Movie Music

In which Alex doesn't hate music written specifically for movies

I am listening to "Fare Thee Well" from the Inside Llewyn Davis soundtrack.  It's a good folk song with strong vocal harmonies and a nice building string arrangement.  I haven't seen the movie, but I'll watch anything the Coen brothers make, and this one looks especially good to me.  I like Bob Dylan a lot, and folk music, and stories about struggling singer songwriters.  So I think I'm the target audience, precisely.

For some reason, I have a hard time enjoying songs written specifically for a movie.  Something about it seems a little fake, like actors in commercials who are stealing comedy tricks from The Office to "act funny."  It always seems to me like there's somebody etching out songs to fit the formula of a particular genre for movie soundtracks.  This bothers me, although I'm well aware that most songwriters do the same thing regardless of whether or not their song is going to be in a movie.  The truth is music is formulaic, and there's really nothing wrong with that.

It's like the movie Once, which has a soundtrack I really love.  Before I had seen it or knew anything about Glen Hansard or The Swell Season, I just assumed that these were songs written for a movie by some heartless musician who was selfishly tugging at people's heartstrings.  It's a weird, cynical thing to think, I know.  But after the film's opening song, I was totally sold.

Then I learned more about how the songs were all written by Glen Hansard and/or Marketa Irglova and that the movie was just a little art project that they made without expecting to get a lot of exposure.  Then I felt like a jerk.  It's the same thing with that song from Crazy Heart that Colin Ferrel sings at the end: I didn't want to like it, but it's pretty darn good, so I did like it.

Maybe I just need to relax and not be so critical about the motivations of songwriters.  If something sounds good, maybe I just need to accept that and enjoy it.

At the very least, it's nice how movies can highlight good music that would otherwise not get nearly as much exposure. 

Let me know if I'm crazy for actively trying to not like music made for movies in the Comments, or tweets at @berkley84.