Fans of Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn can now enjoy a particular aspect of his creative mind by listening to his top 100 favorite songs of the year.
Gunn shared a playlist of the tracks in a tweet.
“Although 2021 had its share of difficulties, it was a great year for music!” Gunn wrote. “I had a hard time whittling down to My 100 Favorite Songs of 2021; listen now on #Spotify!”
You can view the post for yourself below.
Check out the entire playlist below, for yourself, including songs from They Might Be Giants, Remi Wolf, Bleachers, Japanese Breakfast, and many more.
Gunn is quite known for weaving in hand-picked tunes to match the tone of a particular moment in his movies. This is famously carried out in his Guardians films in a diegetic manner, with Chris Pratt’s Peter Quill, AKA Star-Lord, frequently blasting a beloved mixed cassette tape of ’70s hits given to him by his mother before she passed away.
The success of that film, and its slew of classic pop hits of the past peppering the soundtrack, became influential to comic book movies thereafter, with many speculating DC tried to emulate that same style by cramming a number of tunes into 2016’s Suicide Squad, although to a less successful result. A seemingly shoe-horned placement of The White Stripe’s Seven Nation Army blasts in one of the film’s opening montages, for instance.
When Gunn eventually helmed the DC film’s sequel, this year’s The Suicide Squad, he demonstrated effortlessly how to pull off the effect, introducing Pixies’ “Hey” into the film, once again in a diegetic manner, when the song is playing in a van in the film. The track then ramps up, making for an excellent soundtrack to a fantastic action scene that subsequently unfolds.
It isn’t surprising James Gunn involves music so much in his movies, considering before he got into filmmaking, he was a founding member and lead singer of the now-defunct band, The Icons.