Stranger Things 3: The music makes the trailer
Music is a big part of the success and lure of Stranger Things.
One of my favorite moments from the second season of Stranger Things was the moment Eleven steps into the big city soundtracked to Bon Jovi's "Runaway". It seemed like the most appropriate song for the sequence, adorned with the big city lights, the music accompaniment hit with the right kind of hair metal flair that was just fitting for the moment. It was just a small part of the season but one that I found to be one of its most memorable come season's end. Maybe it's just me- I found the same when I was watching Bumblebee (maybe it's Bon Jovi's "Runaway"?). In truth, music is a big part of the success and lure of Stranger Things.
The decade of excess was home to big hair, synthesizers, glam and hair metal's stadium allure- some would say the craziest big music has ever been. And so when they released the new Stranger Things 3 trailer, it was once again the music that got me. I love the show for the show, but its always the music that puts it into the strata of aural (and visual) greatness.
While Motley Crue's balladeering in "Home Sweet Home" is a bold way to go, it is the edited vocal isolating of The Who's "Baba O'Riley" that cuts to the very core of the Stranger Things mantra; colours, music, gloom. It is important to the trailer as the series' footage and story itself. It paints the canvas in which the footage unfolds on, and coats the surface with another level of gravitas that Pete Townsend and Roger Daltrey bring.
It's brilliant, and it has been the winning combination that keeps me coming back to Stranger Things. Sure, there are many others who can dissect the meaning of the trailer for you as it comes to the characters. Whether or not Steve will survive the season, what happens to Dustin, do Joyce and Hopper make it through, what about Eleven... all the usual stuff. But for me, it's the music.
The neon, the monsters, the Who; it made the trailer.
Just incase you need to watch it again: