At left, a scene from the movie Bad Boys with actors Wil Smith
and Martin Lawrence. At right, Sean Paul
Tanya Batson-Savage, Staff Reporter
THE MOVIE is about to end. The hero takes the heroine into his arms. What could easily have been an ordinary kiss is magnified into earth-shattering proportions as the music swells, letting the audience know that the moment is as good as romance gets.
Music, whether a score or songs 'inspired' by the film, have become an inseparable part of the film world. The music often works as Pavlovian trigger to set the mood. From spine-tingling music to intergalactic sounding pieces, music in movies is great for creating the necessary emotions.
Sometimes, the music simply complements the setting for the movie, changing to signal a country or bar or jazz club, which explains why calypso type music is used to signal all islands (with the exception of Jamaica sometimes).
According to wikipedia.com, soundtracks became a standard part of a motion picture in 1933. Since then, never the twain have parted. While soundtracks for musicals may be expected to be successful, other movies have had massive success with their soundtracks.
As such, placement on a movie soundtrack can provide an artiste with leverage for their music career, or sometimes bring a revival. One of the biggest markers of Sean Paul's popularity in 2003 wasn't how often one heard tracks from Dutty Rock on the radio. Instead, it was how often it was heard in movies and on television, as Hollywood also tried to get their huge slice of the 'dutty rock'.
Sean's music bounced its way on to at least four movie soundtracks last year. If the movie dealt with popular culture, it seemed it needed a few lines from the cane-rowed one to issue a "dutty yeah" blessing on it.Grind featured Get Busy; Honey featured Gimme The Light; Barbershop2: Back In Business featured Things Come and Go and 2 Fast 2 Furious pumped out Deport Them.
Last year was not Sean's first encounter with the movie soundtrack world. Top Shottas (with Mr. Vegas) was featured in Hype William's Belly, starring DMX, while Hot Gyal Today found its way to Shaft.
Jeremy Harding, Sean Paul's manager, pointed out that placement of a song in a movie, or even television show, has nothing to do with the artiste and his/her management team, but is up to the publishing company which has the synchronisation rights.
Harding explains that the artiste would therefore have to find that the project significantly goes against what he/she stands for in order to protest it's placement in a project. "It would have to be something really bad, like the Klu Klux Klan is making a documentary," he says.
In addition to the four movies on which Sean Paul's music has been placed, the songs also found their way on to television, turning up in consecutive episodes of HBO's The Wire as well as NBC's Will and Grace.
In these films and TV shows the songs work as a marker of what's hip or popular. But with Sean Paul's work popping up in every nook and cranny of popular culture, it runs the risk of over-saturation. As such, Harding points out that they then have to be careful about accepting the projects that they can't control.
On the other hand, placement in a movie or TV show can bring a little exposure between albums. As such, Wayne Wonder's cover of the Thompson Twins' 1980s hit Hold Me Now comes at a good time. While it would not be able to stimulate sales for his album, as the lead single for Fifty First Dates, Hold Me Now adds credit to Wayne Wonder's resume.
The marriage between movies and the soundtrack has become so interwoven that sometimes when the song makes it to the radio, snatches of the movie are dubbed in. So, Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On featured snatches of conversation from the Titanic. Similarly, Bruce Springsteen's Secret Garden contained the ahh evoking line "you had me at hello".
Indeed, wikipedia.org lists My Heart Will Go On as one of the songs popularised by a movie. Included in this list is Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, which found a home among the airheads of the hilarious Wayne's World. Don't You Forget About Me by Simple Minds is irrevocably attached to the brat pack classic The Breakfast Club, which the website also holds responsible to making the tune more popular.
Whether or not the song was propelled by the movie or the movie by the song, many songs that have been a part of a movie soundtrack, have been very successful on the music charts. Only a few seconds of Diana King's Shy Guy was heard in Bad Boys, starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, but the song went to number fifteen on the Billboard Top R&B Singles chart. King also had her music featured, though less successfully so, on My Best Friend's Wedding.
A look at the Amazon.com bestselling soundtracks shows that even some very old soundtracks continue to sell. According to the website's listings, soundtracks from The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins and Saturday Night Fever continue to be top sellers, alongside the likes of Pulp Fiction, Oh Brother Where Art Though, Moulin Rouge and The Lord of the Rings.
Some movie soundtracks have done more than put additional money in the coffers of the artiste and the production house. Reggae's international career was greatly spurred on by The Harder They Come soundtrack, with Jimmy Cliff classics such as the title track and You Can Get It If You Really Want. Interestingly, You Can Get It If You Really Want is also making its way to new audiences having found a new home (albeit a Viagra inspired one) in Something's Gotta Give.
Reggae is not the only genre that was helped by a movie soundtrack. The high pitched ditties on Saturday Night Fever helped roll in the disco era. Though no one would have predicted it, bluegrass music has found fertile ground through the success of the O! Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack.
Some movie soundtracks have also brought old songs back into the public sphere, sometimes even giving the artistes career a shot in the leg. Roy Orbison's Oh Pretty Woman was again propelled unto the Billboard charts by the magic of the Julia Roberts and Richard Gere combination in Pretty Woman. Dirty Dancing also brought back old songs such as Do You Love Me, allowing them to make their acquaintance with a new generation.
Many movie soundtracks have actually made it to multiplantinum status. At the peak stands The Bodyguard. Led by Whitney Houston's astounding cover of Dolly Parton's I Will Always Love You, The Bodyguard soundtrack went on to sell 16 million copies. Grease, Dirty Dancing, The Lion King and Waiting To Exhale are also in the best-selling soundtracks, of which wikipedia.com provides a list.
Interestingly, most of these soundtracks were from movies which were either musicals or about dancing and so heavily depended on the music.
Of course, being on a soundtrack does not guarantee a song's success. Indeed, some songs, though included on a soundtrack, never get any emotional tie-in as they end up on the editing room floor of the actual film. Likewise, a good soundtrack does not guarantee a movie's success. Either may play chicken or egg and both can benefit and sometimes neither will.
