'I Saw The TV Glow (Original Soundtrack)' Gets the 90s Right
Adolescence, particularly queer adolescence, is tender and tumultuous; it can be soft and gentle, and it can be so, so soul-crushing. At its best, it’s deliverance when encountering something or someone that can make you feel so seen and your identity feel so natural and inherent to your being that it’s incomprehensible that you could ever even try to believe you are anything other than what you are. At its worst, it is isolation and distortion and not unlike feeling as though your ribs might just puncture your lungs like balloons at a sad birthday party. It can feel like you have no choice but to find comfort in people who have no idea you exist or those who don’t even exist.
On May 10th, 2024, the soundtrack to Jane Schoenbrun’s already technicolor second film, I Saw The TV Glow, was released by A24 Music and accessible on all streaming services. The soundtrack features several impressive names, such as Caroline Polachek, Jay Som, and Phoebe Bridgers, the latter appearing in the film and performing her song with Sloppy Jane diegetically.
One struggles to remember the last time a film, much less a low-to-mid budget film, boasted such a grand array of originals and covers from the new giants in indie and alternative pop and rock. It’d be remiss to leave seasoned veteran Alex G’s enormous contribution (the entire score) unacknowledged. That said, Schoenbrun, Jessica Berndt, and Chris Swanson (the latter and lattermost being the music supervisors) do not take these artists or their contributions for granted.
I Saw The TV Glow is Schoenbrun’s follow-up to her low-budget indie flick We’re All Going To The World’s Fair, also scored by Alex G. While there’s certainly an uptick in what Schoenbrun received in terms of finances, the premises of her debut and subsequent film aren’t all that different. That is to say, the kids are not alright. In I Saw The TV Glow, two troubled and increasingly isolated teenagers, Maddy and Owen, form an unlikely bond over a shared affinity for a piece of media that acts more in the way of catharsis than anything else.
If you’ve seen the film (don’t worry, this is a spoiler-free review), it’s easy to understand why. Okay, so maybe a half-spoiler here, but if you’re familiar with Schoenbrun’s previous work whatsoever, queerness (and more explicitly, Schoenbrun’s identity as a trans woman) is inextricable from her art. If you’re familiar with queer teenagers at all, particularly queer teenagers confined to the gilded, green-shrubbed, white-fenced cages of suburbia, they may seek and find liberation through media. It doesn’t matter that Owen and Maddy lamented their teenagehood in the late 1990s as opposed to the 21st century B.T. (Before Tumblr); their affair with their beloved television program remains timeless.
Courtesy of A24
The opening track is a cover of Broken Social Scene’s classic “Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl” performed by Yeule, a glitchy, more electronic update to the understated sound of the original. It offers a more childlike shimmer than the perhaps wiser, more mature tune it reworks. While the original lends itself to the perspective of an adult gazing back at their “wretched” ways and perhaps yearning for a return to that time, Yeule’s version appropriately takes the tone of an affronted middle schooler whose friend has ditched for a newer, cooler clique. It’s a refreshing update to the classic, followed swiftly by Quinlan’s “Another Season,” another slightly moodier track that aptly recounts all that comes with teenage insecurity.
But the real standout is Caroline Polachek’s “Starburned and Unkissed.” Polachek's soaring vocals, undulating melodies, and fuzzy distortion create a unique sound. This distortion is a recurring theme throughout the soundtrack, symbolizing the harsh reality versus the dreamlike (or nightmarish) state that Owen, Maddy, and all teenagers on the precipice of adulthood find themselves caught between. It's also present in L’Rain’s contribution, “Green,” the previously mentioned “Another Season” performed by Quinlan, and King Woman’s intensely dark and evil-sounding “Psychic Wound,” another highlight of the album.
There are also many more mellow, lullaby-esque features on the soundtrack, paying homage to the nagging feeling of boredom and helplessness that haunts rooms with outgrown twin-sized beds and where popsicles have been in the freezer for too long. It’s a universal feeling and perhaps more potent if you’ve grown up in the wake of a global pandemic. Whether the melodies are literally eerie like Maria BC’s gorgeous “Taper” or the lyricism existential like in Florist’s “Riding Around in the Dark” where Emily A. Sprague repeats, “It’s the end of the world / And we’re driving around” or painfully honest in Sloppy Jane and Phoebe Bridgers’s duet where both singers cry out, “I think I was born bored / I think I was born blue” over a stunning orchestration of keys and strings and not much else. One can’t help but recall Bridgers’s “Funeral,” in which she sings, “Jesus Christ, I’m so blue all the time / And that’s just how I feel / Always have and I always will.”
And, of course, Schoenbrun does not forget the period-accurate alternative rock that reigned supreme and blared from Walkmans throughout the 90s before wired headphones reigned in the early 2000s with Proper.’s suitably titled “The 90s” and King Woman’s second grungy contribution, “Bury,” alongside Jay Som’s pulsating, head-nodding “If I Could.”
The musicians Schoenbrun, Berndt, and Swanson enlisted in crafting the soundtrack undoubtedly understood the assignment, perhaps because there’s a particular well of inspiration that comes from all the torturous emotions and experiences of coming into one’s own and what that means. Regardless, if Schoenbrun intended to add another character to the story via the film’s accompanying album or use it as a vehicle for storytelling itself, to say she was successful would be an understatement.
Tickets for I Saw The TV Glow are available now. Check out the soundtrack below.