Air's "Playground Love" Crystallizes Film Themes and Shapes Artistic Identity

Key Quotes

"The idea was to do very dark music especially because we were coming after Moon Safari which was a very light kind of easy listening album and we wanted to show the dark side of us and also it was a good way to avoid the second album syndrome because you can have a lot of pressure but if you decide that the second album is a soundtrack it's a totally different context."

Nicolas from Air explains that the band aimed for a darker sound for The Virgin Suicides score, contrasting with their previous album Moon Safari. This approach also served as a strategic way to navigate the pressure of creating a follow-up album by framing it as a soundtrack.

"The story of the song Playground Love begins over 25 years ago with Sofia Coppola starting her work on The Virgin Suicides."

Sofia Coppola introduces the origin of the song "Playground Love," linking its inception directly to her early work on the film The Virgin Suicides. This highlights how the film's development provided the initial impetus for the song's creation.

"I suggested a song arrangement with a vocal of the main theme but I think it was hard for them at first they had already delivered the score I was back in LA they thought they were done you know plus we wanted vocals at the time we didn't sing on the albums but I think we tried to describe this uh magic moment of having like uh two young people uh falling in love first of all you do um some yogurts you know you you we call it yogurts it means that you you try to sing something but it doesn't make any sense and the sounds are falling naturally and they transform into words so like anytime or anywhere this kind of thing it has to sound good when you sing it through the vocoder anytime you want anywhere you want anytime anywhere everything you'd say."

Sofia Coppola describes her suggestion for a vocal arrangement of the main theme for the end credits song. She explains the initial difficulty in convincing Air, who had already completed the score, and details their process of improvising vocalizations, which they termed "yogurts," to find natural-sounding words.

"Thomas appears on the song under the name Gordon Tracks. So for this episode, I spoke to all of them: Nicolas and JB from Air; Sofia Coppola; Thomas Mars; as well as Brian Reitzell, the music supervisor on the film."

The episode description clarifies that Thomas Mars, of the band Phoenix, provided vocals for "Playground Love" under the pseudonym Gordon Tracks. It also lists the key individuals interviewed for the episode, including members of Air, Sofia Coppola, Thomas Mars, and the film's music supervisor.

"I always thought that was so important because it's kind of like your big finish it's the end it's the feeling that you the audience leaves with and um it's sort punctuational so I always feel like it's really important I think having an original end credit song is just a classic way to tie everything together to have the music crystallize into one complete piece."

Thomas Mars emphasizes the significance of an end credit song in a film, viewing it as a crucial element that defines the audience's final impression. He likens it to a "big finish" that crystallizes the film's music into a cohesive whole.

"He said that he's always like putting everything in the trash and this is a beautiful way to make music just to delete and to destroy constantly what you do and at the end there will be like something surviving and it's going to be good."

Nicolas from Air references an interview with Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk, who described his creative process as constantly discarding and destroying work. Nicolas finds this approach to be a beautiful method for music creation, believing that only the best elements will ultimately survive.