The 2013 movie “Her” – a love story about a man who falls in love with an artificial intelligence – was many things: excellent, moving, acclaimed, prophetic, and quintessentially indie.
Well, considering that it was distributed by Warner Brothers, maybe it wasn’t entirely indie, but it was independently financed, was created by indie god Spike Jonze, and featured a soundtrack co-written by Canadian indie icons Arcade Fire and Owen Pallett.
But perhaps the most indie thing about the movie was the fact that said soundtrack was not released alongside the film in 2013. Fans went wild trying to piece together digital bootlegs of the score from promotional CDs and other sketchy sources, but any uploads were quickly taken down. For a while, the only way to hear the soundtrack was to watch the film.
That is, until it was finally released in 2021 on Milan Records.
It’s a fantastic soundtrack that augments what is already a fantastic film. The music doesn’t sound futuristic, or happy, or sad, or warm, or inhuman, but it somehow manages to be all of those things at once.
A few months after the soundtrack was released, OpenAI released ChatGPT. In the years since, stories of lonely people falling for their AI assistants have become commonplace, and Spike Jonze’s move, along with its haunting soundtrack, is more than worth a re-watch.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The opening moments remind me of a gentle alert sound that a phone might use as an alarm.
2. The continuous one-note electrical hum in the background. Can’t decide if it’s soothing or ominous.
3. The soft shushing cymbals. There’s something industrial-age about it, like pistons on an old steam engine.
Recommended listening activity:
Browsing greeting cards.