Inappropriate Soundtracks

Added 14 years ago by Frketson • Updated about a year ago by Brad

Part of a series on Recut Movie Trailers / Movie Trailer Remix. [View Related Entries]

About • Origin • Spread • Notable Examples •

Category: Meme Status: confirmed Year: 2002 Origin: Something Awful Region:

Type:

Tags: youtube video music movie film cinema remix something awful video editing blacklist soundtrack dissonance

About

Inappropriate Soundtracks are mashup videos created by pairing a movie clip with unfitting background music to offset the mood or tone of the original scene. Following a simple audio / video-editing formula, YouTube users have recreated several dozens of well-known movie scenes featuring popular songs for humorous effect.

Origin

Outside the context of video-editing, the term "inappropriate soundtrack" has been occasionally used by film reviewers and bloggers in film review articles. The majority of "Inappropriate Soundtrack" videos originate from Something Awful forums, as cited by active contributors to the series on YouTube. The earliest known discussion about inappropriate soundtracks on Something Awful was posted on May 5th, 2002, in a thread titled "Ruin movies with inappropriate soundtracks.. again,"^[1] which suggests that there had been previous threads relating to the topic. Although the original videos have been removed, the movie review website Top5 Movies published a two-part list titled "The Top 8 Inappropriate Soundtrack Songs"^[2]^[3] on June 11th, 2004:

1. The Passion of the Christ – "Whip It"
2. A Beautiful Mind – "Let's Go Crazy"
3. Reservoir Dogs – "Ear to the Ground"
4. Titanic – "Under the Sea"
5. Alive – "Hungry Like the Wolf"
6. The Miracle Worker – "I Can See Clearly Now"
7. The Exorcist – "I'm in You"
8. Walking Tall – "I Am a Rock"

Spread

While its origin dates back to early 2000s in Something Awful, "Inappropriate Soundtrack" gained much of its popularity through Something Awful users' contributions on YouTube and other major video-sharing
platforms in 2006. The first YouTube instance was uploaded by WhoDares^[4] on July 3rd, 2006, featuring the body dumping scene from GoodFellas set to "Dirty Little Secrets" by All-American Rejects.

YouTuber Boonehams^[5] played a vital role in spreading the audio/video remixing fad, producing over 60 "Inappropriate Soundtrack" videos^[6] and garnering over 4.2 million YouTube upload views as of February 2011. The sound mixing phenomenon has been also written about by a number of film review blogs including Living Read Girl^[7], FIlmsight^[8], Jason Kottke^[9] and news sites like Inquisitr.^[10]

Notable Examples

Most "Inappropriate Soundtack" typically juxtapose somber or violent scenes with lighthearted, happy soundtracks, such as Saving Private Ryan (1998) set to GI Joe Theme Song, Braveheart (1995) set to the NFL theme and Shawshank Redemption (1994) set to Mortal Kombat theme.