Stumbled onto Marvel’s amazing soundtracks

I recently watched Captain Marvel, the first standalone film with a female protagonist in the MCU. Not Marvel, because Marvel made Elektra, even though we are all trying to forget. This movie could have a lot of hype; first female protagonist, Oscar-winning actress, one of the most powerful heroes in the MCU, young Samuel L. Jackson and so on. However, when half of our beloved characters have ceased to exist, a mad titan has won against our heroes and we are probably going to see the noble Captain America die in the next film, all the potential Captain Marvel hype is just not there. But to be fair this was an okay movie. It was enjoyable, the CGI to de-age SLJ did what Justice League could not do to Henry Cavil’s moustache and the characters were a bit flat but likeable. And the best part? The soundtrack. The full-on 90’s, girl empowerment, grunge soundtrack for the first female superhero movie set in the 90’s.

It is not the first time we have had a successful nostalgic soundtrack in the MCU. James Gunn (rehired, #JusticeforGunn) did it amazingly by creating a Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack so fine and fun, we would take it without the movie. Good songs that tied in as whole and related to the story. All songs were roughly from the 70’s because that is when the protagonist, Peter Quill, received the Awesome Mix Vol. 1 mixtape from his dying mother. The songs were therefore emotionally tied in to the story and made sense plotwise. But that is not all; they tied in to the scenes as well. This was a comedy disguised as a superhero movie and the songs were giving the scenes an essential light touch. They weren’t complementary to the scenes, they were integral. And that in turn did justice to popular, adored songs.

Captain Marvel’s soundtrack has not caused the same uproar, but man did I feel like wearing brown lipliner, thinning my brows and trying to dress like Kate Moss (for the unaware, these were all 90’s trends). A bit of Salt-N-Peppa for the fun, a bit of Nirvana for the grunge and a bit of Hole, Garbage and No Doubt for that girl-power grunge-pop aesthetic. It never felt out of touch; Brie was only happy when it rains, sporting a leather jacket on a stolen motorcycle and that made a filler scene feel complete. Plus not one, but two R.E.M. songs, including Man on the Moon, which felt so utterly appropriate. While not as awesome as the sensibly named Awesome Mix, this is another Spotify playlist to follow.

 It seems the world was shocked by how good the first Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack was (second one was not too shabby either), and superhero movies tried to implement nostalgic playlists into their movies. Captain Marvel, in my opinion, did it very well. You know who did not though? DC! Right after Guardians of the Galaxy was released and these relatively unknown superheroes got so much attention and praise, DC’s dark antihero movie ‘Suicide Squad’ went back into the editing room with many reshoots to fit this more fun and wacky attitude people seemed to enjoy. And therefore the next trailer is Harley Quinn, Deadshot and whichever other forgettable character was in the movie doing bad guy stuff with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ playing. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, a king of songs. A song so big, it got its own movie. Problem is, it did not work. Neither did ‘Seven Nation’s Army’ or ‘You Don’t Own Me’ or ‘Without ME’ or any of them. And this is a typical case of DC misunderstanding what worked and why. You don’t only need epic songs; you need epic songs that continue from one another, tie into the scene, tie into the plot. In other words, you need to do these epic songs justice, think them through rather than have them as accessories. In one, simple sentence, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is a flamboyant masterpiece, not a clickbait prop.

 Good news is James Gunn is doing the next Suicide Squad movie (at the time of this blogpost) so we can hope for a good soundtrack. Even better news is that he was rehired by Marvel for the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, so we can hope for an even better soundtrack. The best news is that while DC got it wrong, another Marvel director got it right, so we can hope for amazing soundtracks for many superhero movies to come.