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3. Le Tigre: “What’s Yr Take on Cassavetes?”
The members of the feminist electro-pop trio Le Tigre stage a spirited debate about the pioneering independent filmmaker John Cassavetes on this infectiously sing-songy cut from their 1999 self-titled debut. In response to the title’s question, they toss out a number of possible verdicts — “Misogynist! Genius! Alcoholic! Messiah!” — without ever settling on one, perhaps suggesting that all of the above can be true.
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4. Fugazi: “Cassavetes”
Here’s another take on Cassavetes, from the legendary D.C. punk band Fugazi. (The devoutly independent Fugazi clearly felt a kinship with Cassavetes, a maverick auteur who made self-funded films on the margins of the Hollywood system.) The guitarist Guy Picciotto handles the lead vocals on this track from the 1993 album “In on the Kill Taker,” hollering his poetic admiration and having some fun with the pronunciation of the name of Cassavetes’s wife and collaborator: “Gena Rrrowlands!”
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5. Stereolab: “Brakhage”
This opening track on Stereolab’s 1997 album “Dots and Loops” is named for the experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage, whose unconventional and often abstract works sought to shake up viewers’ perceptions. Brakhage’s ideals stand in ironic contrast to the placid world of numb consumerism that the singer Laetitia Sadier surveys here — “we need so damn many things to keep our dazed lives going” — though the song’s intricately layered instrumentation echoes the textures of Brakhage’s hand-painted frames.
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6. Sparks: “Tsui Hark”
As Charli XCX would decades later, the droll L.A. art-rockers Sparks feature the voice of a noted filmmaker on this track, from the exquisitely named 1994 LP “Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins.” The Hong Kong director Tsui Hark introduces himself and discusses his career in the most straightforward terms possible — “I’m Tsui Hark, I’m a film director / I’ve made several films” — to the accompaniment of a simple, mesmerizing keyboard riff and a pulsating techno beat.
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7. CMAT: “Peter Bogdanovich”
The Irish pop singer-songwriter CMAT (Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson) transports us to the fraught set of Peter Bogdanovich’s great 1971 movie, “The Last Picture Show,” on this lush and dreamy 2022 single. The song seems to be sung from the perspective of the film’s young star, Cybill Shepherd, with whom Bogdanovich had an affair that would result in the end of his marriage to the film’s production designer, Polly Platt. CMAT further delves into the power dynamics of this love triangle in the music video, in which she plays Bogdanovich. (She has said she wrote the song after listening to a podcast about the making of the movie; I’d bet anything it was Karina Longworth’s excellent “You Must Remember This,” which devoted an entire season to Platt’s story.)
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8. The Magnetic Fields: “Busby Berkeley Dreams”
Stephin Merritt honors the elegance, glamour and geometrically ambitious choreography of the Golden Age Hollywood director Busby Berkeley by writing a ballad so achingly beautiful it could have been sung and danced to in one of Berkeley’s films. When I say it’s one of my favorite tracks on the Magnetic Fields’ 1999 triple LP “69 Love Songs,” I mean it: It made the cut of the hotly debated Amplifier playlist I made a few years ago featuring my 11 favorite songs from that wonderfully sprawling album.
