Guardians of The Galaxy (2014) has inadvertently spawned a new genre in Hollywood – The ‘Awesome Mixtape Musical’. What ‘Guardians..’ had created, ‘Baby Driver’ ended up perfecting earlier this year. It is a bit counter-intuitive to call a movie with no real singing a musical, but maybe it’s time to expand the definition of ‘musical’ to accommodate for millennials.
Millennials like letting the world know what they’re listening to. We share playlists with each other and are responsible for making music more social; or maybe just less personal. It’s possible that this attitude is what led us to become wearied of the traditional Hollywood musical. Why sing songs to further a plot, when you can simply arrange a playlist to do the same? Why stop with a single song when Youtube (creepily) understands your mood and suggests you a dozen more? This is exactly what an ‘Awesome Mixtape Musical’ (hereby referred to as AMM) does through its headphone-wearing, alienated protagonists. They are not gung-ho about letting you enter their lives, but you are allowed a fleeting look whenever they feel like connecting to their speakers. We are markedly fascinated by such people, especially when we like the songs they’re listening to.
Another reason why AMMs can be actually called musicals is the fact that their characters are aware of the songs being played. The songs don’t necessarily further the plot, but they set the mood for most of the scenes in the movie. This aspect also allows the director to seamlessly switch songs from the foreground to the background of the film (we hardly notice when the song shifts from a muzzled ‘played through headphones’ effect to a clearer ‘played on speakers’ sound). James Gunn, who directed ‘Guardians..’ actually spoke about how he used to repeatedly play the songs on the movie’s set in order to create the right tone for his scenes.
It would be interesting to see how directors would milk this cow further. But what can be said for sure is that this is the kind of musical that is more likely to gain universal acceptance. A few eyes may have rolled when Russell Crowe had tried to sing (a tad ‘miseraab’ly, some might say), but what can possibly go wrong with Jon Hamm wigging out to the tune of Brighton Rock?
Gautham Srinivas
MBA student by day, online provocateur by night.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Madan
March 24, 2018
Nice one! 😉
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Dracarys
March 25, 2018
Sure thing. But this is nothing new. You are already listening to some playlist -mixed language – when you are commuting or just plain bulging your muscles somewhere…just that Hollywood finds a new way to commercialize and of course incentivize an already existing thing as a new age lifestyle!
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tonks
March 25, 2018
Liked the writing style. 🙂
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shadab
March 25, 2018
Two movies over a three year period can hardly be hailed as arrival of a new genre.Besides baby driver was conceptualized long long before guardian of galaxy movie came to be.
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KayM
March 25, 2018
That’s the best part of Guardian of Galaxy, the blasting of old hits int he original form unlike the rehash of old hits in Bollywood movies. Besides that the characters especially groot and racoon makes it fun watch.
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