My Favorite use of Pop Music in a Martin Scorsese Movie (complete with the actual scenes! -cept shutter island and devo. both entities deserve thousands of oscahs!)
11. ’Wheel of Fortune’ by Kay Star, Shutter Island
10. ‘Layla (Piano Outro)’ by Eric Clapton, Goodfellas
9. ‘Jumpin Jack Flash’ by the Rolling Stones, Mean Streets
8. ‘Jenny Jones’ by the Clash, Bringing Out The Dead
7. ’Shipping up to Boston’ by Dropkick Murphy’s, The Departed
6. ‘Rags to Riches’ by Tony Bennet, Goodfellas
5. ’ [Can’t get No] Satisfaction’ Devo, Casino
4. ‘Gimme Shelter’ by Rolling Stones, The Departed
3. ‘House of the Rising Sun’ by the Rolling Stones, Casino
This might be the best list ever. The use of The Dropkick Murphys in The Departed is particularly apt - and that editing/cutting, CHRIST! - they’ve just grown as grown as a band that people love in Boston, ever since their cover of the old song “Tessie” was used as the unofficial theme song (or something, I don’t follow baseball) for the 2004 Curse breaking, Yankee beating Red Sox. They play a giant venue every St. Patrick’s Day for 3 days straight and it sells out quickly. They have their own float in the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Southie. It’s sort of fascinating to me because I think there’s a certain generation of Irish Catholics who were raised on The Clancy Brothers (I know I was), but these days it seems like the Dropkick Murphys are doing their darndest to claim cultural identity with their music. (I haven’t seen Bringing Out the Dead but click on that clip! Do it! Perfect.)
This list also puts the hacky likes of Alexandra Patsavas to shame. There’s an art to matching a pop song to a scene! I feel like that’s been lost in this era of movies/tv, where the pop songs are so obvious, the lyrics straight-out-commenting on the action in a way that’s unsubtle. Less moments where you cite the magic of pop song/movie coming together to make magic.