“Yellow Jacket” is a strong nostalgia for the music of the 90s, let’s listen to it

CNN
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Among Showtime’s many dark gifts is the creepy hit series “Wasp” The best part of this season for us is definitely the music.

This performance was hosted by The teenage football players trapped in the 1990s The Canadian wilderness after a plane crash, and the survivors’ present-day adult selves—are full of nostalgia and infused with cherished tunes from the late aughts, including Tori Amos, early Smashing Pumpkins, Massive Attack, Veruca Salt, and more.

On Sunday’s episode of Yellow Jacket, the queen of alternative rock Alanis Morissette A version of the show’s theme song “No Return” will be released for the first time, and has already been released as a single.

One of the most unexpected and successful uses of retro music came in the season two premiere, which aired last month, when Warren Cole’s character Jeff, enjoying some alone time in his car after a brief tryst with his wife, Shawna (Melanie Lynskey), belts out Papa Roach’s “Last Redemption” (granted, the song was actually released in 2000, but that doesn’t detract from its retro vibe).

In an interview with CNN, the show’s music director, Nora Felder, explained that the Papa Cockroach song selections were programmed to be “a perfect physical outlet for Warren, who was sitting alone in his garage with his anxiety running high.”

However, the script’s other standout moments needed her interpretation, and Fielder welcomed the opportunity to match them with the right songs for the period.

“When I start making a playlist for the show, I re-immerse myself in the era and zeitgeist of the show,” she said. “The main thing I try to remember is to stay true to the story and let it tell me what it needs musically.”

Take, for example, the placement of Amos’ iconic track “Cornflake Girl,” from her groundbreaking 1994 second album, “Under the Pink,” in the same episode.

The song’s lyrics aptly state that “things are getting grosser and grosser,” and just as teen Shawna (Sophie Nélisse) is about to swallow something unthinkable, Fielder “quickly thinks of a possibility.”

“I felt like Amos’ lyrics served as a fitting launching pad for the end of the first episode — reflecting not only the mental state of young Shauna,” she noted, “but also the emotions and mindsets of other ‘Wasp’ characters, past and present, in season two.”

Field’s job is challenging because there is usually a list of ideal song choices at some point in each script, but that list can be affected by a variety of factors, including the actors’ performances, either for technical reasons or because the needs of the scene change during production.

“Everyone on the team wanted to choose the best songs possible to enhance the story,” she said. “When we got into post-production, one of the questions we always asked during the collaboration process was, ‘Do we think we can beat it?’”

Of the collaborative process, Fielder said she “doesn’t believe there’s an exact road map for integrating a song with any given scene or story.”

“I always say, ‘Let the picture tell you what it needs to.’ (Kind of like wilderness, I guess?)”

Another moment that felt perfectly integrated with the music was The now infamous “Last Supper” scene The second episode from last week was set to the Radiohead song “Climbing By The Walls”, from their powerful 1995 album “OK Computer”.

“The song seems to refer to these unspeakable monsters that live in people’s heads,” Felder noted, referring to the strange collective hallucination the group experiences when they eat one of their own. “I can’t think of a more perfect way to memorably highlight (that) scene, which is ‘The Feast.'”

To illustrate how important music is to the specific atmosphere of The Wasp, just look at this super creepy Season 2 trailer During the show, Florence + The Machine gave a brilliant and memorable rendition of No Doubt’s 1995 hit “Just a girl.”

“I am a huge fan of Yellow Jacket and the music of this era, and this song had a huge impact on me growing up, so I was thrilled to be asked to interpret it in a ‘deeply disturbing’ way for the show,” frontman Florence Welch said in a statement shared with CNN.

“We tried to put some horror elements into this iconic song to fit the tone of the show. As someone who originally loved pop-punk and the music of Gwen Stefani, this was a dream job.”

Speaking of working with The Wasp, Morissette also drew inspiration from the show.

“I see ‘The Wasp’ as having similarities to the perspective I use to write songs: pure passion, hitting home, and being fearlessly unflinching,” Morissette said in a statement. “I’ve spent my entire career championing the empowerment of women and sensibilities, and seeing the world through a female lens, and what’s so great about this show is that each character can be full of life and complexity, rather than simplistic, reductive versions of women. I’m honored to be a part of the Wasp legacy.”