something fishy in Ferrell soundtracks

[Gerald Cooperberg]

I usually post over on the Favorite Films board, but this thread seems more music-related, so I thought I'd pop over here...

In the space of the last week, I happened to catch two recent Will Ferrell comedies that both featured soundtracks that were distractingly heavy on a single artist. Stranger Than Fiction had an overabundance of Spoon songs, and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby included no less than three Steve Earle tracks, all from the same record, 1996's I Feel Alright. What's the deal? Okay, Spoon I can maybe understand, as they seem to be a "hot" band of the moment, but I don't think that Steve Earle is exactly shifting units of the soundtrack CD at Wal Mart. Maybe it's meant to be a sly joke-- after all, the intent of the movie is partly to satirize NASCAR/C&W culture and Earle's brand of subversion adds to that in some way, but it still strikes me as really odd that all of the songs are from the same, ten-year-old, relatively obscure album. What's going on here? Is it possible that Ferrell is flooding these movies with his favorite tracks off of his iPod, a la Cameron Crowe? Or is it some sinister cross-marketing plot? I guess what I'm really getting at is-- did this bug anyone else??

-Coop

[PeruvianSkies]

Well, there seems to be a common trend in modern-crappy-movie-making. You see what a studio has a crappy film on their hands, which they are well aware of, they typically hype it up with some tunes to help try and sell the film. It would seem that movies can't be good enough these days unless they have an endless parade of popular tunes. It's kinda like watching a Cameron Crowe movie, only without as much thought. Often times people think that there is little thought put into certain aspects of movies, but anyone who has actually worked on a film before or knows the aspects of movie production will realize that every single nuance within the frame of the film is intentional as is each note played across the soundtrack. There are no accidents. There are only movie gimmicks and the latest trend has been creating lengthy music videos dressed up like movies.

However, go back and watch THE FAST AND THE CURIOUS from 5 years ago and see just how poor the soundtrack has held up. It's more laughable now than ever, that's what you get for using popular trendy crap songs.