The strict formula for a blockbuster used to be incomplete without the addition of a pop star. To extend a film’s appeal as well as earn some extra cash, a song with vaguely related lyrics would be specially created along with a modest video clumsily spliced with clips, and then crowbarred in at the end to serenade cinema-goers as they shuffled out of the multiplex. Said song would then top the charts until all functioning ears had been fully, ruthlessly destroyed.
Take, for example, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Batman Forever, Titanic, Pearl Harbor and Charlie’s Angels: all boasting hit singles that doubled as earworms and triumphed as brand extensions, providing constant advertisement for their respective films on 24/7 music channels.
But somewhere along the way, as MTV started showing less music and more Teen Mom 3, it turned from a staple to a relic and we were spared the sight of Seal, Beyonce or Faith Hill trying to engineer chemistry with a movie screen. Take the decade’s most profitable form of blockbuster, the superhero movie. The majority have opted for a more traditional score with the only Marvel deviation being Guardians of the Galaxy, which used pre-recorded tracks. No one asked Katy Perry to join the soundtrack for The Dark Knight.
While Bond themes have endured to become the exception, the Mission: Impossible franchise gave up after Kanye West’s M:I-3 song Impossible led to the last two films arriving theme-free. The Twilight and Hunger Games franchises both crafted surprisingly credible soundtracks for each chapter, but none of them provided breakout singles, while Catching Fire: Part 2 quit trying and settled for a score.
Kylie Minogue has covered This Wheel’s on Fire for Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie.
We’re on the brink of a C minor change, however, with this summer promising to take us back to the mid-’90s glory days of movie music. Last week saw the release of Rihanna’s Sia-penned anthem Sledgehammer, taken from Star Trek Beyond and accompanied by a new trailer using the song, a featurette of the singer in a Trekkie T-shirt and the world’s first — rather shonky — video shot entirely with IMAX cameras.
Missy Elliott joined forces with Fall Out Boy for the Ghostbusters theme.
Sia has also provided songs for The Neon Demon and Finding Dory; Hozier has starred in a gloriously dated video for his Legend of Tarzan track Better Love; Kylie Minogue has covered This Wheel’s on Fire for Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie and the punishingly mismatched Fall Out Boy and Missy Elliott have come together to slaughter the Ghostbusters theme.
Sia sang the Nat King Cole song Unforgettable for Finding Dory.
|
|
Justin Timberlake released Can’t Stop the Feeling for Trolls. |
Plus, if you’ve left your house recently, you’ll be aware of Justin Timberlake’s deeply annoying yet cruelly overplayed Trolls track Can’t Stop the Feeling, which dropped five months before the damn film is even released.
The sudden increase is perhaps no big surprise given that last year’s biggest-selling single worldwide was Wiz Khalifa’s See You Again, his emotive Paul Walker tribute from Fast & Furious 7. It’s a given that next year’s eighth instalment will aim for a similar breakout hit. It also coincides with the announcement of a new direction for MTV, revealed earlier this year, that will see it finally return to its network roots and air more music videos, after it indulged in reality and scripted shows with mixed success.
Last year’s biggest-selling single worldwide was Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth’s See You Again from Fast & Furious 7.
For some films, it can be seen as a desperate attempt to appeal to a wider audience with increased competition and bigger commercial pressures than ever before. Star Trek Beyond is a $150 million (Dh550.8 million) budget film that’s suffered poor initial buzz. Recruiting Rihanna, dressed up to look like a character from the film for her 62 million Twitter followers, brings in a younger female demographic who might have needed a nudge to go and see it. Cool points are instantly added to a film that was so direly in need of them. It’s also beneficial for the star involved.
Rihanna, whose last album was a deliberate attempt to avoid providing the radio-friendly bangers she’s associated with, will now undoubtedly have a major hit on her hands, which will help to sustain her appeal to a broader audience. She tried something similar with the DreamWorks animation Home, with less chart success, but her involvement helped the film gross $386 million globally.
However, it’s going to require more than Rihanna and some face paints to truly resurrect movie music. At the time of writing, the top of the UK soundtrack chart is taken by Guardians of the Galaxy, two years after release and, as previously mentioned, filled with older songs. With a cultural shift towards the single over the album and with younger audiences less familiar with the concept of a soundtrack (an entire album of different artists?), the industry is in need of a Bodyguard-style crossover.
It’s unclear whether this summer’s batch of cinema singles will stand out as the beginning of a true renaissance, or a minor blip before we return to non-stop Hans Zimmer. But in a strangely nostalgic season that’s brought us comebacks for ’90s favourites Absolutely Fabulous and Independence Day, it seems rather fitting to see pop stars back on the big screen, clumsily inserting film titles into lyrics as we stumble out of the cinema.
