Indie Music in Feature Films: Scores and Soundtracks

As I lounge on the sofa in our front living room during the early evening on Saturdays, I have grown accustomed to a lazy routine that involves scanning the HBO and Showtime channels in 30-to-60-second intervals in search of filler before a) I prepare to leave the house for some reason and socialize with other humans, or b) prime time college football games begin (the latter happens much more frequently). At some point during my search, I typically find a film that I have already seen but is good enough to watch again for about 45 minutes or so while my wife concurrently struggles to decide which Veganomicon recipe would be the simplest and least time consuming to prepare (first-world/white-people problems). Last weekend I watched the end of Runaway Jury, which is still a great random film to watch on cable, and I also caught the tail end of It's Kind of a Funny Story, which I have seen a number of times and thoroughly enjoyed, despite the mixed reviews it has received. Funny Story is written and directed by the auteur-ish Canadian tag team of Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, who are responsible for one of my favorite films of the past decade: Half Nelson. I recognized a Broken Social Scene song during the closing credits of Funny Story, and then I remembered that Broken Social Scene was behind the entire soundtrack for Half Nelson.

Unlike Half Nelson, which used already-existing songs, BSS composed an original score and recorded a new song specifically for the soundtrack. BSS apparently graduated from soundtracking to scoring. The marriage of indie music and indie film is usually a welcomed thing, and composing a "score" for a film always seem more "prestigious," but which type of contribution generates more cultural capital within the indiesphere? The type of the contribution, and even the style of music, seems to matter less than the actual film for which the music is being produced. Moreover, minor "soundtracking" transgressions are overlooked if the band/artist develops a score for a great indie film. Here are some recent examples to consider:

1. In 2010, Trent Reznor, the chosen one from Nine Inch Nails who has somehow established and maintained indie credibility over a long period of time, won an Academy Award along with partner Atticus Ross for their original score in the critically and commercially successful film The Social Network. It was, admittedly, an amazing score, and undoubtedly caused some to run to record stores in search of a Pretty Hate Machine reissue. Reznor and Ross will be collaborating yet again in Fincher's forthcoming adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, although it appears that in addition to the score, the pair reworked Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song for the soundtrack, which is featured in this trailer:

Ambivalence persists.


 2. Another recent example is Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood's original composition for P.T. Anderson's There Will Be Blood, which should have won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2008. Greenwood's score was also nominated for an Academy Award that year. In 2007, EW's Chis Willman opined about the P.T.A. and Radiohead visionary's collaboration:

"At or near the top of most cinephiles' list of the most exciting filmmakers working today is Paul Thomas Anderson. Fill in ''music fans'' and ''bands'' in the above construction, and Radiohead is the no-brainer choice to end that sentence. Now, Anderson and Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood have teamed up. There will be strings... often abrasive, dissonant, disturbing, and always very loud strings."

The music is certainly unsettling and beautiful, and many feel it is the masterpiece underpinning the masterpiece. Greenwood even took a song that he composed earlier for the documentary Bodysong. Here is a sample of Greenwood's work in TWBB:

Reznor, Ross, and Greenwood received mainstream attention, but also generated plenty of discussion in the indiesphere. These types of comments were common on Stereogum:

"his score MADE (and daniel day lewis) this movie…
had anybody else scored this film, it wouldn’t have had the same impact….oscars [sic] around the table!"

Further, Stereogum even featured a post where users could download the entire score for Reznor and Ross's Social Network and portions of Greenwood's TWBB work .

The indiesphere seems to get excited for potential recognition from some mainstream publications and awards ceremonies that are otherwise ridiculed (see: Arcade Fire and The Grammy Awards), and then it becomes predictably dismissive if or when the work is overlooked and/or does not win. Both of the above examples (TWBB and Social Network) are "good" art in the eyes and minds of the indiesphere (critical reception + indiesphere buzz + moderately but not overwhelmingly popular); however, is there any difference when the indieshpere's beloved artists contribute music to films  that are not "good" art or may be too "commercial"? Consider these artists who contributed to the second film (I think) in the Twilight series:

Death Cab for Cutie, Thom Yorke, Lykke Li, Bon Iver, St. Vincent, Grizzly Bear, etc.

There is no "scoring" involved here, but all of these artists lent or recorded tracks for the OST. None of these artists seemed to catch very much negativity for their involvement in this project; most of the ire was reserved for the tweens who would not or could not appreciate the work of indie artists in their silly vampire movie (the indiesphere could never embrace the Twilight series, but I am guessing it will display affection for the Hunger Games series).
For instance, despite its contribution to Twilight, Grizzly Bear was mostly given a pass because the following year it composed music for the film Blue Valentine, using some previously recorded songs and some instrumental or "choir" versions of other songs. Here is Grizzly Bear's "Shift":

The indiesphere loved this, could not get enough of it. It seems to me, when it comes to taste-making in the indiesphere, composing an original score for a "good-art" film banks some cultural capital for an indie band and can generate further buzz, subsequent album sales, and so on. An individual song on a compilation soundtrack to a "bad-art" film is forgivable, but I think the trend of one band either composing an entire score or owning an entire soundtrack is the important trend here in the increasingly-transcendent world of indie music.

I am certain that I have overlooked some other good examples, so feel free to leave some comments. Now I am off to watch Thursday night TV. Who knows? Maybe I will hear a Neutral Milk Hotel song in tonight's episode of Parks and Rec., and then the band will reunite to score Michael Bay's next Transformers film and then the universe will literally explode.

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