Needle Drops in Cinema

   

    Have you ever had a moment at the movies when you hear a song and its perfectly placed? Did it ever give you that adrenaline rush?  For example- a classic being: Spider-Man:into the spider-verse,2018 during Miles Morales leep of faith. Wassup Danger was the best song to be put with this scene, or you could say made for this scene-it’s a classic that everyone talks about.

  What is a Needle Drop exactly?    

A needle drop is when a song is put into a movie or show to elevate a scene, could be shown in Baby Driver (2017)  Bellbottoms, Jon Spencer or Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) Come and Get Your Love, Redbone. 

Where the meaning Needle Drop comes from

    The term needle drop comes from the era of vinyl records, dropping a needle into physically starting the track. Filmmakers use needle drops for emotions and storytelling. 

Here are four needle drops that work great with the storytelling of the films/TV and elevating the scene:

           

    My Kind of Woman, Dinner in America(2020)

Dinner in America, a 2020 indie-comedy movie by Adam Rehmeier
that follows Simon and Patty in a romantic journey in the suburbs of the midwest.
In the climax of the movie, Simon and Patty go the arcade and during this scene the song My Kind of Woman by Mac Demarco plays- This is the turning point of the movie . 

Throughout the film, Simon is aggressive and volatile who only causes chaos, during this he starts to shift out of this mentality when he gets to be with Patty more. It dives into the more romantic perspective of how they feel for each other.
 Patty is a unique girl with interests that catches Simon eye. Earlier into the movie they bond over the fact they both like punk music and Patty admits she sends love songs to his secret punk alter- being a masked punk singer in a band. 
Patty is misunderstood by her family and is shown to have quirky behavior. With this song we can see that Simon starts to adore who she is and they both eventually find comfort in each other's mess. 

Dagger, Mysterious Skin (2004)

Now with this movie..I feel very iffy about...everyone who knows this movie knows what im talking about. 

    Mysterious Skin, a thriller-drama by Gregg Araki is adapted from Scott Heims novel, followung Neil a sexual reckless male who uses emotinal detatchment and being a prostitude to cope. Meanwhile Brian, retreats into isolation.
    Now with this one, it’s more of a personal favorite . I always loved Slowdive and Dagger was my favorite song. HOWEVER..This song fits the scene perfectly. The track plays when Neil is sitting on the couch talking to Wendy right after is encounter with a lawyer. 
    Neil has spent years carrying the trauma of his childhood trauma using his body as a coping mechanism. The melody is a feeling safe space- Wendy being his safe space. 
    Dagger acts like an inner voice to Neil that is refusing to speak out loud. Mysterious  skin’s soundtrack is carried by many shoegaze music such as Cocteau Twins as well. 
Shoegaze is shown to be amplifying this films heaviest themes.

Let Down, The Bear (2022)

The bear is an acclaimed comedy-drama show created by Christopher Storer for FX Hulu. The story involves a chef name Carmen 'Carmy' who runs his families italian sandwich shop. In the season 1 finale, the needle drop of Radiohead's "Let Down" serves as the emotional release for the entire series. 

    During this season, there is relenetless kitchen panic, screaming matches, crushing debt and unexpressed grief. When the opening note of Let Down starts, the shaky camerawork clams down, Carmy had found money to cover the debt-in fact more then to just cover it, but to help the shop. This shows that there is hope and that he can take a breath of relief and peace.
The song functions as a literal and figurative bridge. It scores the transition from the death of Mikeys restaurant ( THE BEEF) to the birth of Carmy and Sydeny's new dream. The staff find out about the money and they tend to celebrate together shairing a meal, Let Down frames their shared exhaustion not as defeat but a clean slate. This is widely considred one of the greatest needle dropes in television of the decade. 

Party 4 U, Bottoms

Bottoms is a 2023 satirical dark-comedy directed by Emma Seligman, co-wrote with Rachel Sennott. The story follows PJ and Josie, two unpopular high school seniors who start a self defense class. Their secret motive is to hook up with their two cheerleader crushes. Their fight club leads to chaos while acquiring a false reputation.

Party 4 u  by Charli XCX is dropped on the football field right after the outcast girls fight clyb attacks the rival team to save the star quarterback- resulting to the crowd slow claping. The song is shown as a WLW anthem of yearning and community. Dropping this song during the literal massacre on a high school football field, it clashes as a campy hyper-violent reality with queer romance. 

I love this song in this movie personally, it just completes the whole movie together and it quite makes you forget they just killed a whole football team without a care. There is no other words needed on why it fits so perfectly, it just does. 

The absolute emotional peaks of the song aligns with the apology scene between Josie and Isabel (Josie's crush). Josie delivers a confession to Isabel about her lies which reveals Isabel saying Josie never needed the fight club. Which is another reason why this song fits perfectly. 

I could conitnue on and on about many needle drops that just work so perfectly with movies. Music just saves lives, without music in movies theres just no melodical emotion. 

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