Jan Hammer owned the #1 spot of the Billboard Hot 100 on the week of December 9, 1985, with the theme to Miami Vice. I covered that track during a week on TV theme songs that topped the chart.
At #2 that week, following a single week at the top spot, was Stevie Wonder’s ‘Part-Time Lover.’ This was the last of eight #1 hits for Wonder, and it is notable for being the first track to reach #1 on four different Billboard charts: Hot 100, dance, R&B, and adult contemporary.
Throwing back to the week of November 8, 1975, we find Elton John atop the Billboard Hot 100 with ‘Island Girl,’ the first single from his album Rock of the Westies.
This song has the distinction of being the only one of John’s nine U.S. #1 hits that I’ve never heard. Or at least I have no recollection of hearing it before learning it would be the subject of a Throwback Weekend post today.
My vote for the most convincing fictional song is ‘That Thing You Do!,’ from the 1996 film of the same name. This track is the one-hit wonder by 60s pop band The Wonders, and it perfectly captures the sound and spirit of that time.
That Thing You Do! (the movie) was the writing and directing debut of Tom Hanks. It’s a charming film that never quite found an audience. It chronicles the short career of a band called The Wonders (renamed from The Oneders after everybody mispronounced it as the O-need-ers) that sends this song up the charts before falling apart.
Writer/director Richard Linklater is the master of “poetry of everyday life” movies — think Boyhood, Dazed and Confused, Everybody Wants Some!!, and the Before trilogy. But he has also proved quite adept at crafting high-concept crowd-pleasers such as 2023’s Hit Man or the 2003 classic School of Rock.
School of Rock gives us one of cinema’s great fictional bands in the outfit helmed by Jack Black’s substitute teacher Dewey Finn and a team of musically savvy prep school fifth graders. Dewey has been kicked out of his former band and hopes to get his revenge by winning the Battle of the Bands with his newly-formed outfit.
The Coen Brothers have always made wonderful use of music in their movies. I could do a whole series on their best musical moments (and trust me, I just wrote that down as an idea for the future).
While it’s impossible to name a favorite Coen Brothers movie, I have 2013’s Inside Llewyn Davis atop my personal ranking of their films. The chronicle of a failed folk musician is sad, funny, and beautiful in all the best ways. And in addition to some folk classics, it features a great new song by a fictional band.
Meet Me In Montauk 