The Music of Wes Anderson
ISSUE #244
With the release of Asteroid City this week, my friend and I have been holding a retrospective for his work since the beginning of June. We call it Weeks Anderson. I got Wes on the brain, as does TikTok, and I’m excited for the release of an Anderson film that’s garnered good reviews even from his skeptics.
For all the love he gets from the young—as the loudest Intro to Auteurism director, a burgeoning teenage cinephile discovers him every day—he’s probably the most divisive popular American filmmaker. I never thought I was the biggest fan, but I always said I liked him. It wasn’t until Weeks Anderson that I came to terms with just how formative he was to my artistic life—as big as any Spielberg or Cobain.
For all his cloying tendencies to some, it’s important to recognize his musical influence on a pre-internet world. He practically invented the 21st century needle drop. Before every song was at our disposal, a Wes Anderson movie was like an older brother crafting a perfect mixtape and leaving it in your car, full of “how did you even hear of this?” bands for those who had to find everything themselves.
An embarrassing handful of my favorite song—all of which yielded my favorite artists—came straight from Wes’s work. Elliott Smith came from The Royal Tenenbaums. Iggy Pop and Bowie came from The Life Aquatic. When Faces’ “Ooh La La” ended my favorite of his, Rushmore, it lasted long enough to make it in The Hundred.
He was even once the King of Emo, lest we forget—lines from Rushmore were all over Brand New’s Deja Entendu and Fall Out Boy’s Take This to Your Grave. Twee little tales of sad, precocious men who always chose the wrong women to love. It’s quaint, a little cringe-y, but historically important.
I think we can agree—with a little grace and patience—he's an important American example of idiosyncratic voice. And for how much he got me into movies all those years ago, it’s nice that he’s still getting kids into them to this day. Love it or hate it, anyone who can do that is doing a good thing. Let’s listen and rejoice.
I’ve been watching through the films of Danny Boyle. Some examples: Trainspotting, Sunshine, 28 Days Later, Slumdog Millionaire. From early on, Boyle was rightfully recognized for his edgy and sophisticated musical taste—the Trainspotting soundtrack alone, from Iggy’s “Lust for Life” through Underworld’s “Born Slippy (Nuxx)”, helped define the tastes of a whole generation.