Soundtracking: The Best Musical Moments of 2018
Wednesday, January 2, 2019 at 9:00PM by Chris Feil
We have had another banner year for cinematic variants of musicals - from the classic (A Star is Born, Mary Poppins Returns) to the modern (Hearts Beat Loud, Vox Lux) to the unfortunate (Bohemian Rhapsody). But there's more than just musicals that have made an impact! As ever, I've had my ear towards all sorts of needle drops and clever cues where movie music has been concerned this year. You know, the kind of stuff that makes Soundtracking tick.
We've already discussed what Oscar might hold for the Original Song category this year, but 2018 was largely defined for me by songs familiar and unexpected. Join me like Charlize Theron doing Carly Rae Jepsen karaoke in Tully and sing along to the year's best musical moments...
15. Lizzo's "Good as Hell" as ubiquitous female empowerment anthem
Early 2018 gave us feel-good dominance of this 2016 genius track: it closed out both Blockers and I Feel Pretty before going on to be a lipsync on RuPaul's Drag Race. And now that everyone has finally gotten hip to the song, it's everywhere and so rightly is Lizzo herself. New music this week!
14. "Wrapped Up" from Vox Lux
What a piece of work is Vox Lux, how nobly unreasoned. While it's biggest Rorschach is its closing twenty minute concert sequence, the reemergence of Celeste's first hit song "Wrapped Up" as sung by Natalie Portman delivers the most clarity between the film's many dualities: its two acts, its mishegoss of ugliness and humanity, its Celestes. Raffey Cassidy's innocent teen seems so far away, but she's also (literally, in terms of the actress) right there.
13. "Trip a Little Light Fantastic" from Mary Poppins Returns
Not the film's best song (that title belongs to "The Place Where Lost Things Go"), but this is the one that earns every penny paid by the audience through old school screen musical panache. A good, old fashioned dance number that actually wows.
12. Creating "Hearts Beat Loud" before our eyes
I've written about Hearts Beat Loud at length, but I'd be remiss to not include its sparks here. While the much bigger movie about musical inspiration and the songwriting process got most of the attention this year, this one's subtlety is also special - and shows music as a vessel of communication between a father and daughter, the avenue they both use to express what they can't to one another.
11. Improvisational fantasy in Madeleine's Madeleine
A mounting chorus of "Hey na na"s as tumultuous force made for an uncommonly enigmatic trailer, but this song is as fitting a way to sell the tricky film as any. But when Madeleine's Madeleine closes its omnifaceted psychological deep dive with a feverish dance piece that's equally difficult to reduce the meaning of, it's as gobsmacking as that trailer would suggest. Fantasy or maybe not, a breakthrough or maybe very not.
10. Mary Steenburgen tap dancing to Meat Loaf in Book Club
Remember when Susan Surandon tap danced to "Moon River" at her husband's funeral in Elizabethtown? (No? Just me?) This is like that but with some emotional payoff and somehow less silly and more moving. Bonus points for "Craig T. Nelson, rock star" being an easier thing to buy into than you might imagine.
9. "This Old Heart of Mine" in Bad Times at the El Royale
Was it Cynthia Erivo that got your butt in the seat for the underwhelming El Royale? Well luckily her vocals are what gave the film its life, like here where she enhanced its tension for one of its key set pieces. Get her a screen musical, stat!
8. Spirituals in First Reformed
Speaking of Broadway babies, I only recently learned that the singing voice heard on First Reformed spiritual tunes are dubbed by none other than Broadway star Julia Murney. No wonder its musical interludes are so haunting, down to First Reformed's final ecstatic shot. "Leaning, Lea-"
7. Justin Vivian Bond's loungue singer in Can You Ever Forgive Me?
The most richly queer movie that hasn't been sold to you as such comes with its own underdiscussed gay cameo: cabaret legend Justin Vivian Bond singing standards in an empty midday piano bar. Providing respite for Lee Israel's melancholy, it's another small piece of the film that mirrors the writer's displacement to another era.
6. "Yellow" in Crazy Rich Asians
Director Jon M. Chu chose this cathartic translated Coldplay track with intention and, reader, I actually wept. The kind of romantic ballad manuevering we've long grown accustomed to at a romantic comedy climax, but also providing a warm embrace that acknowledges this film's context in our current movie landscape.
5. Closing credits needle drops: "Both Sides Now" in Hereditary and "Skyline Pigeon" in The Favourite
Dare I say "Both Sides Now" gives ahem both sides now: Hereditary's exhausted emotionality and Ari Aster's grim wit in delivering it. "Skyline Pigeon" is also a darkly hilarious nod to The Favourite's habitual pigeon shooting, while its lyrics spell out the devastating themes at its core. Both sharply funny needle drops and thematically honest.
4. "At Last" in Let the Sunshine In
A classic song that's been overused in cinema to diminishing returns feels like a wallop here, providing a deception to us and Juliette Binoche's lovelorn protagonist that things might just be looking up. Binoche cry-swaying to Etta James is simply why we go to the cinema, anyway.
3. Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again's entire third act
You could call including a whole 30 minutes of a film here as a cheat, but how do you separate the cumulative impact here? We've praised Mamma Mia as a silly salve, and while this is still that, its escapism becomes something that heals not just through mere distraction. Though the mirroring of Donna and Sophie's stories in "I Have Been Waiting For You" to the catharsis of Cher's "Fernando" to that joygasm of a "Super Trouper" finale, it stealthily allows us to cope with the kind of grief that we thought we were avoiding.
2. "Shallow" / "Always Remember Us This Way" in A Star is Born
"Shallow" is the cultural landmark, the meme, the emotional epicenter of the film. "Always..." however carries the same amount of narrative weight, even if more quietly. The former is the birth of the title, making good on the legendary title and then some. The latter is the moment before the diagnosis, the beginnning of the end - it will never be this good again.
1. "Générique" in Burning
The shot of the year, but one that works in tandem between director, cinematographer, actor, and the music before them. For a second you may just forget the music is there because of how singular of a creation director Lee Chang-dong has made here, a poetic cry from the soul that encompasses economic inequity, toxic masculinity, and the political void all in one wail. And Miles Davis is just the artist to use to dive into such expansive depths.
All Soundtracking installments can be found here!
Reader Comments (17)
It's funny because I would totally describe Ally and Jack's relationship as "Shallow"
I choose to believe you haven't seen Cold War and that explains the abscence of "Dwa serduszka (Two Heats)"
Peggy Sue - I'm quite mild on Cold War (see recent TFE podcast episodes)
Another brutally effective closing credits needle drop to add to #5: "America" (West Side Story) in "Vice."
Tell me something, boy. How do you do it? Chris, this column is your creation--and you're a goddamn genius! Thank you for bringing our music, musical and movie selves together as one. The Soundtracking essays feed my pop life and my movie life in equal and three-quarter time. Xox
I'm fine with your rule bending choice of the last 30 min. of Mama Mia: Here We Go Again. When I saw it the audience went wild for the Super Trooper number. So much fun.
Oh, Juliette Binoche in Let The Sunshine In....she's a force of nature, just luminous, outstanding throughout ,couldn't take my eyes off of her, it's a layered , lovely, towering performance , her best since the terrific Certified Copy.
So glad you picked "Yellow"! Hope you consider doing a whole soundtracking post on Crazy Rich Asians :)
I loved the last 30 min of MM: Here We Go Again, but IMO the best part was actually the one you did not mentioned - My Love, My Life. Beautifully sang and a perfect ending for the story.
From Crazy Rich Asians I liked Can't Help Falling in Love the most - sure, a little cheesy, on-the-nose, but it was a moment of true feeling in an otherwise mechanical and lifeless movie.
Gah - now I'm even more desperate to see Burning.
From what I've seen so far this year, the use of Cyndi Lauper in Tully and Raffey Cassidy singing Wrapped Up were the key musical moments for me.
The Too Late to Turn Back Now sequence from Blackkklansman is missing from this list.
I love the crossover between this list and my list of dance sequences. That moment in Burning is just A+++, and Miles Davis is KEY to it working as well as it does.
The closing concert in Vox Lux is pretty genius to my mind. What I love about that soundtrack is how you can track Celeste's career through the songs even though we don't really see it - and even with the songs out of chronological order. Can't believe not a single one of Sia's songs made the Oscar shortlist.
Btw, I'd vote for a musical moment being the most unexpected moment in a 2018 film - the I've Never Been to Me sequence in You Were Never Really Here.
Lol @ the Good as Hell shout out. It was the credits song to Bad Moms Christmas, Blockers and I Feel Pretty in the span of 5 months. I feel tempted to make videos of it being the credits song to Titanic, Schindler's List, The Godfather, etc....
I'm still shocked that "Shallow" is the only shortlisted song from ASIB.
It doesn't seem so long ago that a movie could get three Best Song nominations. Gaga would definitely deserve to join that club this year, IMO.
My favourite musical moment in 2018 was the absolute skewering of one of the worst 90s songs, Crash Test Dummies' "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm", in the end creditors of TAG. Loved it!
PS "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" was also mentioned/pilloried in another 2018 movie, but I can't remember which one. Can anyone help me out?
Oh come on. You may not have liked Bohemian Rhapsody, but pretending that the whole Live Aid sequence wasn't amazing is just plain spiteful.
Then again, spite seems par for the course in this blog nowadays.
brookesboy- xoxo
ScottC - a great choice!!
Ron - I mean, for me, that sequence wasn’t even the best constructed or most impactful musical sequence in that film. With respect, I have not written at length about the movie and my POV (this piece included) is joy first