Needle Drops: The Good, The Bad, And The Lazy
The dawn of the American New Wave in the late 1960s brought new voices, classics, and storytelling techniques. Many of these have stood the test of time and have been utilized by generations of filmmakers since. Easily, the most popular of these methods is the “needle drop,” a practice that uses a pop song from any given era of music to help tell the story through diegetic or non-diegetic means. Needle drop saw its surge coinciding with the American New Wave as more filmmakers began utilizing it, making the practice streamlined into three categories.
The first category was to set a mood or use a song to place a film in a given time, such as Boogie Nights (1997), whose disco and rock soundtrack audibly reminds the audience of its setting in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Another method is to remind the audience of another film that used that same song. “Gimme Shelter” by the Rolling Stones is a victim of this, being used numerous times across films like Flight (2012), The Fan (1996), and countless episodes of TV, fairly obviously to remind viewers of its use in the films of Martin Scorsese. Through just hearing the song, the editor wants to invoke films such as Goodfellas (1990), Casino (1995), and The Departed (2006).
Secondly, it can convey how a character feels or an action they are committing at a given moment. For example, in The World’s End (2013), the opening needle drop of the film is the song “Loaded” by Primal Scream, and its lyrics, a sample from the 1966 motorcycle picture Wild Angels, stating, “...we want to get loaded, and we wanna have a good time…we’re gonna have a party” reflects the mindset of the protagonist, Gary King. He comes up with the idea of reuniting with his friends to relive his glory days of youth and betting while belligerently intoxicated.
Third, needle drops can give off the general “mood” the scene should convey to the audience. This is achievable through the song’s sound, not necessarily what the song is about or what it means, and if it uses the song's lyrics, it does so in the most literal sense possible, just as in the previous category. Now, this can work, and it has, just as the ending of Cruel Intentions (1999) does, exceptionally with the song “Bitter Sweet Symphony” by The Verve. Yet, this practice often leads to lazy uses of popular songs with little to no plot relevance or characters inserted into the film just to sell the soundtracks. This is the case with the dozens of uses of “London Calling” by The Clash, which introduce a sequence where characters in the film appear in London, such as Night At The Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014) and The Conjuring 2 (2012). This song is chosen to show how cool London is, despite the song having references to the sorry state of the city in the late 1970s.
The worst perpetrator of the irrelevant needle drop is Suicide Squad (2016). The film had a chaotic editing process headed by the studio executives at Warner Brothers, who wanted a film with songs similar to the trailer, even if that meant scrapping originally intended ideas. As a result, every character/location introduction—something that happens rapidly in the film—is accompanied by a famous pop song with little to no relevance to the plot. To introduce a location in Louisiana, the song used is “House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals, which only briefly mentions New Orleans. Another example is when the film introduces the character Captain Boomerang, a bank robber who does so for his own gain. The song that plays during this introduction is “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” by AC/DC, which is about people who are paid to hurt and kill people. The only real relation between the character and the song is that both are committing illegal acts.
Naturally, you may be thinking, “Who does the needle drop best?” Well, I have two answers. One is the aforementioned auteur, Martin Scorsese, whose use of songs like “Jump Into The Fire” by Harry Nillson in Goodfellas (1990) and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” by The Rolling Stones in Mean Streets (1973) perfectly reflects a character’s POV, in their paranoia or anxiety.
The second is one of my favorite needle drops in recent years: “Out Of Time,” again by the Rolling Stones, in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019). This needle drop is particularly excellent since, in the one scene, it has not one, not two, but three relevant connections to the film. First, it signifies how, to the audience, Sharon Tate is “out of time” since the film appears to be building to her murder. Secondly, it tells the audience that his friendship with Cliff Booth is “out of time” because of Rick Dalton’s new wife. Finally, there is a metanarrative relevancy: The film deviates from the reality of Sharon Tate’s murder after this point, so the film is stepping “out of time” into an alternate timeline; give it a watch!
Needle drops are here to stay. They can be easy money for a studio since they can sell albums of original film soundtracks, but they can also help tell the film’s story to the audience. Without them, we would not have audiovisual masterpieces like Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver (2017), the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy (2014-2023), and Do The Right Thing (1989).
For any aspiring filmmaker, it is important to know how to best utilize the tool of the needle drop to the best of their ability since it can make an already great piece of art even better!
Thumbnail photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons