The Music of BABY DRIVER

“Baby Driver” is a 2017 film written and directed by Edgar Wright. The movie is set in Atlanta where Baby (Ansel Elgort) is a getaway driver for Kevin Spacey‘s Doc. He is pushed through a plot through his loyalty to Doc as well as his love for the drive, music and the great escape. He is surrounded by a great cast that seemingly surrounds him in this great ladder that propels him to even greater heights. Some of the best parts come from Jamie Foxx, Jon Bernthal, Jon Hamm as this amazing nice father like figure who by the end is more John Wick than Tom Hanks. My personal favorite is Lily James who plays Debora who is the love interest. She and Baby have this amazing chemistry in the film and every second they spend together is cuteness to the max and they just ooze the attraction that they have to each other.

9/10 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Baby (ANSEL ELGORT) is chased by the cops in TriStar Pictures’ BABY DRIVER.

Now to discuss the music! The soundtrack for the film comprises of 27 songs from covers everything from Queen to the Commodores, it flows through the movie akin to a musical and it isn’t like the film adds the music overtop, it is part of the chemistry of the film. The flow is amazing and keeps your foot tapping through the entire film. I’d like to give a huge shout out to Edith Bowman and her podcast Soundtracking who did two interviews with Edgar Wright about the music in his films and I would highly recommend listening to them for a fun and interesting look at the way that music can fit into a film. They are linked below. He speaks to how he incorporated music into the film and one of the most interesting things that I found was that the music was prepared with sound effects even before filming and the visuals were filmed to match the audio.

One of the parts that seem to make me feel awkward is the way that the music is seemingly both diegetic and non-diegetic in the film. Diegetic means that the music is natural to the film, the characters will hear the music as well as we the audience. Non-diegetic means that only we the audience will hear it but the characters do not. There is seemingly a hybridity between these 2. At times the volume will make you know it is coming from the headphones of our main character Baby’s iPod. The audio never seemingly makes the obvious leap between the two worlds and just sits in a happy medium. While it is not bad, it allows for this feeling that is absurd for me but allows for the world of the movie have this constant push forward that is exciting.

Every track is seemingly random but also works together in a symphonic way, Wright describes it as putting your iTunes on shuffle and seeing what randomly comes up. I’m a fan of doing this when I have friends over and just to see what contrasts and comparison arise through the magic of the iTunes algorithm makes for many new discoveries of songs that you never knew would work together but totally do. They are all curated to both tell a story for the characters while still being logical that this character would have all of these songs on his iPod. You can see the passion for music as a craft throughout the film and Wright’s passion flows through. It is seemingly the epidemy of all of his work from his early TV show Spaced to the raucous highs of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and the kineticism of Shaun of the Dead. It is both the same and very different from anything he has done before.

It’s a lot of fun and is filled with visual amazing goodness. Technically it is executed so well and while the overall film doesn’t work perfectly there is a magic that is not seen in the films of today. It is worth the price of admission and I would reccommend it for anyone. And dfefiently get the soundtrack to listen on your way home because you will be tapping your foot till tomorrow.