Your Next Listen, Based on Your Favorite Movies
A good soundtrack is something that can make or break a film; it’s what determines if a just-alright movie will go down as a cult-classic (see Empire Records and Garden State), or if it will simply fade into obscurity. Music and film are indivisible, which is why, with the help of my Off the Record cowriters, I’ve compiled a list of seven albums we’re recommending based on your favorite movie.
Almost Famous - Darkness on the Edge of Town, Bruce Springsteen
Almost Famous undoubtedly has one of the most iconic soundtracks of all time — it featured hits by Simon & Garfunkel, Led Zeppelin, The Beach Boys, and David Bowie (not to mention the universally beloved “Tiny Dancer” scene), breeding a new generation of rock ‘n’ roll devotees.
To stick with the 70s classic rock genre and unconventional coming-of-age themes, I turned to The Boss. Darkness on the Edge of Town, Bruce Springsteen’s fourth record, is filled with his strongest songwriting, most passionate vocals, and a beautiful sense of hope despite its grittier subject matter. While Springsteen is better known for Born in the U.S.A. and Born to Run, I’d argue that Darkness is his best album.
“Candy’s Room,” the explosive yet tender song that prompted this pick, could’ve been ripped straight from our protagonist William’s diary entries about the free-spririted Penny Lane:
“There's a sadness / Hidden in that pretty face / A sadness all her own from which / No man can keep Candy safe / … / She says, ‘Baby if you want to be wild / You got a lot to learn / Close your eyes, let them melt / Let them fire, let them burn / ‘Cause in the darkness there’ll be hidden words that shine.”
Darkness is what Springsteen called his “reckoning with the adult world”; it’s jaded, but not hopeless, which is exactly where William stands at the end of the film.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Getting Killed, Geese
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard the name Geese — the Brooklyn-based band exploded this autumn with the release of their third album, Getting Killed, drawing in a new swath of listeners with singer Cameron Winter’s distinctly gut-wrenching tenor.
Winter’s quasi-transatlantic warbling evokes the same despair as watching Clementine and Joel lose each other again and again. Getting Killed, like Eternal Sunshine, is raw yet tight, so much so that it comes across not as a carefully created work of art but as a memory panned from one’s subconscious — it’s unforced and familiar. Not a minute is wasted.
One of the movie’s hallmarks is its absurdity. Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman plays with time and space as Joel races to save Clementine in his memories, jumping from place to place with no discernible pattern. Getting Killed similarly plays with the bizarre, conjuring up images of sailors in green coats, “getting out of the gumball machine,” and “playing the cowbell with [a] gun.”
Moreover, much of the album deals with desperately clinging onto relationships that have already fallen apart, a theme painfully paralleled in Eternal Sunshine; the lines “you can be free / and still come home” on “Au Pays du Cocaine” feel like the exact delineation of Joel in the midst of his decaying relationship with Clementine.
As two pieces of art so vulnerable I feel like I’m intruding, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Getting Killed are the perfect pairing.
10 Things I Hate About You - Bricks are Heavy, L7
10 Things I Hate About You is another classic with an absolutely killer soundtrack, including hits by Letters to Cleo, Semisonic, Joan Jett, and The Cardigans (not to mention citing Bikini Kill and The Raincoats as some of Kat’s favorite artists).
For more angry girl music of the indie rock persuasion, I’d suggest the rock group L7 — you might remember them from their 1992 tour with Beastie Boys or their hit song “Pretend That We’re Dead.” Though L7 predates the riot grrrl and grunge movements, I’d say the group is adjacent with their punchy and sardonic sound — Bricks are Heavy would be in Kat’s CD collection, no doubt.
L7 is a punk staple, bringing fierce femininity to a genre so heavily saturated by men; their music critiques American militarism and misogyny with sharp wit and biting commentary, taunting those in power in a way not unlike Kat. L7 isn’t afraid to call out The Man, and continues to do so today, bringing the type of fearless energy we desperately need right now.
Dead Poets Society - Sketches for my Sweetheart the Drunk, Jeff Buckley
While Jeff Buckley’s Grace has had a massive renaissance thanks to the TikTok virality of “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over,” Sketches for my Sweetheart the Drunk, a posthumous record of Buckley’s studio sessions for his sophomore album, captures the unpolished artfulness of cult classic Dead Poets Society. Sweetheart consists of two discs — the first being recordings with Television’s Tom Verlaine as producer (that Buckley was actually planning to scrap), and the other containing Buckley’s untouched demos.
Tracks like “The Sky is a Landfill” and “Murder Suicide Meteor Slave” viscerally capture disillusionment with and resentment of the ways of the world, while “Morning Theft” and “Gunshot Glitter” portray crushing grief and longing. Buckley’s lyrics read as spontaneous poetry, perfectly encapsulating the highs and lows of Dead Poets Society — this pick felt like a no-brainer.
Lady Bird - Take Offs and Landings, Rilo Kiley
Rilo Kiley’s debut album, Take Offs and Landings, is a kitschy blend of folk, twee, and indie rock; it’s scrappy, mostly acoustic, and deeply vulnerable, which felt fitting for a Greta Gerwig film.
Frontwoman Jenny Lewis delivers sarcasm and crass quips with perfect charm, calling to mind Saorise Ronan’s performance as Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson. The fourth track, “Pictures of Success,” feels especially relevant for the character — similarly hailing from California, Lewis sings about wanting to get out of the state, her overwhelming fear of the future, and desperately trying to gain some kind of control over her own life.
I Saw the TV Glow - Gun, Boyish (recommended by Brooke Shapiro, Music Extras Editor)
Last month, Boyish brought back a format I’d been desperately missing: the concept album.
The titular town of Gun is an amalgamation of middle-of-nowhere American suburbia. Though there is a love story weaved throughout, the album’s main priority is world-building: “We wanted the listener to feel like they’re stepping into a physical place, a self-contained world, and know by the time the last song ends, something in the town has changed forever,” members India Shore and Claire Altendahl told Shore Fire Media.
Boyish employs just the right amount of ambiguity for Gun to be universally familiar; it feels like it could be just a few towns over, no matter where you’re listening from. I Saw the TV Glow, like Gun, sets its scene in an unnamed neighborhood in small-town America. Laden with queer allegories, both works manage to accurately capture the dystopian, eerie atmosphere of these liminal spaces and the choking feelings of restriction that come with them.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire - Forever is a Feeling, Lucy Dacus (recommended by Logan Goettemoeller, Senior Writer)
After boygenius went on an indefinite hiatus, Lucy Dacus’ fourth album was one of the most-anticipated of this year as the first of the members’ projects post-the record. Dacus delivered deeply intimate songwriting as always, releasing some of her most personal and sentimental songs yet.
That’s not to say the album is all love songs; tracks like “Talk” and “Big Deal” tackle heartbreak, but witnessing queer intimacy in the mainstream, in all of its facets, is beautiful to see nonetheless. The same goes for Portrait of a Lady on Fire — a beautifully tragic film, and a staple in mainstream queer media.
This is a collaborative piece written by Cassidy LaPointe with submissions from Brooke Shapiro and Logan Goettemoeller.
