Monday Musings: Are Movies Still Important for Billboard Hits?

So, today's Monday Musing, we'll deal with a topic that I'm not as well-rounded for talking about, but that is no doubt connected to music: The movies.

Yes, remember this little gem? Well, you should. Because it's still here, in our collective minds. I recently had the pleasure of actually watching Frozen recently, and it is truly an instant classic. Go out and watch it if you haven't already. It's fantastic. But that's not the important aspect for the purposes of this blog. I want to talk about how the soundtrack has topped the Billboard album chart for twelve weeks. You know, I thought that YouTube videos were the new movies in terms of a visual medium dictating Billboard chart trends, but this has me thinking: Are movies still important?

Well, yes. Movies are still important. No matter if people are viewing them on Netflix or in the theater, movies are still a huge part of people's lives, and the focus of a lot of critiquing. But are they still as important to Billboard hits as they used to be? That's where I come in, and I'll see if the trends ring in favour or out of favour of the silver screen.

One thing I can look at to determine whether movies still have a glaring presence on the charts today is Billboard's recent list of the Top 50 Movie Songs of All Time, ranking the hits based on how big of a hit they were. Looking at the Top 10 of this list, we can determine that movies stopped being important to Billboard hits about 20-some years ago. Looking back a little, however, we start to see hits from the 21st century, such as "Lose Yourself" and "Independent Women". Honestly though, the most recent entry to make the list was 2006's "Check on It", used during the closing credits of The Pink Panther. And it only sits at number 50. So it could be argued that no, movies don't have nearly the same effect on Billboard hits as they used to.

But then you look at a movie like Frozen, and its effect on Billboard. Not only has the soundtrack album refused to budge from the top spot on the album chart for quite some time now, but "Let it Go" has become and honest-to-goodness Billboard Hot 100 Hit, still refusing to drop out of the Top 10. Even other songs from the album have charted, despite not really becoming hits. So it's not really fair to say that movies have dropped out of the Billboard consciousness completely. But is Frozen just an anomaly in a long-dead Billboard factor? Have there been other movie hits recently?

Well, there's been a few. Remember this?

Of course if you're a Twi-hard, you will. That's Bruno Mars' "It Will Rain", a song featured on whatever Twilight movie was popular at the time I really don't care. It was a pretty big deal in early 2012, peaking at #3 on the Hot 100 and making the year-end list at #26. There was also this,

which was the lead single off of Step Up 3's soundtrack album. So, the hits are still there. They're just not quite as prominent.

So, to answer the question, "Are movies still important for Billboard hits?", I'm gonna go ahead and say that they're not really that important, and that YouTube is more important right now. Yes, there are still hits, but I think Frozen is a complete fluke (or, its grossing of a billion-plus dollars at the box office may have something to do with it) and we won't see a movie make this much difference in the Billboard charts anytime soon.