Right song, wrong year

[G-Man]

Here's something that really gets on my nerves: when a movie is set in a particular year, and the music that plays in the background, or is part of the story, was not released yet at that time. It's strange: they look at all kinds of minute details to get the period right, and then they don't bother to google whether a song as out yet at the time of the film's timeframe.

Two films I watched this week did that. The Nice Guys, a film I otherwise enjoyed, is set in 1977. And it had "Boogie Wonderland", "September", "Get Down On It", "Boogie Oogie Oogie" and "The Pina Colada Song" playing as part of the story.

On top of that, Ryan Gosling's teenage daughter has a London Burning poster on her bedroom wall, two years before that album came out. She also has a poster of the Never Mind The Bollocks cover. That was released in the late autumn of 1977, whereas the film seems to be set in a warmer season. But it's LA, so who knows.

Getting these details wrong is even worse in a movie about pop music. In the Irish movie Sing Street, which is set in 1985, we have Starship's "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now", which was released in 1987. Also a bit odd was that the family settles down to watch Top of the Pops in 1985, and sees Duran Duran's "Rio", with the older brother lecturing at length about this new-fangled band.

[Various Artist]

Right song, wrong year

Did you mean London Calling there G-Man, out of interest...?

[G-Man]

Right song, wrong year

Oops, yeah. I presume I was having an earworm of the lyrics as I wrote that.

[Jah Womble]

Right song, wrong year

It'll surprise no one at all on here to learn that this kind of thing drives me up the bloody wall. Not because I'm a pedant, but because - as G-Man suggests - it's so damn easy to research this stuff.

Occasionally I'll let it slide if a musical detail is a few months out when it's integral to the plot, but this is rare. (Big of me, I know.)

A couple that come to mind: Zadie Smith's otherwise wonderful White Teeth was fractionally tainted for me by references to the Beastie Boys in what was supposed to be 1984 (a whole 2-3 years before they broke); while, in terms of movies, Steven Wright's DJ character K-Billy in Reservoir Dogs makes a series of inaccurate references to the music playing. (Someone will doubtless try and claim that this was deliberate.)

And there are many others...

Five minutes to do the homework, that's all it takes. And if you're making a film or writing a novel before the internet, then you just call me, okay?

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Right song, wrong year

I share this peeve and make it extensive to cars. Quite often I'll be watching a film/series and my eyes will bleed when I spot a supposedly contemporary car that simply didn't exist at the time.

[Jon]

Right song, wrong year

The worst one for me, by a long shot, is The Boat that Rocked (Pirate Radio for our US posters). What makes it worse is, as G-Man has already pointed out, this is a film where the music should be of paramount importance.

I have a soft spot for Richard Curtis (mainly due to my love of The Tall Guy, it has to be said). He can be accused of many things but not sloppiness; not until this film anyway.The premise of a film set on a fictional pirate radio ship in 1966 intrigued me and but I didn't actually see it until a few months ago. My god, it was awful. So sloppily done - the anachronisms were everywhere. The language used - at one point someone says 'think outside the box.' They are high-fiving each other at another point. VV - I'm sure you'd have a field day with the cars in the film (not that there are many, as it's set mostly on a ship but I've still no doubt you'd find some errors in there somewhere).

But the music. It's just head in hands stuff. It's 1966, for fuck's sake. Jimi Hendrix wasn't around so why are you playing The Wind Cries Mary? And how can he be the answer in a trivia quiz they are playing on the ship? Whiter Shade of Pale, Lazy Sunday, This Guy's in Love With You, So, Long Marianne. Father and Son is off Tea from the Tillerman for fuck's sake, which was released in the next decade. I could go on. And on.

But the worst was yet to come. The boat starts to sink and they all have to abandon ship. However, one old head (who is clearly a tribute to 'Whispering Bob Harris, despite Harris not starting his own radio career until a few years later, but I'll let that pass) has to go back to the ship and rescue his prized possession - an Incredible String Band LP. Oh, the debut album from 1966, you say? Of course not, that would be way too factually accurate for this film. It's their second album - the 5000 spirits or the layers of the onion, released a year later. This is a crucial part of the film (MASSIVE PLOT SPOILER) and it lasts 10 minutes or so as his son goes back to the ship to save the Whispering Bob character who he has only just found out is his dad. And yet how can Bob even rescue an LP that wasn't even released yet? More's to the point, and to echo both G-Man and Jah Womble, why didn't someone just fucking check?

[G-Man]

Right song, wrong year

I raised that in a conversation with friends and G-Woman yesterday. I argued my case, and the other three said, "Oh, who cares?" And then proceeded to talk about how they find continuity errors really annoying. My protestation that it is just sloppy to forget whether an actor's collar is up or down from one take to the next, but getting easily accessible historical fact wrong is not only sloppy but also very lazy.

Apparently I'm wrong. Collar position trumps historical accuracy. What is this world coming to?

[Jah Womble]

Right song, wrong year

I don't see a huge amount of difference, tbh - merely varying hues of the same colour. And that colour is sh*te.

When you consider all of the other details and quibbles that 'have' to be right to make a movie, checking a few basic facts cannot be the hardest by any means.

Aside from all the appalling music anachronisms - which absolutely should be nowhere to be seen in a film like The Boat That Rocked - I'm amazed that a scriptwriter of Curtis's supposed caliber would allow an excruciating line like 'think outside the box' into a sixties piece.

All that said, I was happy enough to see a few 'human vs dinosaur' squabbles in the eye-rolling One Million Years BC at the age of six...

[Sits]

Right song, wrong year

Echoing the above in general.

Warming to the lateral shift into cars, in my teens it really bugged me if military vehicles or aircraft were wrong. "That's a Focke-Wulf 190 D9, they weren't even created by 1941!"

Nowadays, not wishing to appear a geek, I simply smirk knowingly to myself.

[VTTBoscombe]

Right song, wrong year

Linked (but not really I suppose) is when dumbness over music is apparent, of such magnitude it spoils it all.
My biggest gripe is in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, not everyone's cup of tea I know; but I felt it was generally enjoyable.
Emma Watson and whoever plays her step brother have set themselves up as "good taste music snobs", and trying to teach the dude from Percy Jackson how to like more interesting music.
Now they all seem to know their Smiths, and other Brit Indie stuff, and they even seemed to know C'mon Eileen by Dexy; (which as this is set in early 90's hicks ville USA, I imagine is somehow amazing); but they cannot place Heroes by Bowie!
It's a big deal for them trying to find out "this obscure song".
I mean c'mon....

[Jah Womble]

Right song, wrong year

I've not even heard of that film, but it sounds ph*cking dreadful.

[Various Artist]

Right song, wrong year

Jah, I'm not sure if, after you've inserted a bowdlerising "ph" on the front of that word, further asterisk-bowdlerisation is really necessary, is it...? Or vice versa, depending.

[Jon]

Right song, wrong year

Yes, I haven't seen the film I've heard/read that Perks of Being a Wallflower/Bowie story before. Maybe on here, in fact.

So, I wasn't going to mention yet another Boat that Rocked musical cock up due to the spoilers involved but I've already half-spoiled the plot anyway in the previous post so here goes. The Whispering Bob DJ (although now I come to think of it, maybe it's more of a tribute to John Peel, as he actually worked on pirate radio in the 60s) is revealed to be the 18 year old protagonist's dad. When he finds out he gives a message to his new-found son - "Tell your mum, Muddy Waters still rocks" and then sings a snatch of Mannish Boy. By this, we're supposed to assume that dad had a swift dalliance with mum some 19 or 20 years ago which would mean it was about 1946. Muddy Water's earliest hits weren't till 1948, his period of success didn't really start until the early 1950s and Mannish Boy, the song which we're led to believe they shagged to, didn't come out until 1955.

[Jon]

Right song, wrong year

Oops. Double post.

[Jah Womble]

Right song, wrong year

Various Artist wrote: Jah, I'm not sure if, after you've inserted a bowdlerising "ph" on the front of that word, further asterisk-bowdlerisation is really necessary, is it...? Or vice versa, depending.

Quite - it was to draw further attention. And, in that respect, it appears to have worked.

[Various Artist]

Right song, wrong year

Hah, well played that man then.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Right song, wrong year

The Goldbergs was particularly jarring for this, especially as the whole point of the series was that it was meant to be reminiscenses about the 1980s. In one episode Adam is desperate to go and see ET (1982) but is wearing a Frankie Says Relax T-shirt (1984).

[Satchmo Distel]

Right song, wrong year

The novel Black Swan Green by David Mitchell had many of these, but the worst was his scene where the family is watching "the new" Breakfast TV...in early 1982.

The most common error in films seems to be making every young person a punk in 1976, when infact it was a very limited scene at that time. The Smiths are also over-emphasized compared to how big they really were at the time, and in a way that ignores the antipathy they attracted from fans of rival bands. I'd be very surprised if most people who claim to have bought This Charming Man in 1983 actually did (It reached #25; I only bought my copy six months later on the back of the next single, What Difference Does It Make?)

I think these errors disturb us more here because chronology is very important to how we consume and remember music. We are acutely aware of the correct sequence in which important records came out, and which social events they accompanied.

[Jah Womble]

Right song, wrong year

It absolutely does, yes - pop music underwent many seismic shifts within its first three decades, so to compromise these with inaccuracy in terms of dates is to play fast and loose with cultural history, basically.

It could also be that nobody really gives a flying one about the Top 40 anymore, whereas to those of us of certain vintages, it represents something of a soundtrack to our coming of age, etc. I could be wrong, but with songs (rather than 'singles' per se) now having seemingly unfettered existences outside of release/chart life, I don't think this really exists so much nowadays. And perhaps with more and more young 'uns making editorial decisions in films, etc, we're beginning to see the knock-on effect of this?

[Various Artist]

Right song, wrong year

That's an interesting thesis Jah – it makes depressing sense that people who are growing up in an era where the charts have a vastly less dynamic ebb and flow, and where all the same acts are busy racking up "ft." credits on each other's songs, would have started to lose sight of how people always used to measure out their growing up (in particular) by the precise release dates of key singles, the surges, swells, booms and busts in popularity of their favourite acts, and assorted rivalries and antipathies between the different tribes of followers. Not that this logic excuses Richard Curtis, say.

[Jah Womble]

Right song, wrong year

Yes, I strongly suspect that Mr Curtis had his eyes and ears on the next project while cobbling that little tale together. And that's being kind to him.

Amen, absolutely, to your other points.

[Beatle Simon]

Right song, wrong year

Various Artist wrote: it makes depressing sense that people who are growing up in an era where the charts have a vastly less dynamic ebb and flow

I've been of this opinion for about 10 years + now, but the way I look at it is that pop/rock/chart culture started circa the mid-50s, and had a really good 40 year run. There was nothing like it before, and maybe they'll be nothing like it again. Its like that meme thats been doing the rounds this last year - 'The world is 4 billion years old and somehow I managed to exist at the same time as David Bowie.' Its just the same as pop/rock/chart culture.

[Jah Womble]

Right song, wrong year

Bowie indeed being a greatly important factor thereof.

But it's not enough to say 'well, that was great while it lasted' - the form itself was built on revolution and needs the continuation of this to further flourish, IMO. What we have at present is a comatose carcass just about surviving on a drip: it exists, but has no vitality. Someone - something - needs to inject it right there in the heart, or give it a major electric shock.

Anyway, in danger of a thread-hijack here...

[Various Artist]

Right song, wrong year

Isn't that Serge's point, though? There's nothing that says the Top 40 charts and or rock/pop chart culture have to last as vital concepts for ever – any more than, say, serialising novels' first publication in magazines did, or broadcasting TV dramas/comedies via a Play For Today/Comedy Playhouse anthology/pilot format did, or men walking on the moon did. We've all grown up with the charts as an endlessly interesting and fluctuating barometer of our generations' listening tastes, but perhaps after 50+ good years (40 only takes us up to late 1992, when I started listening!) the form was just destined to go the way of all flesh?

[G-Man]

Right song, wrong year

Rogin the Armchair fan wrote: The Goldbergs was particularly jarring for this, especially as the whole point of the series was that it was meant to be reminiscenses about the 1980s. In one episode Adam is desperate to go and see ET (1982) but is wearing a Frankie Says Relax T-shirt (1984).

TV shows that reference the '80s with "Frankie" T-Shirts are like those idiots who reduce disco to Afro wigs or white Travolta suits. It's such a lazy cliché.