Trailer Tunes: Jobs & Macklemore & the Who

At the intersection of movie trailers and music, what do Macklemore and Ryan Lewiss Cant Hold Us and The Whos Baba ORiley tell us about the Steve Jobs biopic?

Theres always so much to unpack about a movie trailer: the stars, the plot, how much of the plot is being totally given away. But in many cases, the part of the trailer that sticks with you the longest is the music. Be it a pop song or a piece or orchestral score, its the music that most often makes a trailer.

This Weeks Trailer: Jobs, which places Ashton Kutcher in the shoes of legendary tech billionaire and Apple founder Steve Jobs. After a more elliptical teaser, this trailer presents the Jobs narrative the film is running with, which appears to feaure a good bit of Jobs surpassing stuffed shirts who told him no.

This Weeks Tune(s): "Cant Hold Us," the propulsive hip-hop dance track from Macklemore and Ryan Lewis; and "Baba ORiley," the epic youth anthem from The Who.

Cant Hold Us" has quickly become the Trailer Song of Summer, having been featured in ads for everything from ESPN to R.I.P.D., to, most prominently (and ironically, in this case) Microsoft.

How Literal Is It? "Cant Hold Us" speaks of boundaries broken and an unstoppable force of genuine awesomeness that cannot possibly hope to be contained. The kind of awesomeness that leads to iPods. The part of "Baba ORiley" we get for the trailer is obviously the "teenage wasteland" part, which comes only seconds after the part in the trailer where Steve Wozniak reminds Jobs that hes a teenage wunderkind. So, yeah, pretty literal.

How Emotional Is It? From the looks of it, Jobs is an energetic look at a dynamic young American whiz kid who revolutionized -- to get unavoidably hyperbolic -- the way we all live our lives. To sell it, theyve chosen a pair of songs that, some 40+ years apart, present bursts of energy that give the impression of unstoppable, fist-pumping youth.

How Definitive Is It? Yeah, heres where Jobs maybe trips up. "Cant Hold Us" has quickly become the Trailer Song of Summer, having been featured in ads for everything from ESPN to R.I.P.D., to, most prominently (and ironically, in this case) Microsoft. If theres any song that Macklemores commercial ubiquity brings to mind, its "Baba ORiley," which is the Trailer Song of All Time. And apparently one thats on a comeback tour.

Overall Trailer Tune Effectiveness: Depends on who youre selling to. I cant imagine the combination of Macklemore and The Who are going to make much a dent among film snobs who crave novelty and risk-taking, but if youre trying to sell Jobs to, say, my dad? Or young people who might need a better reason to pay attention to a movie about a computer nerd played by a guy who hasnt had a hit in a really long time? Thats when The Who and Macklemore start to look like a dream team.

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