In 2016, Tony Zhou, the creator of Every Frame A Painting -- a popular (but sadly "dead") film criticism channel on YouTube -- took to the streets of Vancouver to ask passersby if they could hum him some music from famous films. While Harry Potter, James Bond and Star Wars all elicited confident responses, when he asked them to sing any Marvel movie tune, he was met with nothing but silence. "I'm the biggest Marvel fan that I know of," one participant admitted. "I just... I can't think of any of the songs." Another even said: "I didn't even know they had theme songs." "Despite 13 films and $10 billion at the box office," Tony concludes, "the Marvel Cinematic Universe lacks a distinctive musical identity or approach."
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You might be thinking: Who cares? I like to watch Marvel movies, not listen to them! But to think this would be to undervalue how important music has become in moviemaking. Would we still tear up when Jesse is abandoned by her owner in Toy Story 2 without that Sarah McLachlan song playing? Would Psycho's infamous shower scene still fill us with horror without the sound of those piercing violin strings? It also undervalues the specific role that music has played in superhero moviemaking from the very beginning.
John Williams' Superman theme and Danny Elfman's for Batman have become as iconic as the characters themselves; recognizable audio prompts that instantly put images in our minds of a soaring man in red-and-blue or a black-clad one perched atop a gargoyle. However, as superheroes began to dominate the box office again from the early '00s onwards, there's been a dearth in any memorable music to accompany their triumphant comeback -- with perhaps the notable exception of Hans Zimmer's work for The Dark Knight trilogy.
This problem has plagued Marvel Studios' productions in particular, contributing to the cookie-cutter manufacturing critique that some have levied at the MCU in general. Sure, we know that an AC/DC song means Tony Stark is about to make an over the top entrance, while Spider-Man and the Hulk can borrow from their catchy TV jingles, but aside from that, why don't beloved characters like Captain America or Thor have melodic cues as distinctive as DC's Big Two? Alan Silvestri's "The Avengers" theme might make your ears prick up in the moment, but as Tony Zhou's video experiment proved, it isn't sticking in people's minds after they leave the movie theater.
In a crowded release schedule of capes and tights on the big screen, theme music should be playing an important supporting role in helping audiences differentiate one super person from another, rather than fading into background noise. This is why it's encouraging to look back on 2018 -- a bumper year for the genre -- as the best year for superhero movie music in a long time.
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After Suicide Squad and the Guardians of the Galaxy series adopted the Tarantino jukebox method so effectively, Black Panther and Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse followed suit. Into The Spider-Verse even used Post Malone and Swae Lee's "Sunflower" to bookend Miles Morales' character arc, bringing music to the forefront of the film's storytelling. Black Panther's mix of traditional African music and languages from composer Ludwig Göransson for the film's score was purposefully blended with Kendrick Lamar's modern hip-hop soundtrack, becoming a key worldbuilding tool in director Ryan Coogler's fully-realized vision of an untouched, technologically-advanced African country. It's no coincidence that all of these films are considered to have unique identities -- even if, in the case of Suicide Squad, the scripting lets them down. Hell, having any kind of identity as a film in the creatively restrictive MCU is an achievement.
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The DCEU's musical accomplishments in 2018 shouldn't be ignored, either. In the absence of Superman, Batman and the Justice League reclaiming any of the glory of Williams and Elfman's scores, composer Rupert Gregson-Williams has been doing his best to inject some musical magic back into DC movies.
The sizzling Amazonian guitar riff that announced Wonder Woman's heroic arrival in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice returned in full force for her solo film, and he built on this success for Aquaman, crafting a rocky, synth-laden score that's as bombastic as the movie itself. As for James Wan's "cheeky" use of a Pitbull cover of Toto's "Africa," well, the internet might hate it, but a film that made the bulk of its money overseas clearly wasn't damaged by slipping in a version of a song with such universal appeal. Both Aquaman and Wonder Woman are also the DCEU's most profitable films yet.
It would be remiss not to briefly give a shout-out to the world's first theatrically released superhero movie musical. Teen Titans Go! To The Movies was one of summer 2018's surprise hits, and while its adult-orientated tonal equivalent, Deadpool 2, had some titillating music moments -- Celine Dion's 007 parody and the Juggernaut's explicit theme -- the Titans went all out. From rapping their own entrance song to Robin longing for a stereotypical superhero movie of his own to Michael Bolton lending his voice to an "Upbeat Inspirational Song About Life," the Go! To The Movies soundtrack is earworm after earworm.
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Branded identity is everything in the superhero genre and music is the one element of this that TV and film can add that comic books can't. For Marvel and DC's cinematic universes to not take advantage of this won't always impact box office figures in the present, but without any powerful music to transport us back, they might not secure strong enough legacies for the future.