Tim Burton's Batman came out 30 years ago. Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins came out 16 years later. In between these two Batman movies were 2 of the 3 Sam Raimi Spiderman films, a couple of Joel Schumacher Batman films and Tim Burton's Batman Returns. Obviously, there were a lot of other super hero films in this era, but I single these out specifically because the movie studios that put out these films, Warner Bros. and Sony, also had record labels, so most of these blockbuster films came accompanied with what they hoped were blockbuster soundtracks to "double dip" in profits. With the exception of Batman Returns, which features only a Danny Elfman score plus a new Siouxsie and the Banshees song, there were great expectations for these soundtracks to suck as much cash out of the pockets of the vaunted 18-35 age demographic as possible.
Warner Bros. definitely didn't mess around when it came to these soundtracks. Tim Burton's original Batman was put under the care of Prince, who may know a thing or 2 about putting together a hit soundtrack. Joel Schumacher's two entries into the franchise boasted lead singles by U2 and The Smashing Pumpkins, after both bands were coming off massively successful tours and albums, and neither band were signed to Warner Bros. records. Even though you could argue that Hollywood was still trying to figure out comic book / super hero films in the 90s, they definitely knew of the potential. Only the X-Men franchise and some lesser Marvel properties eschewed the idea of pairing their movie with a big pop soundtrack.
Blade, was one of those smaller properties, though in the 90s, Marvel gave him a push with their Midnight Sons series, and it ended up being both a box office and Billboard success. It made 70 million dollars at the box office and the soundtrack went gold. With Blade II, Guillermo Del Toro was brought in to direct the film, and Immortal Records/Virgin Records were brought into handle the soundtrack. The Immortal Records imprint is famous for putting together rock and rap collaboration soundtrack Judgement Night, so they decided to do the same with Blade II, albeit with a different twist.
The soundtrack to Blade was a hodgepodge of mostly hip hop, with some electronic artists and a remix of New Order's "Confusion". While this may seem like an odd mix of artists, it actually made a lot of sense at the time. In 1995, Mortal Kombat hit theaters and Mortal Kombat's electronic George S. Clinton (no, not that George Clinton) soundtrack kicked off a trend pairing these "darker" action/super hero movies with more dance driven music. This would continue with 1997 film Spawn, which paired industrial and rock groups with electronic music so Blade's soundtrack continues this evolution with electronic music and hip-hop.
As with most sequels, Blade II decided to double down on what made Blade successful, so the soundtrack pairs an electronic artist with a hip-hop artist on every track (excluding the bonus track). It's a pretty star studded affair on both sides. You have Mos Def with Massive attack, Redman with Gorillaz, Fatboy Slim with Eve, and The Roots with BT, just a year after he produced N'Sync's "Pop". Unfortunately, the soundtrack didn't climb the charts nor did it become the cult classic that Judgement Night ended up becoming. It wasn't for a lack of trying, but it also wasn't very good.
Before listening, I assumed the Redman and Gorillaz pairing would've been an easy layup, but it's just uninspired. There aren't any train wrecks, but there aren't any classics. It just failed to capture that lightning in a bottle that Judgement Night had and there's nothing that really captures the imagination like Teenage Fanclub and De La Soul getting together for a song. While the soundtrack didn't meet the hype, Blade II would be successful enough to green light Blade: Trinity, whose soundtrack would more closely resembled the first Blade.
We wouldn't get another soundtrack this strange until 2016's Suicide Squad, and that soundtrack isn't even that interesting. In between we got Macy Gray showing up in Spiderman, Dashboard Confessional getting the coveted end credits song during Spiderman II, and the previously mentioned Alicia Keys/ Kendrick Lamar/ Hans Zimmer/ Pharrell/ Incubus guitarist Mike Einziger song for The Amazing Spiderman 2. Perhaps, learning from the mistakes of its fellow Marvel but non-MCU properties, The Marvel Cinematic Universe has pretty much stayed away from new music when constructing their soundtracks.
I assume Kevin Feige made a conscious decision to use popular music, or popular references in the MCU sparingly to give the films less a more timeless feel. Sure, there may be a snippet of a Ghostface Killah song in Iron Man as a nod to Ghostface referring him to himself as both Tony Starks and Iron Man on his solo albums, but it's not a new song and it's more of an Easter egg. The Avengers featured a new Soundgarden song during the credits which is just confusing in the year 2012 and it wasn't treated like a big event. The only embrace of new popular artists by the MCU is with Black Panther, and Kendrick Lamar had already been nominated for Album of the Year twice before given the reigns to curate, and through his curation, he garnered another Album of the Year nomination. That choice was almost as bulletproof as James Gunn's decision to construct a 70's rock mixtape soundtrack for Guardians of the Galaxy. Not to call Gunn's Guardians soundtrack an easy call, since Zach Snyder did something similar with Watchmen, and his choices were so on the nose that it became distracting.
Unfortunately, with the more serious tone that has become in vogue with super hero films starting with Batman Begins, it looks like a Blade II style soundtrack gambit probably won't happen ever again. Whether it's because Kevin Feige has no interest in running an MCU record label or because Sony has realized that Spiderman is better served with The Ramones and The Jam, opportunities for a blockbuster soundtrack look like they will be few and far between, though I'm sure Warner Bros. is foaming at the mouth for their James Gunn curated Suicide Squad II soundtrack. So while there's been a huge uptick in quality for superhero films in the last 15 years, that also means there's been fewer puzzling decisions and sometimes those are the most memorable ones.
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