Originally published at: Best superhero song of all time | Boing Boing
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That whole album is made of awesome.
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Agreed. But my close runner up: Sublime - Hong Kong Phooey (Official Video) - YouTube
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In the Squirrel Girl comic it’s explained that the tune for this song was originally hers but was mistakenly credited to J. Robert Harris and Paul Francis Webster due to a time travel mishap.
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The Every Frame a Painting genius EDIT: geniuses had a depressing video about Marvel movie music, and more specifically, why it intentionally sucks.
It closes with people remembering the immortal Spider-Man music.
I want to point out that some of the other '60s Marvel themes were also awesome:
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Are metalmen Superheroes?
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Disputable, I am afraid. While this one is quite good, it lacks the ‘brought it to the next level’ punch of, say, The Butthole Surfers’ cover of Underdog.
Or the quiet longing to escape one’s circumstances that, while not technically about a superhero, drives The Kinks’ seminal (Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman to a spot in your brain right behind Yellow Submarine.
In truth, I’d place it just behind the Freakazoid! theme song, and just ahead of the Nextwave: Agents of Hate theme song. Yes, it had a theme song and it was brilliant.
Oh, and if you include pulp heroes then Queen’s soundtrack to Flash Gordon blows them all out of the water.
As a last note, I would include links to these songs in Youtube, but the system does not allow me to do so.
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I agree.
But being a fan of The Crow and the movie soundtrack, and there aren’t THAT many songs about comics, here is one:
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I’m surprised that video didn’t mention how many of the most memorable scenes from Marvel movies are the ones where they just licensed some pre-existing music; Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man,” Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song,” Blue Suede’s “Hooked on a Feeling,” etc. Certainly they went that way because it was the safest, easiest way to get an emotional reaction out of the audience but those scenes still worked.
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Queen’s “Flash Gordon” song:
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Yeah, that’s an odd point for the video to omit, since it underlines his argument that nine-figure movies need their soundtrack to be a known quantity.
I think the reason he didn’t mention licensed music is that he’s clearly doing PR on behalf of movie composers. Another thing he didn’t mention is that old-school composers routinely rip themselves off, like how James Horner’s soundtracks for Aliens and Wrath of Khan are conspicuously recycled. You could argue that orchestral soundtracks are seen as a bland commodity partly because that’s how composers have been making them for several decades. I mean, I like a lot of those scores, but they are kind of samey and predictable.
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Crash Test Dummies’ Superman’s Song is awesome on so many levels…
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I dispute you.
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The original (1936) Flash Gordon also had a pretty good theme song (excerpts of Liszt’s Preludes).
If Gordon counts as a superhero (I always thought he won his fights because Mongo was a low-gravity world) then dies William Tell count too? He had a very good overture (called, IIRC, Show us your Lark pack).
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