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What songs would the ‘Saltburn’ characters have played in 2007?


Over the weekend, I finally watched “Saltburn,” the provocative, polarizing, and sometimes downright disgusting coming-of-age thriller that no one can stop talking about right now.

The film, written and directed by “Promising Young Woman” filmmaker Emerald Fennell and starring current It Boys Barry Keoghan and Jacob Elordi, charts the fate of two unlikely friends who meet at Oxford and then spend a debauched summer at the titular estate where the (much) wealthier of the two children lives with his aristocratic family.

“Saltburn” plays out like a diabolically dark, millennial version of “Brideshead Revisited.” And the key word is millennialas Fennell, 38, delights in planting countless period-specific details, including an evocative soundtrack, that remind viewers that these kids belong to the class of 2006.

The soundtrack has provoked a nostalgia so powerful that it has catapulted Sophie Ellis-BextorThe 2001 neo-disco hit “Murder on the Dancefloor”, used in a crucial scene, returned to the Top 10 of the British charts. This week, the song entered the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time.

Fennell has confirmed that most of the film takes place in the summer of 2007, and since then, script supervisors on social media have had fun pointing out the film’s more chronologically questionable cultural references. (For example: some of the characters are watching a DVD of “Superbad,” which just hit theaters that summer.)

The most egregious musical cue is a karaoke scene in which Flo RidaThe party anthem of ‘Low’, which was released in October 2007 and didn’t become a worldwide hit until early 2008. Eagle-eared listeners have also pointed out that a arcade fire The song released in mid-2007 plays in a pub scene that would take place near the beginning of the 2006 school year, and that MGMT“Time to Pretend,” the song that soundtracks a languid montage from the summer of 2007, appeared on an album that didn’t come out until that fall. (The film’s music supervisor responded, “Actually, it’s as close as it gets, just to put you back in that space. If it had been a couple of years later, it would have been a big no.”)

Still, since seeing the film, I have become obsessed with these objections and consumed by one question: What would do What did the characters in “Saltburn” really hear in the summer of 2007? Today’s playlist is my attempt to answer that.

I am not a professional music supervisor nor am I a member of the king’s nobility; I’m not even British. But I have credentials that make me uniquely qualified to create this particular playlist: In the summer of 2007, I was a junior in college with a nearly full 160GB iPod.

I consulted several primary sources, including a playlist on said iPod that I actually created at the end of the year in which “Saltburn” takes place (titled, with a college melodrama and for reasons I can’t really remember now, “2007 was a bad year “). Year”). Features some artists whose music appears on “Saltburn” (MGMT, Block Party) and quite a few whose songs don’t, but whose sounds I think would have powerfully evoked the era (missing in action, hot chipthat author of the sound of the aughts Timbalandia). It’s probably not as quintessentially British as the film’s actual soundtrack, but alas, I didn’t go to university, I went to “university”.

As you’ve probably noticed by now, I had way too much fun putting together this playlist. You can call this sound “indie sleaze,” but I just call it my twenties.

Listen on Spotify while you read.

Hilariously, or perhaps just appropriately, the first song of my current The 2007 iPod Playlist is a song that was featured prominently on “Saltburn.” Few albums were as hotly debated in my college radio station office that year as MGMT’s glam-pop debut, “Oracular Spectacular.” While it technically wasn’t released until October 2, this song is such a perfect, montage-ready encapsulation of the sound of that era that I’ll allow Fennell a little poetic license with this one. (Listen on YouTube)

Another one from my iPod playlist from 2007, from another album I listened to a lot that summer: Spoon’s effortlessly tuneful sixth album, “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga.” I can imagine the elegantly wasted inhabitants of Saltburn vibing to this bass line. (Listen on YouTube)

Any 2007 playlist worth its salt had to have at least one semi-obscure, critically adored indie pop track downloaded from a music blog. This 2006 should have been a hit for the short-lived British duo Johnny Boy ticks that box, with style. (Listen on YouTube)

It was also the summer of “Kala”, MIA’s bold and spectacular second album, which I believe remains their greatest achievement. Although “Kala” wasn’t released until early August, this lush single came out in June and set the tone for the season. (Listen on YouTube)

In fact, I can’t believe this song wasn’t used on “Saltburn” – the title says it all! Although released in 2006, British electro-pop group Hot Chip’s melancholic dancefloor anthem would still have had plenty of resonance the following summer, especially in Britain, where it peaked at number 40 on the singles chart. (Listen on YouTube)

Another 2006 hit that would still have been ubiquitous the following summer, the Timbaland-produced “SexyBack” was released at the height of Justin Timberlake’s commercial popularity. and its poptimism-approved hipster cred. (Listen on YouTube)

This is the song I would have put in place of “Low”: another instantly recognizable, era-defining hip-hop song, but which by then would have been around long enough for an out-of-touch guy to have done it credibly. She destroyed him at karaoke (listen on YouTube).

It just wasn’t a party in the summer of 2007 until someone played “Maneater,” the sublime, slightly more modern alternative to Furtado’s. other 2006 single about a lascivious woman. (Listen on YouTube)

Of course, there was a song from post-punk revitalizers Bloc Party’s 2005 debut, “Silent Alarm,” on “Saltburn”; He would have simply chosen this more propulsive and certainly direct selection instead of “This Modern Love.” (Listen on YouTube)

And finally, nothing said “mid-to-late aughts college party” like a cut from Girl Talk’s hyperactive 2006 combo piece, “Night Ripper,” or maybe just someone stealing the aux cord and playing the entire album . Start to finish. (Listen on YouTube)

Take them to the choir,

Lindsay

Listen to it on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.

“2007: The Summer of ‘Saltburn’” track list
Track 1: MGMT, “It’s Time to Pretend”
Track 2: Spoon, “Don’t You Evah”
Track 3: Johnny Boy, “You are the generation that bought the most shoes and you get what you deserve”
Track 4: MIA, “Boyz”
Track 5: Hot Chip, “Boy From School”
Track 6: Justin Timberlake ft. Timbaland, “SexyBack”
Track 7: Chamillionaire ft. Krayzie Bone, “Ridin’”
Track 8: Nelly Furtado, “Maneater”
Track 9: Block Party, “Banquet”
Track 10: Girl Talk, “Bounce That”

After introducing the British musician and poet Labi Siffre In Friday’s newsletter, a Times editor sent me a link to Siffre’s exquisitely funky 1975 song, “I Got The…”, which appears prominently on Eminem’s 1999 single, “My Name Is.” I admit this blew my mind. It also led me to two fascinating facts that I would like to share with you.

First of Stream and its producers the dust brothers They were planning to sample “I Got The…” on a single from the 1999 album “Midnite Vultures”, but Eminem beat them to it. (What could have been!) Also, even more impressive, Siffre refused to approve Eminem’s sample for the producer. Dr.Dre until they removed all the lyrics that Siffre had deemed homophobic. “They discuss the fans, not their victims,” Siffre said years later in an interview. “I denied them sample rights until they removed that vague writing.” I wish every Eminem song had been put through the Labi Siffre test!

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