Director Steven Soderbergh was watching "American Beauty" -- a movie he said he "loved" -- when something happened on screen that made his blood boil.
The offending scene was Kevin Spacey, as Lester Burnham, celebrating his newfound sense of liberation by blasting the Who's "The Seeker" in his car and singing along. That's the same song and version that introduces Terence Stamp's revenge-seeking ex-con, Wilson, over the opening titles of Soderbergh's "The Limey," released in most areas soon after "American Beauty.""I was as shocked as everyone else on 'The Limey' when I heard that song being used," Soderbergh said. "That's something they should have known. We finished the film in March and screened in Cannes in May. I'm assuming we negotiated for the rights of that song before they did, so either the rights holder didn't say, 'Hey, you know what, we just sold this song to somebody else, too,' or . . . I don't know."
For better or worse, Soderbergh can be assured that viewers of "The Limey" won't be the only ones experiencing aural deja vu. If you feel like you keep hearing the same songs in different movies, you're probably right.
The Guess Who's "American Woman" showed up in "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" and then "American Beauty." The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" played over the violent climax of Spike Lee's "Summer of Sam" before reappearing as the opening-title music of "Outside Providence." Versions of Johnny Mercer's "Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive" played over the opening of "L.A. Confidential," in the middle of "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" and again at the top of "Blast from the Past."
The trend isn't restricted to older songs. Smash Mouth's "All Star" was saturating the airwaves this summer when it got prominent play in "Inspector Gadget" and "Mystery Men," which opened two weeks later. (The song was a Gatorade commercial too.)
Meanwhile, this year's current champion is Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride," which has appeared in five 1999 movies: a remixed version in "Go" plus the original in "Never Been Kissed," "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me," "Outside Providence" and, yes, "The Limey."
Soundtrack music exists to connect with viewers on a different level than the rest of the film, perhaps by amplifying the action, illuminating characters' feelings or evoking a certain mood or time period. If, when a song plays, you associate it with the last movie or commercial in which you heard it, that's a problem.
"It drives me nuts when I hear the same songs over and over," said Peter Afterman, a veteran music supervisor of such films as "Outside Providence," "The Apostle" and "Godzilla." "It drives me nuts when I hear songs used in such a stupid and obvious way."
Why the repetition? The simple answer is that movies generally can't buy exclusive rights to songs.
Tom Eaton, associate director of film and television music for Universal's music-publishing division, explained that while a commercial will license a song for a fixed time -- say a six-month ad run -- film productions acquire song rights for perpetuity so no disputes arise as the movies continue to show in various formats indefinitely.
"The rights aren't exclusive unless something's written or recorded for the movie exclusively," said Alex Steyermark, a music supervisor who has worked on all of Spike Lee's films.
Licensing a song actually involves two transactions: paying the publisher for the song and paying the record company for the recording. No one wanted to quote fees, but industry representatives said a movie typically pays between $10,000 and $50,000 each to the publisher and label, perhaps much more if the movie has a big budget or the song has a high profile. (Ads tend to pay more to license songs, and TV shows usually pay less.)
The publishers, label and artists have no particular incentive to volunteer to song suitors that others are interested in the same music. So "American Beauty" music supervisor Chris Douridas said he didn't realize "The Seeker" already was appearing in "The Limey."
"I was very surprised and a little disappointed," he said. "What's annoying is that the publishers and the people you contact to clear these tunes don't let you know. Sometimes you even ask the question, and you get misinformation."
Eaton and Tom Rowland, who heads the special markets division of Universal's record labels (which include the Who's MCA), said they provide the relevant information on request.
"It's really not that big a concern to us since we're not granting exclusive rights," Rowland said. "We want our songs to be heard by as many people as possible. I think if I were a music supervisor, I might pay more attention to what other film people are doing."
Robert Rosenberg, the London-based director of the Who's management company, said repetition isn't an issue for the band either. "Each movie is different, and the music may suit one movie and then suit a totally different scene in
another movie," he said. "We look at them all quite carefully. We don't just say yes to everything."
The Who used to just say no to everything until a few years ago, when, Rosenberg said, the band's radio presence was diminishing, and no tours or albums were planned. They decided that placing songs in films and ads could attract new listeners.
"We thought it would be a great way of getting the music out to people and getting people to ask, 'What's that music?' " Rosenberg said.
People have had plenty of opportunity to do just that. "Won't Get Fooled Again" is also the theme of Nissan Maxima ads, and "Baba O'Riley" was played in "Summer of Sam" and the trailers for "A Bug's Life" and "American Beauty." (Trailers and ads usually are created by outside divisions that often use music that doesn't appear in the film.)
"Rushmore" and the "Austin Powers" sequel featured "A Quick One While He's Away" and "My Generation," respectively, and "Bellboy" is in Martin Scorsese's new "Bringing out the Dead," which opens Friday. Then there are the dueling computer ads, Dell with "Magic Bus" versus Gateway with "Who Are You." Ford used "Can't Explain" for a Taurus campaign.
Steyermark noted that when "Summer of Sam" licensed and worked "Won't Get Fooled Again" and "Baba O'Riley" into the script, neither song had appeared elsewhere. "While we were working on 'Summer of Sam,' suddenly there were two Who songs (in ads), one on a Dell commercial and one in a Gateway commercial, and you wonder what are people's associations going to be when they hear those songs," he said. "Are they going to be the same as if they hadn't been exposed to them that way? But I still think if it works dramatically, people will be all right with it."
Still, he added, "if you see that somebody else has been using a song in a movie, you tend to shy away from it."
Afterman agreed, though he placed "Won't Get Fooled Again" in "Outside Providence" despite knowing it was in "Summer of Sam."
"It would have made a difference if I heard it was going to be in 'The Runaway Bride,' " Afterman said. " 'Summer of Sam' didn't seem like was going to be a big commercial movie."
Then again, "Outside Providence" also featured "Magic Carpet Ride."
"I didn't know it was going to be in 'Austin Powers,' but I always thought that song had been overexposed," Afterman said.