One thing that links 'Stayin' Alive’ by the Bee Gees, ‘Don’t You Forget About Me’ by Simple Minds for Breakfast Club and ‘Purple Rain’ by Prince is that they can all be considered to be classic songs.
But another thread that connects them is that they were all written specifically for films.
Of course this isn’t a club inhabited entirely by great songs. Other "Made for Movies" music includes Celine Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’, Bryan Adams’ ‘Everything I Do’ and Aerosmith’s ‘Don’t Want to Miss a Thing’.
But it is a trend that continues to this day, with modern examples including ‘Happy’ by Pharrell Williams and ‘What Was I Made For?’ by Billie Eilis.
And the appeal is (relatively) obvious.
For a movie studio, it gets to tie its film to a big name artist – which adds another element of exposure to the release. Perhaps gives it a bit of artistic credibility or, at least, something catchy to help create a positive association for audiences.
For the artist, it’s an extra way to earn money from your work – something that’s increasingly important in an era when streaming has all but replaced physical music sales. Being part of a film release also means your song will get heard by the people who go to see the film – some of whom might go and find more of your work, and perhaps ultimately become fans.
Though there are cases where songs get linked to films even when they weren’t written specifically for them.
In 2012, Soundgarden released its first song in 15 years as part of the upcoming Marvel Avengers movie. The late Chris Cornell said they did this because – with the record label machine no longer as powerful as it once was - this had become the way to get new music in front of people; there was no big record label machine promoting stuff anymore.
Sometimes those existing songs become forever linked to the film that features them.
Like ‘Everybody’s Talking’ by Harry Nilsson – which came out two years before it was used in Midnight Cowboy. Or ‘All Star’ by Smash Mouth, which wasn’t written for a film but actually appeared in many – including Mystery Men, Rat Race and Shrek – which led it to become a huge hit globally.
How did Batman’s soundtrack save Seal’s career?
Seal burst onto the scene with his self-titled debut album in 1991 and had big hits with ‘Killer’ and ‘Crazy’.
Three years later he followed that up with his second album – also, confusingly, called Seal – which included ‘Kiss from a Rose’, though that song actually had its origins way back in 1987.
And neither the album nor the single did particularly well. According to Seal, just months after the album’s release, it was looking increasingly likely that he’d be dropped by his record label.
But then he got a call from filmmaker Joel Schumacher – who’d made the likes of St Elmo’s Fire, The Lost Boys and Falling Down. Schumacher had also been tasked with picking up the Batman franchise following Tim Burton’s duology starring Michael Keaton.
Schumacher said he was a fan of Seal – and asked if he could use ‘Kiss from a Rose’ for a love scene involving Bruce Wayne and Nicole Kidman’s character, Dr Chase Meridian.
Seal says yes – but then Schumacher came back and said it wasn’t not really a fit for that scene after all. But, as he liked it so much, he opted instead to stick it on the end credits instead.
That might seem like a demotion but, as Seal said after, what it meant was that you had audiences around leaving the theatre with his song ringing in their ears.
And that sees it become, belatedly, a global smash hit. It makes a huge amount of money for Seal – and saves his music career in the process.
What other acts were saved by a movie?
Survivor had released two albums by the early 1980s, neither of which had done well. They were convinced their record label was about to let them go – until they got a phone call from Sylvester Stallone, who wanted a punchy song for use in a montage in his third Rocky film.
And there’s a huge element of luck for them in this, because Stallone had originally tried to get ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ by Queen, but they had refused to allow it to be used in the film.
As a result he went to Survivor instead, asking for a song with a strong beat that would match up with some of the punches being thrown in the film.
‘The Eye of the Tiger’ is the result and, of course it became a huge hit, and remains an anthem that is still immediately recognisable from its opening seconds.
It also became the name of Survivor’s third album, and they went on to have a long and successful career with eight albums in total, the last one of which came out in 2006.
Have songs for a movie ever landed someone in legal trouble?
Yes – for example Ray Parker Jr’s song ‘Ghostbusters’ for the 1984 film of the same name.
The producers of the film had actually gone initially to Huey Lewis for a song. But he declined, probably because he was already signed up to make a song for another film - Back to the Future. (That resulted in his hit ‘The Power of Love’).
Despite him turning Ghostbusters down, the producers used his song ‘I Need a New Drug’ as a temporary background track while they were shooting and editing.
Having also been rejected by Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham, they then recruited Ray Parker Jr to write the actual song.
As a reference they gave him the footage they’d filmed, as well as the Huey Lewis song they’d used as a temporary track. They also asked that he find a way to work the film’s title into the song and, because he was a last resort, they gave him a very short amount of time to turn something around.
In the end he spent a weekend working on a song and presented to them the song we all know today.
The one problem is that it bears more than a passing resemblance to Lewis’ ‘I Need a New Drug’. As a result, Lewis launches a plagiarism case – which gets settled out of court, and he gets royalties for the song after all.
But there’s another twist to the tale – because that settlement came with a confidentiality clause. Fast-forward to 2001, and Lewis tells the story to VH1, which prompts Parker to sue Lewis for breaching their agreement – which results in him getting some money out of the whole thing too.
What about songs that were made hits by TV shows?
This was a phenomenon that, in a way, was confined to the 90s.
While TV shows had traditionally used theme tunes, that began to change in the 80s. By the 90s those shows had really global audiences – which also coincided with physical music sales reading their pre-digital peak.
Probably the best example of a TV show creating a hit was Friends and ‘I’ll be There for You’ by The Rembrants.
Again, we see an element of luck here – because the pilot of Friends used ‘Shiny Happy People’ by REM for its opening credits.
But that band didn’t want their song to be used on a TV show. So, instead, two of Friends’ creators - Martha Kaufmann and David Crane – teamed up with songwriter Allee Williams to create a 45 second song that suited the show.
Then Warner Bros, which was a record label as well as a TV studio, scoured its artists’ roster for an available band – and landed upon The Rembrants.
And of course the show quickly became a hit, and people fell in love with the song too. That led to the band writing extra lyrics to stretch it out into a more-than three minute long song that could be played on radio and TV.
It’s not known how much the band made from that song – but it’s estimated to be in the millions.
Given that Friends as a whole is still making hundreds of millions of dollars a year for everyone involved, they’re likely still earning a bit off the repeats to this day too.
What about another 90s gem – ‘I Don’t Wanna Wait’?
This is by Paula Cole – written in 1996 for her own album, it then got picked up for use on the TV show Dawson’s Creek.
Again – a bit of luck was involved, because the producers initially wanted ‘Hand In My Pocket’ by Alanis Morrissette. But when she decided that she didn’t want it to be used, they had to go looking for a last minute replacement.
And, again, Warner Bros suggested an artist they had a link to and a song they had the licence for – and the rest is history.
And while Cole would have made money from that – and sold albums and gig tickets on the back of its popularity – she recently revealed that she hadn’t gotten any royalties from the song in years.
Part of the reason for that is because the creators stopped using it on DVD releases – and then streaming versions – in order to save money.
To try to counter this Cole has now re-recorded and published her own version of the song – Taylor Swift-style – and asked people to choose that one over the original.
Netflix also recently struck a deal to use her version of the song on the show, which it has the streaming rights to. That has made the fans very happy.
What about composers?
There are so many cases where a song’s soundtrack is iconic not because of a song – but because of the theme music that was created for it.
Few would argue that the king of the iconic theme tune is John Williams. He’s responsible for the extremely well-known themes behind Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Superman, Jurassic Park, ET, Jaws, Schindler’s List, Harry Potter and Home Alone. And he’s done the music for so many other classic films beyond those.
Which is why he probably raised an eyebrow or two when he was recently quoted as saying that he never really liked film music very much.
His complaint is that they tend to just be fragmented and fleeting – unlike something composed for an opera or symphony. That’s borne out by the fact that while a soundtrack might have an iconic moment, most movie scores are designed to sit in the background – setting a mood but not distracting viewers from the action or dialogue.
But still there are so many other beloved film composers – like Hans Zimmerman, Danny Elfman – maybe best known for his work with Tim Burton but he’s done loads of other soundtracks - Ennio Morricone, Howard Shore, Vangelis and Quincy Jones.
One artist who has made a very successful transition to composer is Trent Reznor – the man behind Nine Inch Nails – who’s created an array of film scores in partnership with Atticus Ross.
It represents a remarkable shift for him – having sung about extremely dark topics in the 90s – like addiction, depression and self-harm – to now having two Oscars for his film work, including one for his work on a Disney/Pixar movie.
Aside from films there have also been some incredible TV tune composers. That includes Mike Post, who’s the John Williams of TV music.
He’s the man behind the infamous Law & Order music - but also themes for The A-Team, The Rockford Files, Magnum PI, Doogie Howser, Hill Street Blues and Quantum Leap amongst others.
