Imagine immersing yourself in a 1940’s biopic and the main character listens to K-pop all throughout the movie - sounds ridiculous right? Period pieces rely heavily on the soundtrack for immersion. The sounds of a movie set the auditory backdrop and allow you to fully engross yourself in the time period. With that being said, when the music starkly clashes with the time period, I find my attention fully focused on the character and their actions.

These three songs break from the traditional music for their movie/TV-show. “Bitch Better Have My Money” plays in Lovecraft Country, a magical horror show set in the 1950’s. The song plays when Christina Braithwight drives a time period appropriate car through a segregated area of Chicago where people mostly listen to mostly 50’s jazz. The music doesn’t make any sense thematically, but it serves to highlight Christina’s intention of collecting on the debt she put on Letitia. She’s got a meticulously thought out grand plan to achieve immortality - she probably thinks she’s “ballin’ bigger than LeBron.”

“No Church In The Wild” plays in the 2013 The Great Gatsby when Nick Carroway describes the hysteria in New York during the summer of 1922.

Tears on the mausoleum floor

Blood stains the Coliseum doors

Lies on the lips of a priest

Rollin’ in the Rolls-Royce Corniche

Its an apt backdrop as Carroway describes the opulence and hedonism that swept the town during the time period.

“100 Black Coffins” plays in Django Unchained right after Django is antagonized by Billy Crash. They lyrics play against a backdrop of slaveowners leading chained slaves through a field:

I need a hundred black coffins for a hundred bad men

A hundred black graves so I can lay they ass in

The song aptly foreshadows the eventual massacre that Django lays down on the bad men on screen.