Scorsese's Obsession With Music To Accent Every Frickin Scene

He definitely has a hard on for the Rolling Stones.

Although a few of his earlier films used rock songs in certain scenes to add to the atmosphere, It really started with Goodfellas where the soundtrack became like another character in the film. The only songs that really irks me arethe overuse of "Shipping Up to Boston" as well as "Gimme Shelter" (there's that moment where Sullivan is talking to Madolyn at the kitchen counter, and there's this weird reversed version of Gimme Sheltwr that plays over their conversation; really distracting once you notice it).

But other scenes work pretty well with the music, like "Nobody But Me" when Costigan beats up the Italians, "Let it Loose" when he's interrogated by Costello, and "Comfortably Numb" during the love scene.

~ I'm a 21st century man and I don't wanna be here.

I sort of like the way that he uses music to set the mood and tempo of a scene. I'm also amazed to hear some tunes that I would not expect to hear.

He must like Sweet Dreams because it's used in bot The Departed and Casino.

Another piece of music that might have been used a tribute to a 1930s film in the same genre. The Howard Hughes film Scarface featured the Lucia Sextet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPlSJ0IKbPM and it is also used in The Departed. Of course it could also have been a tribute to The Three Stooges who sang their version of it to the fair Elaine.

I felt like the music/score really boosted some of the scenes, and the emotions (particularly Billy's) that were being conveyed. One that sticks out for me was the "Two pills" scene. However, near the end of the movie, I thought it was a bit much with the opera music in every second/third scene. It didn't really fit.