The reason most people remember indy movies is because many of them have great soundtracks, no matter how awful the actual movie is (I.E. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, even Kate Dennings supple chested pederast appeal couldn’t help this hipster quagmire despite Michael Cera’s stunning performance as a Woody Allen blow up doll with a slow leak)
1. The Underrated Older Mass Appeal Song - This is your most important song, your hook. You need a popular song from an old school band that still has indy cred, The Cure, The Smiths, The Pixies, Echo and The Bunny Men, New Order, Joy Division. This is essential as it’s what convinces people to listen to your soundtrack and probably watch your bad movie. It’s important the song is melancholy so people know your movie is” deep” and that if people don’t like it they just don’t “get” it.
2. The Fringe Popular Songs - Get a couple popular bands that haven’t really broken into the mainstream so they still seem cool to everyone but the most ironic of hipsters (who still love them secretly and not ironically). Wilco, Morningwood, and The Strokes are all good examples. You have to show the audience that “yeah we get you, we think you’re cool, and we’re cool to let’s be cool together and sit in a coffee shop sipping lattes pretending to be important on our laptops. Maybe we’ll grow soul patches and hit the urban outfitters later.” These are the non-threatening bands that are just catchy and obscure enough to get people to buy the album.
3. The Cover Song Done By Someone You’ve Never Heard Of - Now you need a cover song done by a relatively unknown artist. This will seal the deal. Take an older hit song and get a band to cover it. If it’s a fast song make it slow and acoustic, if it’s a slow song make it fast and electric. Take a Doris Day song and have a suicidal junky sing it, maybe do an electro-pop version of Frank Sinatra’s “What A Wonderful World”. The only real rule here is do not make sad songs happy and no hardcore, thrash, metal etc.. Also avoid long obnoxious techno and anything that can be associated with non-white people. You don’t want to scare them off.
4. Foreign Language Song - Either take a previously popular song and have someone perform it in either French, Italian, or Spanish or use a song that’s already in one of those languages. As long as it’s slow and acoustic no one will mind. The importance of this song is to appeal to people who want to pretend they are worldly and culturally educated and sensitive. The illusion that this film has made you and expert on foreign affairs because you’ve heard the Spanish version of “Our Lips Are Sealed”.
5. A Background Score Track - Package some background music in from whomever did your movie score. It’s filler but you can also use it to fleece the composer by promising them a percentage of the soundtrack sales instead of paying them outright.
6. Movie Dialogue Tracks - Two tracks with movie dialogue so they don’t forget it’s from your movie. After listening to the soundtrack enough people will forget how bad the movie was and go see it again either by renting or purchasing the DVD.
7. Some Shitty Song By Someone Related To The Movie – I could a song by the Production Assistant’s band or the Director’s half retarded nephew, the key is that it’s cheap, pleases someone at the study, and has never been heard outside a pot smoke filled basement full of the deadbeats producing it. This will show the hipsters you’re one of them, one of them worthless assholes who will still be a clerk at the record store 20 years from now.
8. The Sad Moral Struggle Song – I know its redundant mentioning this song as it’s usually covered by half the album already. A token depressing song that is almost always a sad “why did I screw up” love song. There is usually 3 or 4 of these on the soundtrack already in some form or another.
9. The Token “Let’s Have Fun/Party/Everything Will Be Alright” Song – This song is the upbeat one that says “hey a bunch of stuff happened but it’s all cool now so let’s all party”. So they spend all movie making you sad and confused but it’s all cool, no hard feelings, everything turned out pointless let’s party! After all you’ve become close to the characters, you care what happens to them now no matter how un-hip and un-cool it is to care about things that weren’t from childhood cartoons.
10. The Bonus Track – This can be any piece of crap you find, as long as it’s either goofy or sung by cast members, most likely both. It could be sassy and campy to highlight a totally unnecessary involving ancillary homosexual characters who were forced into the plot for diversity reasons in which they dance and sing into hairbrushes (as it is a common fact that all gay men dance and sing into hairbrushes, it’s just nature at work). Either way it’s going to be awful and not worth listening to unless it’s by either Wesley Willis or Daniel Johnston.
Now that my indy movie soundtrack is complete it’s time to go find retro things and ironically make them popular with hipsters again. Hey hipsters, aids was really popular during the 80’s maybe you should all get aids ironically! Come on it’ll make you even more pale and thin and unhealthy than going vegan and you can look like heroin addicts with none of the fun and incite that comes with doing heroin! Hooray for aids!
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