Photo: Pixabay
A lot of great music came out of the 70s, and so did quite a few films. Even into the 80s and 90s and beyond, movie directors and producers continue to cherry pick the archives of 70s music to intone their cinematic creations. One reason might that Boomers are about 20% and Gen X includes another 19%, sand that’s a pretty good chunk of the consumer entertainment market. Another possible reason for the use of 70s music in movies, is, well, it’s that much better.
Of course, 70s music first started in 70s movies. Take the movie ‘Tommy’ released in 1975 and featured Elton John wailing out his excellent rendition of the Who’s Pinball Wizard. Of course, you didn’t have a heartbeat if you don’t recall the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever and its unforgiving use of the Bee Gee’s ‘Stayin Alive, which was mercilessly in the charts for far longer than most of the human race wanted to hear it. Bill Conti’s instrumental ‘Gonna Fly Now’ went to #1 in July of 1977. Others include, TimeWarp from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, Curtis Mayfield’s Super fly and of course, many others.
In 1993, the director Richard Linklater gave us the retro look at 1976 in Dazed and Confused, this film featured 70s songs including Deep Purple’s Highway Star, Slow Ride by Foghat and several others.
In 2000, in Almost Famous, a number of 70s standouts made it onto this film’s soundtrack, including David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Elton John and others. More recently, 2009’s Watchmen showed off the music genius of Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin. Even in 2022, The Adam Project, the sci-fi drama starring Ryan Reynolds, was generously dosed with multiple 70s hits. And I didn’t even mention all the movies and documentaries that are ‘about’ 70s artists. Just head over to Netflix or Amazon to see that impact. The hits just keep on coming. All Indie Radio
