CELLULOID HEROES
It’s been 69 years since Hollywood decided to exploit a passing fad called rock ’n’ roll, teaching us a valuable lesson still treasured today: If you need an emotional shortcut, add more guitars. From Blackboard Jungle using “Rock Around the Clock” to hypnotize impressionable teens into mugging old ladies for their purses, to The Crow creating a template for school-shooter warm-up playlists for decades to come, to modern blockbusters beating us over the head with bullshit nostalgia—cinema doesn’t just help us make sense of the world, it reminds us how badass a riff can sound when it’s played over an action star jumping out of a helicopter.
CELLULOID HEROES
CREEM GOES TO THE MOVIES
Like Dylan in something or other, CREEM looks back at 69 nice years of rock soundtracks
Andreas Loretan
It’s been 69 years since Hollywood decided to exploit a passing fad called rock ’n’ roll, teaching us a valuable lesson still treasured today: If you need an emotional shortcut, add more guitars. From Blackboard Jungle using “Rock Around the Clock” to hypnotize impressionable teens into mugging old ladies for their purses, to The Crow creating a template for school-shooter warm-up playlists for decades to come, to modern blockbusters beating us over the head with bullshit nostalgia—cinema doesn’t just help us make sense of the world, it reminds us how badass a riff can sound when it’s played over an action star jumping out of a helicopter.
BLACKBOARDJUNGLE (1955)
The only rock 'n' roll song featured in this movie is the one everyone knows: “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley & His Comets. It’s hard to imagine now, but this jaunty rockabilly tune used to make teenagers beat the shit out of each other. That is a massive accomplishment for what is functionally a musical ode to different times of the day.