Artifact #1: 1960 Movie The Magnificent Seven
The American western movie The Magnificent Seven became
popular in the 1960s as an underdog story of a Mexican village that was being
overrun by local bandits (Sleepy-17, 1960). In the story, one of the
villagers asks for help from a tough gunfighter, who then recruits several of
his tough guy friends to come and solve the villager’s bandit problem.
This Hollywood movie is actually a remix of the same story line used earlier in
a 1954 Japanese movie Seven Samurai (Sleepy-17, 1960).
The intent of the Hollywood version was to produce a movie
that would have enough appeal to be a box office success. The 1954 film
offered a storyline that fit those purposes. Being Hollywood, the
1960 movie improved the materials (film, actors, marketing) and used the
story line that had proven successful in the 1954 movie. This resulted in
a movie that was successful at the time, and currently has some status as a
classic western. Like many other successful movies, it was remade again in a
2016 version (Whingewood, 2016).
Artifact #2: Song You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling
as used in movie Top Gun
The song You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling that
was performed by Maverick in the Top Gun movie is a remix of the 1964
song made popular by the Righteous Brothers) (Spector, 1964). The intent of the
original song, other than producing a hit song, was to tell the story of a lost
love, and to describe the pain of that loss. In the Top Gun movie, the
same song was used, but was performed by Maverick with the intent of impressing
and winning the attention of the female flight instructor (Cheesy Scenes, 2016).
The materiality of the original song was a professional soundtrack of studio
quality, while the song in the movie was purposely performed in an amateurish
and informal way. The function of the original song was to feed into a
sad mood, but the function of the same song in the movie was to show how bold
the character Maverick could be.
Artifact #3: Remix of song Country Roads
In 2017, British singer Santino Le Saint produced a soft
rock/rap release of the song Country Roads. The words and music of
the 1971 John Denver hit are clear in the remix version, but they are overlaid
with a rap rhythm and additional lyrics that bring the song over into a new
music genre (Mini Thin, 2017). The intent of the earlier version was to appeal
to the ‘70s pop music fan base, calling up the nostalgia of a rural West
Virginia life, backed up by the guitar and vocal harmony popular at that time (Okun
& Kaplow, 1971). Santino’s intent was to bring the appeal of the
country song into a new generation of listeners (Metropolis Music, n.d.). Its materiality was modified to fit the soft rap music genre by overlaying a
rap beat and words over a version of the original song. The functionality was
then successfully adapted to a new, younger audience in 2017.
References
Cheesy Scenes. (2016, August 26). Top Gun - You've
Lost That Loving Feeling [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFT0jGibz80
Metropolis Music. (n.d.). Santino Le Saint. Home
- Metropolis Music. https://www.metropolismusic.com/artists/santino-le-saint/
Mini Thin. (2017, March 14). Country Roads Remix
(feat. Santino) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSO6w8saLwI
Okun, M., & Kaplow, J. (1971). Take Me Home,
Country Roads. On Poems, Prayers and Promises [ Rock / Pop].
https://www.whosampled.com/John-Denver/Take-Me-Home,-Country-Roads/.
Sleepy-17. (1960, October 12). The magnificent seven.
IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054047/
Sleepy-17. (1960, October 12). The magnificent seven.
IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054047/
Spector, 9. (1964). You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'.
On Philles [Soul / Funk / Disco].
https://www.whosampled.com/The-Righteous-Brothers/You%27ve-Lost-That-Lovin%27-Feelin%27/.
Whingewood. (2016, September 23). The magnificent
seven. IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2404435/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Comments
Post a Comment