The soundtrack to Twilight is currently the number one album in the U.S., and a band called Paramore is experiencing great success by association. They have two songs featured on the soundtrack, one of which, “Decode,” has been released as the album’s lead single. Though Paramore have been around for some time and were even nominated for a Grammy earlier this year, they have never charted quite as well on the Billboard Hot 100 as they currently are through this Twilight connection. And chances are they’ll never have quite as big a hit again.
Countless other artists have had their biggest break with a song prominently featured on or released through a movie soundtrack, and many of these artists disappeared into obscurity afterwards. Or, at best, they maintained a modest career, never achieving the kind of chart-topping high they once received courtesy of a hit film.
SpoutBlog has compiled a list of ten such “one-hit wonders,” though we made some rules and exceptions in order to both narrow things down (no themes or plot songs) and include a few significant tracks that aren’t technically the only hits from their respective performers. Basically, we’re presenting ten artists who would be a lot less famous had they not licensed a single to a soundtrack and who shall forever be best known for that one song from that one movie.
As you read this post, I am sitting on a college campus wearing a maroon cap and gown as I attend my graduation commencement. Yes, 13 years after I first went off to film school, 11 years after I dropped out, and 2 years after I returned to finally finish my undergrad, I’m getting my bachelor’s in film studies. So, to celebrate the occasion, I figured I’d take a look at some of the film characters who are in my mind as I walk toward the stage to pick up my diploma.
Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) in The Graduate - This one’s obvious, so let me start with him and get it over with. I do wonder, though: if he were just graduating today, what would be the substitute for that famous one word of advice, “plastics”? Would it be “blogging”? It sure wouldn’t be “film criticism.” And not just because that’s actually two words. …Read more
Todd at South Dakota Dark introduces the Superficial Blogathon, to take place February 1-8:
…sometimes, you just want to look at attractive people doing witty things. I mean, we’re all human!
You could write an extended treatise on a work where the superficial pleasures led you to a deeper understanding of the piece as a whole. Or you could make a list of people you find attractive. Or you could just post pretty pictures. So long as it has to do with something in the arts or pop culture and it’s something you enjoy on some sort of shallow level, it’s fair game.
Karina’s note to self: this is probably the perfect place for that piece you’ve been thinking about writing about the time you went to see Janeane Garofalo at Comix, and she solicited the audience for painkillers and eventually traded a girl sitting up front some kind of hand-beaded bracelet for a handful of Vicodin, which in turn prompted to you to ponder the allure of Reality Bites. Which, you should probably admit right now, you saw four times in the theater when you were 13, and which today, though totally cognizant of its faults, you still can’t really help but like a lot.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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