I imagine when Mean Streets was in theatres it was a killer soundtrack, but for me now in 2010, it sounds corny, cliched, stale, and filled with the most overplayed songs ever.
I do realize maybe part of the reason these songs became film cliches is Martin Scorsese used them in films like Mean Streets!
But what about you...love it or hate it?
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I totally agree with you. I can't even imagine Mean Streets without music like this. This film is perfect for me, I can't say anything bad about it.
Florence, I Love You So, Mickey's Monkey, Be My Baby, Please Mr. Postman are stuck in my head. I've always said that Scorsese is amazing because he knows how to combine movie scenes with music. Great music taste :). He even said in an interview that he would have loved to play an instrument.
Man, everything in Mean Streets holds up for me as much as it did when it was first released. There's nothing cliched, overplayed, and corny about it. If several of the songs in this classic have been overplayed in any other films... well remember that they were first used in a Scorsese film.
These days you can't find director's with great taste in music like Scorsese; he puts music in his films to good use.
The film is great on its own and its a definite masterpiece, but I cannot imagine it without the music. The intro with The Ronnetes' "Be My Baby" is one of the best openings in any film I've seen. And Johnny Boy's iconic entrance wouldn't be the same without the Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash."
Doo-wop, Rock 'N' Roll, Italian opera, traditional pop... man it's all good.
If anything is cliched, it's today's predictable electronic film scores and music in general. You can't beat the old school!
Love, love, love, love the soundtrack.
shareThe use of "Jumping Jack Flash" was utterly transcendent.
shareI loved it, love all the Oldies, 60s, Rock 'n'Roll.
As soon as "Be my baby" came on, I was like "yeah!!!!......"
Looking in the mirror at my outdated, greased hair, thinking, "yeah!!!"
soundtrack is amazing...as per every scorsese movie...music is always one of the main characters in his movies
The soundtrack of this movie is awesome! It would be a different film without it!
Prostitute: What the *beep* are you doing?
Johnny: I'm gonna kill a bunch of people.
In Mean Streets Scorsese uses music to support the conflict and duality within the characters involved in the story. The second generation of rising hoods following the still gently prevalent influence of the Mastachio Petes removed from power years before they were born. Men who didn’t trust anyone who didn’t come from the old country. Men who might never have learned to speak English. Men who limited their criminal activities within familiar territory. Their neighbors were their victims. Men who existed in a world without mass media.
The next generation would be different. Expanding their crimes far beyond their neighborhoods. Embracing and involving themselves with non-italian popular culture, but they still kept their activities and allegiances close to the vest. Obedience and loyalty being principle tenets in their alliances.
In a sense what we see in Mean Streets is the beginnings of the breakdown in the tribalism that had been essential to successes of the Mafia of previous years. This Means Streets generation is not wealthy, but neither are they quite so poor or removed from larger society as those who came before them. They’re less insular than their predecessors. They struggle with long-established feelings of racism and xenophobia. They're more willing to recognize their desire for women of other faiths and ethnicities. While their elders watch black and white reruns on television in the comfort of their homes, the boys prefer to watch technicolor horror movies and exploitation flicks in dilapidated midtown movie houses.
In keeping with the changing awarenesses of their generation, along with the Italian opera and popular music they hear at home and throughout their neighborhood, they embrace popular music made by other people outside their world — Rock and Roll, Doo-Wop, Soul Music, etc.
They’re struggling to be like, yet unlike, their elders.
"Your thinking is untidy, like most so-called thinking today." (Murder, My Sweet)
this is a great post
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