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35 Songs Hollywood Needs To Stop Using

Dusty Ayres

Dusty Ayres

Commodore
Dear Hollywood, We know it's hard to cut trailers, and you want to the maximum possible appeal. It's understandable, and we all know the game.

Unfortunately, you've recently achieved critical mass on one subject: overused, hackneyed trailer songs. Sometimes they're indie and soft and intellectual, and other times they are rock numbers that are the equivalent of Matrix-slow-motion fight parodies. Old, tired, and boring. For the audience's sake, please stop using these 35 songs in movie trailers, promos for Grey's Anatomy, and all CBS finale shows.
Thank You,
All Humans
P.S. Read the list after the jump.
1. How To Save A Life -- The Fray
2. Solsbury Hill -- Peter Gabriel
3. Where Is My Mind? -- The Pixies
4. The Rockafeller Skank - Fatboy Slim
5. Bad Day -- Daniel Powter
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35 Songs Hollywood Needs To Stop Using
 
I am very pleased to note that Born to be Wild and Bad to the Bone are included. These are so overused they need to be banned from every future film.
 
I'll never cease to be impressed with someone including a Pixies song in the soundtrack.
 
"Entire soundtrack--Requiem for a Dream":lol:

Clint Mansell just needs to do every movie's score ever. Including Judd Apatow films and pornos.
 
It's the classical music that I can't stand getting used over and over again. Carmina Burana is the top of my list. The Four Seasons, Pachebel's Canon, Ma Vlast, The Carnival of the Animals...
 
^I was thinking that myself.

Considering how much classical music there is, you'd think they wouldn't have to keep re-using the same handful of compositions.

That was one thing I really liked about Shutter Island--the freshness of its soundtrack.
 
That "You spin my head right round" track has been used on about 5 mainstream films in the last year.
 
Temis the Vorta said:
It's the classical music that I can't stand getting used over and over again. Carmina Burana is the top of my list. The Four Seasons, Pachebel's Canon, Ma Vlast, The Carnival of the Animals...
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Your mileage may vary, but leave Ma Vlast out of it. Instead you can have any of the Requiems. :p
 
I can't take this list seriously. Nothing by Aretha Franklin made the cut? Really? "Respect" is the most overplayed song ever. "Think" and "Chain of Fools" are getting up there too.
 
Temis the Vorta said:
It's the classical music that I can't stand getting used over and over again. Carmina Burana is the top of my list. The Four Seasons, Pachebel's Canon, Ma Vlast, The Carnival of the Animals...
Click to expand...
And don't forget the “Jupiter” movement of Holst's The Planets!
Gaith said:
And this is SF/F rather than TV and Media how, exactly? ;)
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Right. Is there a moderator in the house? Someone please move this muthah where it belongs!

Not a song per se, but why is it whenever there's a montage of sweeping aerial shots of wheatfields or cornfields or whatever, we always have to hear that Aaron Copeland-esque music? It's as if the point needs to driven in with a hammer: “This is the heartland. This is America's breadbasket. This is the home of simple, honest, hard-working, God-fearing folks. In other words, shitkickers!”

(No offense intended to any shitkickers reading this.)
 
Maybe I'm not watching enough TV or movies, but 99% of those songs I don't even recognize, let alone think are overused.

I do have a few that I really wish would be retired for about 30-40 years:

Amazing Grace. I get the point that it's public domain and therefore dirt cheap to use. But surely there are other songs that can be played for funeral scenes. The only time in recent memory in which the song has worked was an episode of iCarly which poked fun at the fact it was public domain and therefore dirt cheap to use! This tune has been considered overused for decades -- I remember people giggling when Scotty fired it up on the bagpipes when Wrath of Khan came out in 1982. When people giggle because of a piece of music during an otherwise serious scene, it's time to find a new piece of music.

Hallelujah - by anybody. It's a beautiful song, yes. KD Lang knocked it out of the park when she did it at the Olympics. Elisa's recording of it (she's an Italian singer, I believe) is one of the best ever. Talulah Riley of St. Trinians did a great version. It accompanied a hot sex scene in Watchmen. But I've heard it so many times in films and TV that I want to tear my ears out whenever it starts up.

Ride of Valkyries - Richard Wagner composed probably thousands of pieces. Surely there has to be more to choose from. I love the Watchmen movie, but using this overripe tomato during a key scene took me out of the film (and also made me giggle during a sequence I probably shouldn't have found funny).

For He's a Jolly Good Fellow. For frell's sake, pony up the few bucks and pay the licence fee to use Happy Birthday to You. I've been having and going to birthday parties for 41 years now and I've yet to actually hear anyone sing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow". (Again, iCarly provided the definitive use of this tune in an episode, again describing it as public domain and therefore cheap).

I definitely agree with Bad to the Bone being on the list. After it was used for Arnold in Terminator, that should have been it.

Alex
 
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