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Song of the Day #6,332: ‘School of Rock’ – The School of Rock

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.

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Song of the Day #6,331: ‘Please Mr. Kennedy’ – The John Glenn Singers

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.

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Song of the Day #6,330: ‘On the Dark Side’ – Eddie and the Cruisers

Eddie and the Cruiser’s ‘On the Dark Side’ is the first single by a fictional band I remember hearing as a kid. And I assumed the band playing it was real.

I’m not sure I ever saw the entirety of the 1983 film that shares the band’s name, but I feel like it was playing on HBO in our house quite a bit. That’s how the movie found an audience a year after it flopped in theaters, and that’s how this song became a top ten hit.

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Song of the Day #6,329: ‘Stonehenge’ – Spinal Tap

Before Taylor Swift took over the charts with The Life of a Showgirl, the #1 song in the land was a K-pop tune called ‘Golden’ by fictional band HUNTR/X, featured in the animated film KPop Demon Hunters.

That’s not the first time a fictional band held the top spot. In fact, it’s happened four other times. In order: The Chipmunks’ ‘The Chipmunk Song’ (1959); The Archies’ ‘Sugar Sugar’ (1969); The Partridge Family’s ‘I Think I Love You’ (1970); and The Heights’ ‘How Do You Talk to an Angel‘ (1992).

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Song of the Day #6,328: ‘Get Off of My Cloud’ – The Rollings Stones

Topping the Billboard Hot 100 the week of November 2, 1965, was The Rolling Stones’ second #1 single, ‘Get Off of My Cloud.’ Their first U.S. #1 came a few months earlier with ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.’

‘Get Off of My Cloud’ hadn’t even been written when ‘Satisfaction’ reached #1 in June. In fact, this song was a reaction to the success of the earlier track and to the parade of record execs banging down the band’s door asking for another hit.

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