Yesterday, I watched a film that has been considered to be a cinematic breakthrough, and they were right!
Boyhood tells the story of Mason Jr., a six-year-old boy, and his path through childhood to his high school graduation twelve years later. Filming started in Summer 2002, and continued every Summer until 2014, using the same original cast. As of today, it has received 100% from Rotten Tomatoes, based on 102 reviews, and 99% from Metacritic, based on 30 critics.
I was going to do a post on why this film is so exceptional, but I’m exhausted after a long two weeks of bugger all, so I’m only going to write about one specific part which I found particularly intriguing: the music.
One of the first scenes in the film shows Mason’s sister singing Oops…I Did It Again (2000) by Britney Spears. A bit later on, a girl is featured singing a song from High School Musical (2006). A while later, you start hearing Mason’s better musical years, regarding influences from The Beatles, Pink Floyd and The Flaming Lips. A year before he leaves to go to college, he is in his car listening to Suburban War (2010) by Arcade Fire, and shortly after he is in a bar listening to Somebody That I Used To Know (2011) by Gotye.
Incredibly, genius director Richard Linklater seems to have used music as a means of setting the cultural scene for Mason’s life. Everyone loved High School Musical when it came out, but eight years on we have all forgotten. In Boyhood, Linklater wants to ensure that the viewer is always in touch with where Mason is up to in his life, and what better way to do that than via a teenager’s release? Whilst some may simply consider this to be a measly cultural nuance, I consider it to be a stroke of genius on Linklater’s part.
But this got me thinking back. I’ve not always been in to the sort of music that I am into now: most of it hadn’t even been written. Can my entire life be summed up in a set of tunes, as Linklater attempted to do regarding Mason.
So that is what I will be using this post for!
Below, I have tried to sum up my interest in music in a collection of songs. I did come to the realisation that my interest in music was almost zilch during my earlier years, so I have begun a bit later. Regardless, I hope you enjoy it!
2004 – My First MP3 Player.
My dad put the music on it for me, so there was a lot of dad rock…
…but there were also some classic songs…
…and some incredible songs that I still enjoy today.
2008 – Guitar Hero
This was where I got the majority of my music for the next year or so, which was not necessarily a bad thing!
2010 – My First Indie Attempts
This didn’t last very long. I moved on. Gladly! Paramore’s third album Brand New Eyes is still very good though.
2011/14 – Proper Music. Finally.
This was the song that catapulted me into a life of trying to be pretentious…
…this led onto the variety of brilliant gateway bands…
…and attempts at being really weird…
…before culminating in my current scenario.
2014 – The Best Song Ever
And as a result of all of this, my entire life has found, what I believe to be, the best song ever written.
Of course people will disagree, and I would be interesting to hear your views. Please leave your thoughts as a comment!
So that is my life!
In addition, as I have said, Suburban War itself features in Boyhood, as does Deep Blue, which comes from the same album. So if you are looking for a perfect teenage, coming-of-age, beautiful album, then I would extremely highly recommend to Arcade Fire’s Grammy-Award-winning album The Suburbs. All of it.
So that wraps that up. A review of Boyhood will arrive soon.
See ya!
My Factless Autobiography 