Hooked to the Silver Screen Edition Part 1

Summary

Hit Parade | "Hooked to the Silver Screen Edition: Part 1"

Podcast: Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia
Host: Chris Molanfi (Slate Podcasts)
Original Air Date: December 12, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the powerful relationship between movies and pop music, tracing how songs from and inspired by films have climbed the charts, become standards, and etched themselves into cultural memory. Host Chris Molanfi recounts the evolution of the movie soundtrack—from early musicals and timeless standards to blockbuster phenomena and the mechanics of soundtrack success—illustrating why and how songs connected to films can become the defining hits of entire eras.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Modern Soundtrack Hit: Fictional Bands and Streaming Blockbusters

• O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) and "Man of Constant Sorrow" were highlighted as examples of fictional movie bands achieving real-world music chart success.
  • “The Soggy Bottom Boys were a fiction, a band lip dubbed by star George Clooney in the movie, which was called O Brother, Where Art Thou?... But the soundtrack was a blockbuster.” (04:22)
  • The album spent over two years on the charts, sold 7 million copies, and won the Grammy for Album of the Year.
• The episode flashes forward to 2025, describing a fictional K-pop group, Huntricks, from Netflix’s animated hit “K Pop Demon Hunters,” as another example of a "fake" band with real chart dominance.
  • “Huntricks are the stars of the animated blockbuster K Pop Demon Hunters, the most watched Netflix movie of all time… and [its music has] done both [topped charts, generated major hits].” (05:27)

Why Movie Songs Become Standards

• The emotional resonance—the way movie scenes fuse with songs to create indelible cultural experiences—explains why so many soundtrack tunes outlive even their films.
  • “Movies make hits: when we connect with a story on the big screen, the songs connect with our minds, our hearts and our souls.” (06:06)
• The podcast highlights how certain songs, such as "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (The Wizard of Oz) and "White Christmas" (Holiday Inn), have become standards and holiday staples thanks to their cinematic origins.

The Evolution of the Soundtrack Album

• 1940s–50s: Soundtrack albums mainly featured music from movie musicals, sometimes adapted from Broadway.
  • Notable example: “Meet Me in St. Louis...starring a then 22 year old Judy Garland....The soundtrack's biggest hit was not ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.’…it was the ‘Trolley Song.’” (15:06)
  • Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” (Holiday Inn, 1942) became the best-selling single of all time.
• Late ‘50s–60s: Introduction of rock and roll, exemplified by Elvis Presley soundtracks, and the use of pop albums as cross-promotional tools for both movies and artists.
  • “Elvis Presley was rock's first movie star...their soundtracks doubled as Elvis studio albums.” (36:08)
• 1967–68: “The Graduate” set a new paradigm by using pre-existing pop songs non-diegetically to comment on and deepen the film’s themes, resulting in a new commercial formula for soundtracks.
  • “It used pre-existing pop songs not to convey the plot but to comment on the plot. There was nothing formulaic about this movie, and yet it established a new commercial formula for soundtracks.” (45:04)

Soundtracks as Career (Re)Definers

• Some artists’ legacies are dominated by a single movie song rather than their broader catalog.
  • John Parr: “St. Elmo’s Fire (Man in Motion)” became his sole enduring hit. (18:53)
  • Ray Parker Jr.: “Ghostbusters” outstripped all his other work due to its association with the film and recurring exposure. (20:07)
  • Celine Dion: “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic, even with an already significant career, stands as her defining legacy thanks to its cinematic context. (21:22)
  • “Even a multi platinum superstar who happens to record a movie theme may find that movie theme obliterating everything else in her catalog.” (21:22)

The Fluctuating Fortunes of the Soundtrack in the Streaming Era

• The 2020s see fewer blockbuster soundtracks due to shifts in media consumption—the playlist era and the complex economics of licensing music.
  • “Nowadays, movie soundtracks have to be exceptional to top the charts and generate major hits…and [K Pop Demon Hunters’] success is anomalous this decade.” (26:57)
  • Cites examples of recent successes (e.g., “Wicked For Good”).
• Soundtracks once functioned as music discoverability vehicles—a role now often filled by streaming playlists and social media.

How Movie Hits Reshaped Genres & Broadened Tastes

• Soundtrack albums often introduced broader audiences to new genres:
  • “The Harder They Come” (Jimmy Cliff) did for reggae what “Shaft” and “Superfly” did for funk, and “Deliverance” did for bluegrass.
  • "Saturday Night Fever" propelled disco into mainstream domination, with the Bee Gees’ career redefined by their roles on the soundtrack. (61:01)
  • “Saturday Night Fever was a watershed for disco music…The Bee Gees, smiling in white suits and gold chains next to Travolta on the soundtrack's album cover, became the biggest pop stars in the world.” (63:01)
• Many of these albums charted higher and proved more lasting than the films they accompanied.

The Blockbuster Era of Soundtracks

• Beginning with "Saturday Night Fever" (1977), the 1980s and 1990s saw Hollywood "supersize" the soundtrack record, with multi-platinum records often outweighing the movies’ own success.
  • “Saturday Night Fever even became the first movie soundtrack to win the Grammy for album…of the year.” (66:38)
  • The Grease soundtrack was used as an example of an album whose biggest hit—a disco banger by Frankie Valli—was thematically and stylistically detached from the film but topped the charts anyway.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the emotional impact of movie songs:
  “Movies make hits: when we connect with a story on the big screen, the songs connect with our minds, our hearts and our souls.” (06:06)

• On Celine Dion's movie legacy:
  “Her biggest legacy hit, and it's not all that close, is her ballad from the soundtrack to 1997's Best Picture winner, Titanic.” (21:22)

• On "The Graduate" changing the rules:
  “Filmmakers hadn't really used current pop songs in this way before. I'm going to use a film geek term to describe how these songs functioned: non diegetic…” (50:42)

• On "Saturday Night Fever":
  “Saturday Night Fever was a watershed for disco music…It was not only the year's biggest LP, but for about five years, the biggest selling album period of all time. Until it was topped by Michael Jackson's Thriller.” (66:38)

• On the changing industry:
  “In the 2020s, it's a mixed picture for soundtracks…when fans can playlist any group of songs they like, licensing…a collection of cool tunes from a movie may not be worth the effort for producers, music supervisors, or record labels.” (24:49)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 03:22 – Introduction of “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and the Soggy Bottom Boys' chart success
• 05:27 – Modern example: K Pop Demon Hunters' “Huntricks” and fictional bands topping charts
• 07:14 – Movie soundtracks as holiday standards: “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” “White Christmas”
• 14:27 – “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and its cinematic origins
• 18:53 – The “St. Elmo’s Fire” effect: one-hit wonders via the movies
• 20:07 – Ray Parker Jr. and the indelible power of “Ghostbusters”
• 21:22 – Celine Dion and “My Heart Will Go On”: when movie songs eclipse entire careers
• 26:57 – The impact of streaming and playlist culture on the soundtrack album
• 36:08 – Elvis and the rise of the soundtrack as a pop vehicle
• 45:04 – “The Graduate” and the dawn of the pop song as narrative commentary
• 50:42 – Explaining diegetic vs. non-diegetic music in film
• 56:08 – 1970s soundtracks as genre ambassadorships: “Shaft,” “Superfly,” “The Harder They Come”
• 61:01 – “Saturday Night Fever” and the transformation of disco
• 66:38 – Blockbuster era; soundtracks overshadowing the movies themselves

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Flow and Tone

Chris Molanfi’s narration is witty, accessible, deeply researched, and peppered with trivia, cultural references, and a keen sense of chart history. He speaks with both nostalgia and analytical rigor, providing clear explanations for both general listeners and pop music obsessives.

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Conclusion

Part 1 of this two-part "Hit Parade" episode offers a sweeping (and often surprising) account of the evolution of the movie soundtrack, showing its deep connections with broader pop culture and industry shifts. From early musicals and holiday standards through the disco and blockbuster eras, Chris Molanfi reveals how the fusion of film and pop music has created some of the most persistent and beloved hits ever—while setting the stage for continued change in the digital age.

Look forward to Part 2 for more on soundtrack dominance in the ‘80s, ‘90s, and the challenges (and surprises) of the 21st century.

Transcript

[Chris Melanfi]

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[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

In constant sorrow all through his days.

[Chris Melanfi]

Welcome to Hit Parade, a podcast of pop Chart history from Slate magazine about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Melanfy, chart analyst, pop critic and writer of Slate's why Is this Song Number One? Series on today's show. 25 years ago, in early December 2000, a soundtrack album hit record stores with music from a satirical comedy film. The movie, by acclaimed directors the Coen Brothers, was due to hit screens just before Christmas, and the soundtrack and the film's plot were anchored by this cover of a traditional American folk song, man of Constant Sorrow, credited to the Soggy Bottom Boys.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

I have no friends to help me now he has no friends.

[Chris Melanfi]

But the Soggy Bottom Boys were a fiction, a band lip dubbed by star George Clooney in the movie, which was called O Brother, Where Art Thou? The film did pretty well, making back its budget and a decent profit, garnering favorable reviews, even scoring a couple of nominations at the 2001 Academy Awards, neither of which it won. On the whole, a modest movie success. But the soundtrack was that was a blockbuster. O Brother, Where Art Thou? Rode the album chart for over two years, sold 7 million copies in the US alone, won the 2002 Grammy for Album of the Year, and hit number one on the Billboard 200 album chart just after the Grammys in its 63rd chart week.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Well, I am sleeping in my grave.

[Chris Melanfi]

Is sleeping in his now let's flash forward a quarter century to the present day, 2025. Sitting in the top 10 on both the Billboard 200 album chart and the Hot 100 songs chart is this singing group who call themselves Huntricks. Only Hunt Tricks, like the Soggy Bottom Boys, also don't exist. Hunt Tricks are the stars of the animated blockbuster K Pop Demon Hunters, the most watched Netflix movie of all time. Reportedly, the film even rang up tens of millions in its brief run through movie theaters. Nowadays, movie soundtracks have to be exceptional to top the charts and generate major hits, and K Pop Demon Hunters has done both. Nowadays, pundits are fretting that movies don't have the cultural power they once did in an age of streaming TV, video games and YouTube. But this year, K Pop Demon Hunters reinforced something that's been true for nearly a century. Movies make hits when we connect with a story on the big screen, the songs connect with our minds, our hearts and our souls.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Somewhere over the rainbow skies all blue.

[Chris Melanfi]

Which also means that soundtrack songs connect on the charts. Dozens of soundtrack albums and movie songs have topped the charts and sometimes become standards, even holiday standards.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

I Dreaming of a Wise.

[Chris Melanfi]

Christmas with every Many classic soundtrack songs came from movie musicals whether adapted from Broadway I.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Like to be in America okay by me in America. Everything free in America for a small.

[Chris Melanfi]

Or tailored to specific pop idols, it's.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Been a hard day tonight.

[Chris Melanfi]

But by the later years of the rock era, soundtrack songs functioned very differently, conveying what the characters and, in turn, the audience were thinking and feeling. By the turn of the millennium, certain soundtrack hits even outlasted the movies they came from. Today on Hit Parade, we will walk through the history of hits from the silver screen and consider what makes soundtrack hits indelible. And arguably, we can trace our modern understanding of soundtrack songs to a ditty Paul Simon wrote about an adulterous suburban housewife. And that's where your Hit Parade marches today, the week ending June 1st first, 1968, when Mrs. Robinson by Simon and Garfunkel reached number one on Billboard's Hot 100. This classic from the movie the Graduate didn't just signal the dawn of a new Hollywood it also helped change soundtrack's relationship to music and the charts. What was so pivotal about a song that made Benjamin Braddock yell out Elaine Robinson's name in the back of a church? We'll explain. Turn your lonely eyes to us as we walk through decades of cinematic hits. Stick around. Hey there, hip Parade listeners. Soon enough it'll be the holiday season, and if you're a music geek like me, you'll know it's time to start shopping when your radio station or streaming service is chock a block with all those merry tunes. This year, if you want to give a fellow music lover the gift of songs, albums and more, you need Apple Gift Card. They can use it for for an Apple Music subscription that music dock they've been eyeing on the Apple TV app or even a new pair of AirPods. It's a guaranteed chart topper. Visit applegiftcard.apple.com to learn more and gift one today. Cold mornings and holiday plans call for a wardrobe that just works. So if you need to look sharp and feel good this season, check out Quince. I can't stop raving about the jeans I bought from Quince. Not only were they very affordable and high quality, I now wear them more often than other jeans I previously purchased at two to three times the price. Months later, the denim is fully broken in but still looks good as new. Quince has the essentials you need, like Mongolian cashmere sweaters for $50, Italian wool coats that look and feel designer, and denim and chinos that fit just right. Quince's outerwear lineup of down jackets, wool topcoats and leather styles are built to last, and each piece is made from premium materials by trusted factories that meet rigorous standards for craftsmanship and ethical production. By cutting out middlemen and traditional markups, Quince delivers the same quality as luxury brands at a fresh a fraction of the price. Get your wardrobe sorted and your gift list handled with quint. Go to quints.com hitparade for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com hitparade free shipping and 365 day return. Quints.com hitparade this episode is brought to you by Saks Fifth Avenue. Saks makes it easy to find the perfect gifts and holiday looks that suit your personal style. The holidays can be a lot of things exciting, relaxing, heartwarming and yes, sometimes even a little stressful. That's why you need Saks.com Saks makes holiday shopping easy, stress free and most importantly, fun. Whether it's for yourself, your family and friends, or even the pickiest person on your list, you can feel confident going into this holiday season knowing that Saks is there to help you find inspiration. Curate a holiday wish list. Pick out gifts for your loved ones and have a look ready for whatever might come your way. Whether it's an office holiday party, a cozy night in or a vacation getaway, Saks has everything you need. If you're looking for shopping to be personalized and easy this holiday season, then head to Saks Fifth Avenue for inspiring ways to shop for everyone on your list.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas Christmas, Let your heart be It's a little.

[Chris Melanfi]

Hard to think of holiday songs as having origin stories. They seem timeless, like they always existed. But this song, have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, is not only less than a century old, it entered the world via a movie, the 1944 classic Meet Me in St. Louis, starring a then 22 year old Judy Garland.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Next year, all our troubles will be miles away.

[Chris Melanfi]

Meet me in St. Louis was a movie musical and a soundtrack album credited to Garland was issued on 78 RPM vinyl in November of 44. Even though it came out just before the holidays, the soundtrack's biggest hit was not have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. Back in the day, it was the Trolley Song, which clang clang clanged all the way to number four on Billboard's best sellers charts.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Clang, clang clang went the trolley Ding ding, ding went the bell. Zing zing zing.

[Chris Melanfi]

But more than 80 years later, it's the Christmas carol that endures, including in Billboard on the Holiday 100 chart, which the magazine runs every December. Not only is Garland's original have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas still charting every year, it's currently number 75. Two covers by Michael Buble and Frank Sinatra are also on the holiday 100 right now. Sinatra's version usually charts the highest over Bubles and Garlands.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Here we are, as in olden days, Happy golden days of your the point.

[Chris Melanfi]

Is, movies turn songs into standards, including holiday standards. The most enduring standard of the last century, Bing Crosby's White Christmas, which according to Guinness is the best selling single of all time, also got its start in a film. Crosby's 1942 picture Holiday Inn I Dreaming.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Of a White Christmas, just like the ones I used to know.

[Chris Melanfi]

Of course, Bing Crosby and Judy Garland were both movie stars and music legends, but movie soundtracks have sprinkled gold dust on many a career, from pop superstars to one or two hit wonders. For example, here's a minor hit from the mid-80s that few pop fans remember fondly. Naughty Naughty was a number 23 hit in early 1985 for John Parr. You probably don't remember that single. It's about as gross as its title. But maybe the name John Parr is familiar. That may be because six months after Naughty Naughty, John Parr took this song all the way to number one. The title song from the Brat pack movie St. Elmo's Fire, subtitled Man in Motion, topped the Hot 100 in September of 85. It's John Parr's only major hit and it's still played on classic hits radio to this day. It's also got more than 230 million plays on Spotify. It's connected to fond memories of the totally 80s Rob Lowe flick, and Parr, as both the artist and the co writer of St. Elmo's Fire, didn't really need another hit for the rest of his career. It's almost as lucrative as writing A Christmas Carol.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

I can see a new horizon underneath the blazing sky I'll be where the eagles flying higher and higher.

[Chris Melanfi]

This same movie song status applies to artists with much longer careers. Let's consider a medium tier act someone with more hits than John Par, say, Ray Parker Jr. Because a woman needs.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

A love just like you do. Hey, don't kid yourself into thinking that.

[Chris Melanfi]

She Parker scored 13 top 40 hits, including five top tens like a woman Needs Love or you Can't Change that. But without question, Parker's legacy hit is the theme he recorded for a comic sci fi summer blockbuster, a tune about paranormal prevention that is still revived every Halloween. Ghostbusters has more than 435 million plays on Spotify. More than all of Ray Parker Jr's other hits combined. Now, of course, as a song that topped the Hot 100 in the great pop year of 1984, Ghostbusters is going to cast a long shadow no matter what. But its connection to our fond memories of Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd. Slugging it out with specters gives it extra juice.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

The boys in grace slugged it out with a pretty pesky poltergeist, then stayed on to dance the night away with some of the lovely, lovely ladies who witnessed the disturbance. This is Casey Casem. Now on with the countdown 24 hours a day, seven days a week. No job is too big, no fee is too big.

[Chris Melanfi]

Even a multi platinum superstar who happens to record a movie theme may find that movie theme obliterating everything else in her catalog. Consider superstar Celine Dion and yes, I'm sorry, we're going to play a bit of that song with the tin whistle. My heart will go on is far from Celine Dion's only hit. Just in America, Dion racked up 10 top 10 hits, including four number ones. But her biggest legacy hit, and it's not all that close is her ballad from the soundtrack to 1997's Best Picture winner, Titanic. Currently at 669 million plays at Spotify, it's got nearly 20% more streams than her second most played song, because you loved me, which by the way was also from a movie. The 1996 Michelle Pfeiffer Robert Redford drama drama up close and personal. Because you loved me has more than half a billion Spotify streams, which is very impressive, but it's from a film that was only a modest success. It stands to reason that the song that reminds listeners of Jack and Rose falling in love on a doomed ocean ocean liner would be Dion's all time smash.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

I love you Jack. Don't you say your goodbyes.

[Chris Melanfi]

Not yet.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Do you understand me?

[Becky Milligan]

I look so cool.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

You're gonna die. An old an old lady warming her bed. Not here. Not this night.

[Chris Melanfi]

In other words, it turns out Nicole Kidman sitting in that AMC movie theater was right. Hearing a song in a cavernous movie palace really does make a difference sound.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

That I can feel. Somehow heartbreak feels good in a place like this.

[Chris Melanfi]

But the commercial fortunes of the movie soundtrack itself have waxed and waned over the last century. Soundtracks are a very specific type of musical product a collaboration between filmmakers, music supervisors, music producers and artists, and then on the back end, the promotional teams at both a movie studio and a record label. Everybody in that chain has their own incentives for creating and marketing a soundtrack, and they don't always align. In this episode, I'll walk through moments where the soundtrack tail seemed to be wagging. The Movie Dog if a film can.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Touch your heart, its music can lift your soul. The number one soundtrack in America, City.

[Chris Melanfi]

Of Angels, in stores now in the2020s. It's a mixed picture for soundtracks. Even before the movie business took a tumble coming out of the COVID pandemic, soundtrack albums were already on the wane. Done in by the streaming era, when compilation albums in general have become less relevant to the music business. Bottom line in an era when fans can playlist any group of songs they like, licensing and officially releasing a collection of cool tunes from a movie may not be worth the effort for the producers, music supervisors, or record labels. Think back to, for example, the classic 1994 soundtrack to Pulp Fiction, which collected some of director Quentin Tarantino's favorite tunes. A soundtrack like that is just less likely to exist now. So a 2025 film like Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another, filled with cool needle drops like Steely Dan's Dirty Work.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Oh yeah.

[Chris Melanfi]

We'Ll probably never have a platinum platinum plated soundtrack album. Johnny Greenwood's score for that PTA film has been released, but none of the movie's pop songs are on that soundtrack right now. As I speak. There are a couple of movie soundtracks in the top five of the Billboard 200. Both movie musicals Wicked for Good, the sequel to the blockbuster adaptation of the.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Smash Broadway musical I have been changed for good. And just to clear the air, I.

[Chris Melanfi]

Ask Forgiveness and the aforementioned K Pop Demon Hunters, one of the biggest albums period of the year. Like but the simultaneous success of these two soundtracks is anomalous this decade. For most of the 2000s, we've gone months without any soundtracks touching the top 10. That's what makes K Pop Demon Hunters surprise success this year, so hopeful for soundtrack fans. So let's walk through some Hollywood and Billboard history to figure out how we got here. The chart success of film music is often directly related to how that music functions emotionally in the movies. However, the very role of music in film has itself evolved, changing the trajectory of soundtrack hits. And that goes all the way back to the very first soundtrack album. It stands to reason that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Walt Disney's first full length animated feature in 1937 would generate the first movie soundtrack album. Songs like Whistle while you Work, hi Ho and Someday my Prince will Come were the culturally ubiquitous bops of their day. I would provide chart data on Snow White, but its release predated the launch of Billboard's first regular weekly charts and there were no album charts back then. However, when Billboard finally launched its national best selling retail records chart in the summer of 1940, Movie Songs became hits almost immediately. The second ever number one hit on the best sellers chart was only Forever, a Bing Crosby song from the soundtrack to his fall 19401940 film Rhythm on the River. Generally, if you wanted to own movie music in the 40s, you bought a single. Soundtrack albums were fairly rare in the age of 78 RPM. This was the era of the big band, led by legends like Glenn Miller. His Glenn Miller orchestra turned out numerous chart topping soundtrack hits, including films that Miller himself co starred in. I've Got a Gal in Kalamazoo from Orchestra Wives, for example, or from Sun Valley Serenade, the classic Chattanooga Choo Choo featuring Tex Benicky on vocals.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Pardon me boy, is that the Chattanooga Choo Choo? Yes, yes.

[Chris Melanfi]

Boy you can give me a shine. By the 1950s, after the invention of the long playing 33 and a third vinyl album, soundtrack LPs began to take off and regularly topped the Billboard album chart. But they were almost always from musicals. Some of these were Academy Award winning musicals. The Best Picture Oscar went to a musical several times during the 50s. Among the Oscar winning soundtrack LPs that topped the album chart were Gigi, around The World in 80 Days and the Gene Kelly classic An American in Paris. 1951's best picture whose soundtrack hit number one in 1952.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Rhythm I got Music my Gal who could ask for anything more? Who could ask for anything more?

[Chris Melanfi]

Some hit soundtracks were film adaptations of Broadway musicals. The soundtracks to both 1951 Showboat and 1956's the King and I were chart toppers.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Shall we dance on a bright cloud of music? Shall we fly?

[Chris Melanfi]

In fact, as we discussed back in 2019 in our Broadway episode of Hit Parade, show tunes from stage musicals were chart monsters in the 50s. And original cast albums often charted as well as or better than movie soundtracks that began to shift toward the movies as the decade went on. But because so many theatrical musicals were turned into films, in a few cases a show could scale the album chart twice. Once as a cast album and again a few years later as a film soundtrack. That was the case with South Pacific, which hit the top in 1949 as a Broadway cast album and in 1957 as a movie soundtrack, Enchanted Evening.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

You May See a Stranger.

[Chris Melanfi]

And then, as with so many things, things that changed during the 50s, rock and roll widened the lens.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

1, 2, 3 o', clock, 4 o' clock rock 5, 6, 7 o', clock, 8 o' clock rock 9, 10, 11 o', clock, 12 o' clock rock we're gonna rock around the clock tonight.

[Chris Melanfi]

Hollywood played a key role in the story of how rock and roll broke into the mainstream. It began with Blackboard Jungle, a pulpy melodrama about juvenile delinquency featuring a young Sidney Poitier. The 1955 film prominently featured Rock around the Clock by Bill Haley and his comets over its opening credits. Haley first released the song in 1954 and it had languished on the charts that year. But in 55, after the movie electrified teenage audiences, Rock around the Clock finally made its Billboard debut, reaching number one by July. It was the official commercial birth of rock and roll. The movies and rock and roll turned out to be a match made in heaven. In 1956, the musical comedy The Girl Can't Help it, starring 50s sex symbol Jane Mansfield, prominently featured performances by rockers Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran and most electrifyingly, Little Richard. The Girl Can't Help it proved inspirational. The Beatles later recounted how seeing the film as teens in Liverpool fired their imaginations about the liberating power of rock and roll. As with Blackboard Jungle and Bill Haley, the Girl Can't Help it helped break Little Richard to a wider audience. But neither film spawned a soundtrack album. Rock and roll didn't come of age as a soundtrack medium until the King started appearing on the silver screen. Elvis Presley was rock's first movie star. Teddy Bear was a single from the soundtrack to 1957's Loving you, Presley's first leading role and one of the literally dozens of movies the King of Rock and Roll would star in throughout his career. These movies were conceived as Elvis vehicles and their soundtracks doubled as Elvis studio albums. Many, like Loving you, hit number one on Billboard's LP chart and produced hit songs. Other chart topping Presley soundtracks included 1957's Jailhouse Rock. GI Blues, Elvis's first movie after his stint in the army, whose soundtrack hit number one in 1960. And 1961's Blue Hawaii soundtrack, which generated Presley's all time classic ballad Can't Help. Falling in love.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Falling in love with you.

[Chris Melanfi]

So by the 60s, the soundtrack album was evolving. That said, some of the decade's biggest LPs were still stage adaptations, most notably the 1961 soundtrack to the film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical West side Story. When you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way from your first cigarette to your last iron day.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

When you're a Jet, let them do what they can.

[Chris Melanfi]

You've got brothers around, you're a family man in any medium it touched. West side Story was a blockbuster. The modern urban Romeo and Juliet adaptation conceived by choreographer Jerome Robbins, composer Leonard Bernstein and lyric Stephen Sondheim had already made bank on Broadway, at the box office and at the Oscars, where it won best picture for 1961. And west side Story was also a smash album among all albums, not just soundtracks, on Billboard's album charts. Back then, the magazine maintained two charts for mono LPs and stereo LPs. The West Side Story soundtrack spent a total of 54 weeks at number one across both charts, longer than any album before or since. So yes, show tunes were still doing well. But a new action movie franchise offered a very different approach to movie music that shook up the charts. Shaken and stirred Gold Finger.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

He'S the man, the man with the Midas touch.

[Chris Melanfi]

We don't have time here to go deep on British super spy James Bond and the songs his film franchise made famous. If you have Amazon prime, the documentary the sound of double and 07 is a decent introduction. Suffice it to say, not long after Bond made his cinematic debut with 1962's Sean Connery fronted Dr. No, the slinky, menacing and debonair Bond themes became cultural touchstones and even chart hits. The series third installment, 1964's Goldfinger, generated a number one album in March of 65, fueled by Shirley Bassey's immortal theme song, a number eight hit. To this day, Goldfinger remains the only Bond soundtrack LP to top the US album chart. And by the way, only one Bond song has ever reached number one on the Hot 100. We'll get to it later. Other chart topping 60s soundtracks included the first two movies from the Beatles, both 1964's A Hard Day's Night, It's Been.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

A Hard Day's Night and I've Been Working Like a dog.

[Chris Melanfi]

It's and 1965's help. Generated chart topping albums for the Fab Four in America. These LPs played a bit like traditional soundtracks because they supplemented the Beatles hits with instrumental score from their producer George Martin. And speaking of score, blockbuster movies started to generate chart topping soundtracks, even if the albums contained no vocals at all. Fans wanted to own a keepsake of a cinematic swoon. The 1965 romantic drama Doctor Zhivago, starring matinee idols Omar Sharif and Julie Christie, not only won its score, composer Maurice Jarre an Oscar one year after the long running film opened in theaters, its soundtrack topped the album chart. You might say Dr. Zhivago was the Titanic of its day, a romance you could relive musically. Soundtracks are big business, read a mid-60s headline in Billboard magazine. The article pointed out that four of the Chart Bible's top six albums of 1965 were soundtracks. These included the aforementioned Bond soundtrack Goldfinger, which ranked sixth sixth for the year. My Fair lady, the soundtrack to the 1964 Audrey Hepburn starring Broadway adaptation with vocals dubbed by ghost singing legend Marnie Nixon. It ranked fourth for 65. The Sound the of of Music starring Julie Andrews as with South Pacific, both the original stage cast album and the film soundtrack were chart toppers. The Broadway version of the Sound of Music with star Mary Martin had topped the chart in 1960, and Julie Andrews 1965 film version was an even bigger smash. Its soundtrack ranked third for that year.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

When the dog bites when the bee stings When I'm feeling sad I simply remember my favorite things and then I don't feel so bad.

[Chris Melanfi]

And number one for 1965, the soundtrack to Disney's live action plus animation filmed musical Mary Poppins, which spent 14 weeks at number one that year. Yep, 65 was a good year to be Julie Andrews or A Spoonful of.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Sugar helps the medicine go down the medicine go down Medicine go down Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine.

[Chris Melanfi]

Go down now here was the thing about all of these smash soundtracks from the mid-60s. They all still fell into the same two categories that had dominated the market for decades. Musicals and theme music. Certainly there was sonic variety between, say, James Bond and the Broadway adaptations. And sure, Mary Poppins had never been on a stage and was movie first. That was different. But fundamentally these soundtracks were either integral to the plot the sung musicals, or they were inconsequential to the plot. Shirley Bassey's Goldfinger plays over the opening credits of that Bond film the way Rock around the Clock opened Blackboard Jungle. But it didn't comment on the action directly, unless you like garish metaphors about Bond villains and wealth acquisition. That's what made a movie that opened in December 1967 so unique. It used pre existing pop songs not to convey the plot but to comment on the plot. There was nothing formulaic about this movie, and yet it established a new commercial formula for soundtracks. More in a moment.

[Becky Milligan]

It's 1972. A young British family is attempting to sail around the world when disaster strikes. Their boat is hit by killer whales and it sinks in seconds. All they have left is a life raft and each other. This is the true story of the Robertson family and their fight to survive. Hosted by me, Becky Milligan. Listen to Adrift, an Apple original podcast produced by Blanchard House. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.

[Chris Melanfi]

Hey there Hit Parade listeners. Soon enough it'll be the holiday season, and if you're a music geek like me, you'll know it's time to start shopping when your radio station or streaming service is chock a block with all those merry tunes. This year, if you want to give a fellow music lover the gift of songs, albums and more, you need Apple Gift Card. They can use it for an Apple music subscription, that music dock they've been eyeing on the Apple TV app or even a new pair of AirPods. It's a a guaranteed chart topper. Visit apple gift card.apple.com to learn more and gift one today when Director Mike Nichols was working on the Graduate starring Dustin Hoffman, he intended to put new songs in the film from contemporary folk rock duo Simon and Garfunkel as a kind of score. His producer even negotiated a deal for Paul Simon to write three new songs for the movie. But Simon and Garfunkel were busy on tour in 1967, and Paul Simon never got around to writing new songs. While Nichols was editing the movie and hoping for the new music, he had his editor put older Simon and Garfunkel songs on the temporary soundtrack just to see how they would sound.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Hello darkness, my old friend.

[Chris Melanfi]

I've come.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

To talk with you again, to the right.

[Chris Melanfi]

The opening scene, for example, when Hoffman's character Benjamin Bradock passes forlornly through the airport on his way home home from college, was scored to the hit the Sound of Silence, a song Simon and Garfunkel had already taken to number one on the Hot 100 nearly two years earlier. Nichols assumed these old songs would eventually be replaced, but then he just left them in.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

I turned my collar to the cold and dam when my eyes were stabbed by the flash.

[Chris Melanfi]

This proved to be pivotal. The Simon and Garfunkel hits served in the Graduate as a kind of Greek chorus, commenting on the characters and expressing their longings, their wistfulness, their regrets. Because they were well known pop songs, not incidental score music, you couldn't miss them. So when Ben pursues Elaine Robinson longingly on her college campus. The song expressing his heart sickness is Simon and Garfunkel's Baroque Medley Scarborough Fair Canticle, a number 11 Hot 100 hit.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Trasmidas Barrel.

[Chris Melanfi]

Filmmakers hadn't really used current pop songs in this way before. I'm going to use a film geek term to describe how these songs functioned in the movie. Non diegetic A diegetic song in a movie is part of the movie's world. It's sung by a character heard in a bar that the characters walk into, that kind of thing. Non diegetic sound is any sound in a film that doesn't originate from the world of the film. Ben Braddock doesn't actually hear those Simon and Garfunkel songs. They're non diegetic. But we do. And they comment on the action and on the film's larger themes of youth, alienation and the generation gap. This includes the one song Paul Simon did write for the Graduate. Well, sort of. Actually, it was an incomplete song Simon already had lying around that he called Mrs. Roosevelt. Mike Nichols convinced the busy Paul Simon to retitle that song after the suburban parent slash femme fatale played by Ann Bancroft, whom Ben has an affair with in the film Mrs. Robinson. So Simon gave Nichols the half finished song in the film. It only has a chorus and some Deet Deet Ds. Simon and Garfunkel didn't even finish writing or recording the song until three months after the movie hit theaters. The Complete Mrs. Robinson appeared on Simon and Garfunkel Nichols 1968 album Bookends. The incomplete version appeared on the Graduate soundtrack. By the spring of 68, both albums were number one on the Billboard album chart. Nine weeks for the Graduate, seven weeks for Bookends. Trading the number one spot back and forth. For most of those weeks, the Graduate was not number one at the box office, and by June of 68, Mrs. Robinson was number one on the Hot 100. In a 2018 article in the Atlantic commemorating the 50th anniversary of the graduation and its innovative use of pop music, journalist Kristen Marguerite Deutsch writes, quote, where other directors may have seen the song's pre existing associations as a burden or a possible distraction from the story, Mike Nichols embraced the song's meaning. For Nichols, the soundtrack was meant to be heard, a choice that would go on to influence popular films for decades to come, unquote, At a commercial level. What this also meant, Postgraduate, was that soundtracks could now be used to promote Pop songs that had the glow of association with the Hollywood movie. And that movie didn't have to be a musical with characters breaking out into song. More non diegetic movie songs could now be hits. And unlike the days of blackboard jungle and rock around the Clock, these hits could now be packaged on lucrative soundtrack lps. The effects of this were not immediate it for the rest of the 60s, most hit soundtracks were still musicals like Funny Girl or Oliver or score albums like 2001 A Space Odyssey, one of the top selling LPs of 1968 and 69. The first major evidence of the postgraduate shift came on 1969's Easy Rider, the hippie road movie from Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda that celebrated biker culture and the counterculture. Like the Graduate, the Easy Rider soundtrack repurposed pre existing hits by such rockers as the Band and I Pulled into.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Nazareth was feeling about half pasted, I just need some place where I can.

[Chris Melanfi]

Leave my head and most memorably, Steppenwolf, whose anthem Born to Be Wild was actually a number two hit in 1968, the year before Easy Ride Rider, but is now most associated with the 69 biker flick. The Easy Rider soundtrack rode the Billboard album chart for a year and a half and ranked as one of the 10 top selling LPs of the 1970. By the 70s, the film genre that was making the best use of the new soundtrack freedoms was blaxploitation. Several classic works of African American cinema used non diegetic badass hits to both drive the action on screen and sell albums that were often the vision of one major art R B artist.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Who's the black private dick that's a.

[Chris Melanfi]

Sex machine to all the cheeks?

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Damn right.

[Chris Melanfi]

As we discussed in our hits of 1971 episode of hit Parade, the first blaxploitation movie that would be as famed for its soundtrack as for the film itself was was Shaft, the Gordon Parks directed urban crime story starring Richard Roundtree. The mostly score LP was by R B songwriter and composer Isaac Hayes and it included one funk pop song with vocals that captured the swagger of both detective John Shaft and Isaac Hayes himself. In the movie, theme from Shaft plays as John Shaft emerges from the subway onto a city street. On the charts, Shaft proved a historic Smash. A number one LP for Isaac Hayes and Theme from Shaft reached number one on the Hot 100 in the fall of 71. A few months later, at the 1972 Academy Awards, Hayes became the first black composer to win an Oscar. Later that year in the fall of 72 soul legend Curtis Mayfield took his Blaxploitation soundtrack track to the Gordon Parks Jr. Movie Superfly to number one on the Billboard album chart. Superfly generated two funky top 10 hits, the film's title track and Freddy's Dead.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

It's hard to understand there was love in this man. I'm sure all would agree that his misery was the same.

[Chris Melanfi]

Another seminal film and soundtrack that were blaxploitation adjacent was 1972's the Harder They Come, which both starred and featured recordings by Jamaican reggae musician Jimmy Cliff. Directed by Jamaican filmmaker Perry Henzel, the crime drama was a showcase for both the island and its music. The Harder They Come soundtrack featured reggae jams by the Matal's, the Melodians and Desmond Decker, but the album was anchored by a half dozen now classic songs by Jimmy Clark Cliff, who by the way, just passed on last month as we were preparing this episode. Rest in Power, Jimmy. Though the soundtrack took three years to reach the American album charts and only peaked at number 100, 140 in Billboard in 1975, the harder they Come is widely credited for helping to break reggae as a genre. Artists who weren't even on the soundtrack benefited before the Harder They Come. For example, no Bob Marley album had ever risen higher on the Billboard LP's chart than number 92. After the soundtrack broke through, Marley's next LP, Rastaman Vibration, became his first top 10 album. Indeed, several 70s soundtracks served as ambassadors for their respective genres, offering a kind of of starter sampler of various musical styles. What the Harder They Come was to reggae and Shaft and Superfly were to funk. The chart topping soundtrack to the Southern gothic survival thriller Deliverance was to bluegrass music credited to banjoists Eric Weisberg and Steve Mandel. The SoundTrack to the 1972 Burt Reynolds movie topped the Billboard LP's chart in 1973, and in a clever commercial move, they named the soundtrack not Deliverance but Dueling Banjos after its most memorable track, a dizzying banjo workout that recreated the movie's most memorable musical scene and went all the way to number two on the Hot 100 in February 1973. Something similar happened to the soundtrack Back to 1973's Best Picture Oscar winner the Sting. Credited to composer and conductor Marvin Hamlisch, the Sting soundtrack was an homage to ragtime and early jazz music, and it too went to number one on the album chart. An improbable genre specific blockbuster A track from the Sting Hamlisch's take on Scott Joplin's ragtime staple. The entertainer even made the top three on the Hot 100 in the spring of 74. But of course, no 70s soundtrack defined a genre like 1977's Saturday Night feature Fever. As we discussed in our Bee Gees episode of Hit Parade, Saturday Night Fever was a watershed for disco music. Just as it looked like the dance genre that had broken through in the mid-70s was on the way, Wayne Fever made disco go supernova for the rest of the decade. The Bee Gees brothers Barry Robin and Morris Gibb, who had already rebooted their career as purveyors of danceable R B, went full disco on Fever, providing the bulk of the soundtrack's hits as well as several tracks from their back catalog. Indeed, star John Travolta's showcase solo dance scene in the movie was scored by the Bee Gees you Should Be dancing, a number one hit from 1976, the year before the movie. Like a musical, Saturday Night Night Fever did feature diegetic hits, songs the characters were hearing and dancing to in the club. But like the Graduate, it also featured non diegetic songs commenting on the action. Like the BG's leadoff single, the disco ballad How Deep Is yous Love. And like the blaxploitation soundtracks, Fever redefined the main act's career. The Bee Gees, smiling in white suits and gold chains next to Travolta on the soundtrack's album cover, became the biggest pop stars in the world. As for the charts, we've covered the stats in multiple prior Hit Parade episodes, but but in short, they were staggering four number one hits including the Bee Gees own Staying Alive and Night Fever. And a chart topper they wrote for Ivan Elliman. If I can't have you if I.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Can'T have you I don't want nobody baby if I can't have you.

[Chris Melanfi]

The soundtrack spent on a stunning 24 weeks on top of the album chart in 1978. Not only the year's biggest LP, but for about five years, the biggest selling album period of all time. Until it was topped by Michael Jackson's thriller in 1979. Saturday Night Fever even became the first movie soundtrack to win the Grammy for album alone of the year.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

And the winner is Saturday Night Fever. Thank you very, very much. We'd like to thank our record company, RSO Records, our manager, Robert Stigwood, Al Curry, Bob Edson, Rich Fitzgerald, our band, Dennis Bryan, Alan Kendall, Blue Weaver. We're bringing it home. Thank you, thank you.

[Chris Melanfi]

Saturday Night Fever succeed kicked off the blockbuster era of the movie soundtrack, and it had immediate coattails. That same year, 1978, a second movie starring John Travolta, a film adaptation of the kitschy Broadway musical Grease, also topped the album chart for a dozen weeks. Though the film was set in the 50s and celebrated nostalgia for that decade, the theme song, recorded by Four Seasons singer Frankie Valli and written by Barry Gibb, was pure disco. It too topped the Hot 100 evidence that soundtracks could now generate hits that were barely adjacent to the plot or the style of their films.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Got meaning.

[Chris Melanfi]

By 1980, several movies were trying to get on the fever bandwagon almost devised more to sell soundtrack albums than sell the movie. To be sure, the makers of Xanadu were hoping the Olivia Newton John roller skating fantasia would be a box office hit hit. But when it flopped at the cinema, they took solace that the Xanadu soundtrack was a Smash, reaching number four on the album chart and spawning several Hot 100 hits. Commercially, it was disco's last gasp. And as we discussed in our country music episode of Hit Parade, 1980s Urban Cowboy starring, yes, John Travolta did for 80s country what Fever had done for 70s disco. The movie was a solid success, but the Urban Cowboy soundtrack was a platinum phenomenon that spun off multiple radio hits, including Johnny Lee's Looking for Life Love, reshaping country pop crossover. But we hadn't seen anything yet. Yes, Saturday Night Fever had proven a soundtrack could reshape the zeitgeist while spawning multiple hit songs. In the 80s and 90s. Hollywood and the music business would supersize that model, turning soundtracks into multi platinum product. When we come back, what happens when soundtracks spawn so many hits they overshadow the actual movement? And will the soundtrack survive into the 21st century? Don't worry, the soundtrack may enter the danger zone, but it will eventually be golden again. Non Sleep plus listeners will hear the rest of this episode in two weeks. For now, I hope you've been enjoying this episode of Hit Parade. Our show was written, edited and narrated by Chris Melanfi. That's me. My producer is Kevin Bendis, our supervising producer is Joel Meyer, and the Executive producer of Slate Podcasts is Mia lobel. Check out Slate's roster of [e-mail] podcasts. You can subscribe to Hit Parade wherever you get your podcasts, in addition to finding it in the Slate Culture feed. If you're subscribing on Apple Podcasts, please rate and review us while you're there. It helps other listeners find the show. Thanks for listening and I look forward to leading the hit parade back your way. We'll see you for part two in a couple of weeks. Until then, keep on marching on the one. I'm Chris Melanfi. This episode is brought to you by Saks Fifth Avenue. Saks makes it easy to find the perfect gifts and holiday looks that suit your personal style. The holidays can be a lot of fun things. Exciting, relaxing, heartwarming and yes, sometimes even a little stressful. That's why you need Saks.com Saks makes holiday shopping easy, stress free and most importantly, fun. Whether it's for yourself, your family and friends, or even the pickiest person on your list, you can feel confident going into this holiday season knowing that Saks is there to help you. You find inspiration, curate a holiday wish list, pick out gifts for your loved ones and have a look ready for whatever might come your way. Whether it's an office holiday party, a cozy night in, or a vacation getaway, Saks has everything you need. If you're looking for shopping to be personalized and easy this holiday season, then head to Saks Fifth Avenue Avenue for inspiring ways to shop for everyone on your list.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

And Doug, here we have the Limu.

[Chris Melanfi]

Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

Fascinating.

[Chris Melanfi]

It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us. Cut the camera.

[Various Musical Guests / Song Performers]

They say see us.

[Chris Melanfi]

Only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings Very underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts.