Horror Soundtracks: Then and Now

I know what you’re thinking – what the hell is this post? I’m not sure I can even explain it. My brain gets stuck on these strange tangents at times; a lot of them pass through and are forgotten, but every once in a while one gets caught in there and the only way to get rid of it is to write a post. I’ll ask for your forgiveness in advance on this one in case I don’t make much sense.

I recently caught a repeat of Scream 3 on TV, and it had me thinking about horror film soundtracks. I don’t watch a lot of horror (I tend to agree with the ‘torture porn’ moniker a lot of films end up labeled with), but I’m familiar enough with the genre to have a general idea of what makes it onto a soundtrack. Horror soundtracks can be an interesting barometer of popular music (at least a certain kind of popular music), so it got me thinking about the kinds of artists that commonly turn up on them these days, as well as the ones that used to.

Let’s take Scream 3. It’s roughly a decade old now, and the original Scream was considered to have revived and reinvented the horror/slasher genre when it was released. Of course, by the time Scream 3 came out the series had fallen victim to the very cliches it was designed to mock and avoid (and was released in the same year as the first Scary Movie spoof), but hey, that’s a conversation for another time, right? Moving on.

Here’s the tracklisting to Scream 3:

1. What If – Creed
2. Wait and Bleed – Slipknot
3. Suffocate – Finger Eleven
4. Spiders – System of a Down
5. Automatic – American Pearl
6. Fall – Sevendust
7. Time Bomb – Godsmack
8. Tyler’s Song – Coal Chamber
9. So Real – Static-X
10. Crowded Elevator – Incubus
11. Debonaire – Dope
12. Sunburn – Fuel
13. Get On, Get Off – Powerman 5000
14. Wanna Be Martyr – Full Devil Jacket
15. Dissention – Orgy
16. Crawl – Staind
17. Click Click – Ear2000
18. Is This The End – Creed

Now, that pretty much feels like typical horror soundtrack fare to me (compare it to other horror releases that year: Dracula 2000, Blair Witch 2, etc.). Lots of loud, quasi-industrial, metal-lite stuff. Orgy was essentially the red-headed stepchild of powerpop and goth metal, right? And Creed is probably as close to metal as most of the general public are comfortable with. Everyone supposedly hates them, of course, but since they sold 12 million copies of that first album, chances are you know someone that bought it. They may even be looking back at you when you look in the mirror! Bum bum bum!

I wanted to find something new that I could make a reasonable comparison to, and Jennifer’s Body seemed like a good one. It has a similarly self-referential, snarky tone to it, with an abundance of pop culture references. And both films feature initially sheepish heroines who end up displaying strengths previously unseen. Seems like a reasonable point of comparison to me:

1. “Kiss with a Fist” Florence + The Machine
2. “New Perspective” Panic! at the Disco
3. “Teenagers” Hayley Williams
4. “New in Town” Little Boots
5. “Finishing School” Dashboard Confessional
6. “Through the Trees” Low Shoulder
7. “Time” Cute is What We Aim For
8. “I Can See Clearly Now” Screeching Weasel
9. “Chew Me Up & Spit Me Out” Cobra Starship
10. “Toxic Valentine” All Time Low
11. “I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You” Black Kids
12. “Death” White Lies
13. “Celestial Crown” The Sword
14. “Little Lover’s So Polite” Silversun Pickups
15. “Ready for the Floor” Lissy Trullie

Oh what a difference a decade makes, eh? Instead of the shredding sounds of metal’s offshoots we’re treated to varying shades of pop, whether it be pop punk, emo pop or electro pop. I guess you could even call it blog pop, given the fact that a lot of these bands rose through the ranks of the blogosphere. A very different picture.

Admittedly, this may not be a fair comparison. There are a lot of variables. The Scream series was a bona fide box office hit, whereas Jennifer’s Body seems destined for cult classic status. Plus, it was written by Diablo Cody, who obviously has a pulse on what’s hip and in. So maybe I need to compare and contrast with something that’s a closer match, in terms of box office popularity?

How about the Saw series? They’re inexplicably popular for reasons unknown. Last year the sixth installment was released (seriously, the SIXTH!?!), so let’s take a look at that soundtrack.

Saw VI Tracklist
1. “In Ashes They Shall Reap” Hatebreed
2. “The Last Goodbye” Lacuna Coil
3. “Reckless Abandon” It Dies Today
4. “Your Soul Is Mine” Mushroomhead
5. “Warpath” Chimaira
6. “Code of the Road” Danko Jones
7. “Genocide” (Saw VI Remix) Suicide Silence
8. “Ghost In the Mirror” Memphis May Fire
9. “The Countdown Begins” Outbreak
10. “Still I Rise” (Saw VI Remix) Shadows Fall
11. “Dead Again” Type O Negative
12. “Dark Horse” Converge
13. “Cut Throat” Kittie
14. “Never Known” Nitzer Ebb
15. “Roman Holiday” Every Time I Die
16. “The Sinatra” My My Misfire
17. “Lethal Injection” The Flood
18. “More Than a Sin” James Brothers
19. “We Own the Night” The 69 Eyes
20. “Watch Us Burn” Ventana
21. “Forgive & Forget” Miss May I

Ahhh, now we’re back in familiar territory. This looks more or less like the other 5 soundtracks in the series, so you could probably substitute any of the previous ones and you’d get the same result. And while the names have changed, the sound is much closer to Scream than JB. So maybe these soundtracks really haven’t changed all that much in the last decade.

In fact, maybe part of the failure of Jennifer’s Body was altering the horror soundtrack formula. The folks that enjoy watching people being disemboweled apparently like pretty aggro music to soundtrack the bloodletting. White Lies and Hayley Williams just don’t quite cut it for them. There’s also the fact that it was a girl doing the carving, and typically horror has a misogynist slant, but I’ll offer the benefit of the doubt for now.

On the other hand, the horror movie soundtrack is still a relatively new creation. The original Friday the 13th, Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street films all relied on original scores. In fact, from what I can tell, it’s possible that the original Scream essentially invented the modern horror soundtrack. In which case, it should probably come as no surprise that it hasn’t changed much in the last 10-15 years.

Tags: florence & the machine, horror, lissy trulie, orgy