Here’s something special we don’t get everyday. We were emailing with Greg Mottola and we asked nicely and he gave us a list of all the music featured in “Adventureland” with accompanying notes. Pretty rad if we do say so ourselves. Greg tell us a soundtrack is forthcoming, but the tracklist and rights are being hashed out as we speak so that’s TBD for now. Here’s all the music featured in the film, plus the director’s notes.
– “HERE SHE COMES NOW,” “PALE BLUE EYES” – Velvet Underground (“I didn’t know Pale Blue Eyes was in ‘The Diving Bell & The Butterfly’ until after I committed to it … but its a perfect song, so how can I complain? …and HERE SHE COMES NOW is a great, but not overplayed song … there are good Galaxie 500 and Nirvana covers of it [too].”)
– SATELLITE OF LOVE – Lou Reed (“Used in many movies, but has a story justification … and is lovely.”)
– BASTARDS OF YOUNG, UNSATISFIED – Replacements (“Two great songs by probably the most important band to me in the mid/late 80s.”)
– ROCK ME AMADEUS – Falco (“My dumb parody joke in college was ROCK ME, ANN B. DAVIS, in case you were ever tormented by The Brady Bunch.”)
– “DON’T WANT TO KNOW IF YOU ARE LONELY” – Hüsker Dü (“We had an earlier Husker Du song in, but the SST label was in a legal dispute and we couldn’t get anything from their catalog.”)
– “I’M IN LOVE WITH A GIRL” – Big Star (“We cleared the album cover, too — the one with the great William Eggleston photo … it’s hidden in the opening shot of the scene.”)
– LOOKING FOR A KISS – New York Dolls
– TASTE OF CINDY (acoustic B-side version) – Jesus And Mary Chain (“Fantastic song.”) [ed. hell yes]
– TOPS – Rolling Stones (“Scorsese and Wes Anderson have the corner on ABKCO-era Stones, but 80s Stones are still fair play … plus I have a real soft spot for EMOTIONAL RESCUE and TATTOO YOU.”)
– HOT BLOODED – as played by a fake Foreigner cover band
– SO IT GOES – Nick Lowe (“For the Connell (Ryan Reynolds) character, who’s still stuck in the 70s … this song takes me straight back to junior high.”)
– DON’T DREAM IT’S OVER – Crowded House (“One of the greatest romantic pop songs of the 80s.”)
– LET THE MUSIC PLAY – Shannon (“One of several dance songs in the movie.”)
– I WANT ACTION – Poison (“As seen on a music video.”)
– POINT OF NO RETURN – Expose
– OBSESSION – Animotion (“Used to great effect in ‘KING OF KONG’ … credit where credit’s due.”)
– YOUR LOVE – Outfield (“Because I simply had to.”)
– DANCE HALL DAYS – Wang Chung
– JUST LIKE HEAVEN – The Cure
– BREAKING THE LAW – Judas Priest (“Underscoring a chase scene.”)
– IN MY HOUSE – Mary Jane Girls
– HERE I GO AGAIN – Whitesnake (“Yes, Whitesnake”)
… “and maybe a cover of an INXS song for the end credits” (to be determined!)
Motolla originally had written in some spots for Brian Eno and The Smiths, but some songs are pretty fucking expensive and like the Stones once sang, “you can’t always get what you want” That said, there’s a crazy outrageously long list of songs in a film that did not have a huge budget. How his music supes pulled that off is incredible (the fact that they have a Rolling Stones song itself is pretty remarkable).
PS, we’d like to do more of these so if you’re interested and you’re a filmmaker, email us. “Adventureland” is a coming of age comedy set in the summer of 1987, centered around a recent college grad who has to take a menial summer job instead of following his post-grad dreams of a European trip. It stars Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Martin Starr, Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Ryan Reynolds and is due in theaters March 27 via Miramax.
So how can 500 Days of Summer or whatever get two Smiths songs and Adventureland can’t get one? Doesn’t seem fair. Also, the Velvet Underground songs kinda seem outta place on this soundtrack, no?
There was previous mention of a lot of Neil Young songs? Were they not able to come through with the rights?
Seems like they could maybe have gotten some Smiths songs but opted to use the cash elsewhere. I’m guessing you could get three or more of those songs for the cost of one Smiths song.
@Anon re: Neil Young. Yes, presumably they were cost prohibitive.
Here’s a crazy idea, why not simply ask the music supervisors in charge of each film why they made the decisions they did?
Novel idea. Some times music supes just don’t wanna answer for whatever reason. don’t think we haven’t asked.
Plus filmmakers generally don’t like to share what they couldn’t afford until way after the fact. It can be a sensitive issue sometimes for obvious reasons.
I’m not positive, but I think the INXS song from the closing credits is “Don’t Change”. It didn’t sound like a cover though. It’s been a couple of weeks now so my memory is hazey…
What song is playing in the last part of the Adventureland trailer?
which trailer, send a link.
And be specific about where. we don’t do all the legwork for you here.
“Blister in the Sun” by the Violent Femmes. If you know the song, let the guy know. If not, why be a dick?
Not being a dick at all.
I can’t remember every song in every trailer I see hundreds. There’s also sometimes multiple version of trailers often and he/she might be referring to a different version (happened many times before – I generally only care and see version 1).
A link definitely helps cause who know what exact trailer and moment they’re talking about.
I get a lot of “what is the song in the trailer” and there are like 3 songs in it. wtf.
“Blister in the Sun!” Thank you. That was driving me crazy! Love that song. It is cool weirdness.
Can you tell me what song plays at the very beginning of the Adventureland trailer. It starts at 00:15. Here’s a link to the vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F–nHysJkw
The reason the VU stuff is not out of place is that they were “rediscovered” by a lot of kids in the 80s (this is before they were “rediscovered” several more times in subsequent eras). The 80s saw the first film retrospectives of their work, though, and this is when the VU actually started to get the props they deserved all along.
dick