# Music for supervillainy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 4, 2004, 7:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-for-supervillainy/222612 "2004-01-04T07:12:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2004, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-for-supervillainy/222612/61 "2004-01-14T16:06:17Z")
I’d try subverting the usual expectations a bit. Arvo Part: **Tabula Rasa** LP. Religious-sounding music, but solemn and melancholy, not the histrionics and ecstasies associated with certain canonical baroque works. Good for covering montage sequences of Eurotrash villains in designerwear and their computer-hacker underlings. instrumental taiko drumming: might be good for transitional scenes featuring the characters preparing for or positioning themselves before the final action-packed climax. I.e., the Armani-suited bad guys get in their Lear jet; the good guys crack the code and scramble to cover the target, etc. Balinese music: oh, it’s not just for heroin-production cover shots anymore! Try this for the background in an evil-seductress-in-bed scene, especially if she ends up killing the good-guy patsy she’s with. Yowza! Brian Eno: what could offer a greater contrast in dramatic irony than to juxtapose pure evil with misleadingly nonthreatening, placid appearances than Eno’s tranquil, limpid **Tuesday Afternoon** (previously used in “9 1/2 Weeks”)? Or, suggest a villain’s derangement by tapping Eno & Fripp’s **No Pussyfooting** LP (esp. “Swastika Girls”). Or, if the evil plot unfolds in an airport, use **Music for Airports** … 😃 postmodern boy/girl pop acts: whether you appropriate the Japanese girl-group Shonen Knife, the Western pastiche kitsch of the Japanese duo Pizzicato Five, or feel more comfortable with the pop-culture allusions of the Scottish teen trio Bis, there’s a big wide world of playful, unthreatening, globalist, commericiality-embracing sonic sugar highs for your ironic exploitation. ---
**Author:** ![PookahMacPhellimey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pookahmacphellimey/32/3175_2.png) [@PookahMacPhellimey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PookahMacPhellimey)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2004, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-for-supervillainy/222612/62 "2004-01-15T15:20:28Z")
Pink Floyd was mentioned a few times already. Whilst I most definetely second “Careful with that Axe, Eugene” the one that gave the creeps as a kid was “One of these days” from the album “Meddle”. This always conjured up marching armies and all round menace and that was even before I could understand the punchline in English when a scary voice roars “one of these days I’m going to chop you into little bits.” Eek. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2004, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-for-supervillainy/222612/63 "2004-01-15T15:35:40Z")
I’ll have to second Night on Bald Mountain Carmina Burana Mars from the Planets and Pink Floyd’s “One of the Days” (I was planning to FIRST it). But you’ve all missed a gem. For the scenes where the villain’s sinisiter plan is unfolding and the heroes/victims go on their way all unknowing, Isao Tomita’s electronic rendition of Mussorgsky’s Firebirds. Absolutely as creepy as music gets. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-for-supervillainy/222612.md?page=3)