we so incapable of sincerity in our cynical age that we just can’t write bombastic, earnest songs that capture the soul of a film anymore? Are filmmakers losing the art of the soundtrack? In my view this is a cinematic ailment that needs addressing. Songs allow us another way to relive a film after it’s over and allow it to spill over into other parts of our lives. Original movie songs are often more emotionally resonant as you have a whole two hours of context for what is otherwise a three-minute song. They are an artform in and of themselves, both for the songwriter and filmmakers, in perfectly soundtracking a scene. We shouldn’t let them disappear.
