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The music in the Suicide Squad trailers — can we talk about it?

The music in the Suicide Squad trailers — can we talk about it?

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There have been three trailers for the upcoming film Suicide Squad. Over the course of these brief excerpts of the film, we have been introduced to many things: the best line of dialogue ever uttered on screen; The Joker as a scrawny, drugged-out, '90s Tarantino villain; and a new world record for the most times anyone has said "bad guys" in a 80-second period. Also, some interesting music choices!

There will be time to discuss Jared Leto (probably forever, until we die), but I think we should discuss the songs right now.

The Comic Con teaser featured a moody cover of the 1968 Bee Gee's song "I Started a Joke." Well, okay. Such is the grab bag of life. As for it's inclusion in the trailer, I would hazard a guess that it has something to do with the thematic resonance of this completely insane story that Robin Gibbs tells about the song's inception.

The melody to this one was heard aboard a British Airways Vickers Viscount about a hundred miles from Essen. It was one of those old four engine "prop" jobs, that seemed to drone the passenger into a sort of hypnotic trance, only with this it was different. The droning, after a while, appeared to take the form of a tune, which mysteriously sounded like a church choir. So it was decided! We accosted the pilot, forced him to land in the nearest village and there; in a small pub, we finished the lyrics [with Barry]. Actually, it wasn't a village, it was the city, and it wasn't a pub, it was a hotel, and we didn't force the pilot to land in a field... but why ruin a perfectly good story?

Accosting pilots and lying about it! Sounds like some kind of suicide squad, if you ask me.

The second trailer was soundtracked by an interesting, diced up version of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," which is possibly the most famous rock song in the history of the world, and yet prompted Bustle to write an article called "What's the Song in the New 'Suicide Squad' Trailer? This Epic Rock Tune Has Been Everywhere." I actually respect this choice. It was my go-to in the American Idol PlayStation 3 game because it was very demanding, very long, and extremely manic. It is a great way to get everyone to leave so you can have the game to yourself. It makes sense for this trailer, because it fits perfectly with the feeling that this movie might be something you want to avoid. It also screams "Weird movie! Weird characters! Scary-ish?" pretty loudly, which has become DC Comics' quite transparent plan for differentiating its movie universe from Marvel's.

it really is some kind of suicide squad, i think

The most recent trailer for Suicide Squad has raised the stakes by including two different classic songs. They are interesting choices, both. The first is a cover of Lesley Gore's 1963 feminist anthem "You Don't Own Me," which she first performed when she was 17 years old. This cover (sung by Australian singer Grace and featuring G-Eazy) is now the top search result for "You Don't Own Me." Interesting. I wish Lesley Gore were alive so someone could play this trailer for her and she could croak "What is this... some kind of... suicide squad?" and crack everyone up. Of course she would not have watched the first two trailers, because she's Lesley Gore.

The second is Sweet's "The Ballroom Blitz," which is best known for being sampled in a very aggressive Beastie Boys song, as well as soundtracking a pivotal scene of Daddy Day Care. This, perhaps, can give us some clues as to the tone and content of the Suicide Squad film itself. Do you think Suicide Squad will be more like the chaos of a Beastie Boys music video, or the chaos of a family-friendly Eddie Murphy comedy? Man, I hope it's both.

The music being used to promote Suicide Squad has been a grab bag at best, but the observant will be able to find a pattern anywhere. Based on the samplings we have been provided, here is my projected track listing for the motion picture soundtrack to Suicide Squad:

1. Grey's Anatomy musical episode cast cover of Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars"

2. No Doubt's "Just a Girl"

3. Pete Seeger's "If I Had a Hammer"

4. One Direction's cover of Wheatus' "Teenage Dirtbag"

5. "Free Bird"

6. [bullet noises]

7. Ed Sheeran's cover of "Trap Queen"

Really can not bring myself to embed this.

8. [Batmobile crashing noises]

9. Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence"

10. [Batman growling noises]

11. [The Joker growling noises]

12. Jimmy Eat World's cover of "We are Never Ever Getting Back Together"

13. Whatever in the hell this is (some kind of suicide squad?):