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Dissecting the droning 'Inception' bass note and the modern movie trailer

Dissecting the droning 'Inception' bass note and the modern movie trailer

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inception (official)
inception (official)

You know the sound. The booming duuhhnnn from 2010’s Inception has found its way into practically every action movie trailer of the past two years, but what is its place in the broader continuum of trailer tropes? Writing for The New Yorker, Ian Crouch traces back the droning note’s origins, pinning it to musician Mike Zarin, before exploring its role in modern cinema. Crouch writes that today's popcorn movies, with their "pretensions to deep-thinking" and "geopolitical conflicts that attempt to mirror the fragmented realities of the War on Terror world" require a more sombre trailer treatment than the "slick, soulless marketing and high-frequency synthesizers" of the 80s and 90s.