The Needle Drops Are the Best Part of ‘Umbrella Academy’

Netflix’s Umbrella Academy has a lot going for it. Killer ensemble cast of moody characters? Check. An appearance from a nearly unrecognizable Kate Walsh? Double check. A talking chimpanzee in a classy suit? You bet! So many X-Men vibes it’ll get the cartoon theme stuck in your head? Of course. As rad as all of those things are, there’s one aspect of Umbrella Academy that kept me invested all season long: the needle drops. Every time Umbrella Academy drops the needle on a hit song–sometimes literally, BTW–I get hyped.

Needle drops aren’t anything revolutionary, especially not on Netflix and especially especially not in the superhero genre. On the Netflix front, we just got Russian Doll, a show that used super smart song choices to clue you in to deeper character motivations. Modern superhero movies love curating a soundtrack. That’s a major chunk of the appeal of James Gunn’s two Guardians of the Galaxy films, the way they’re partly a mixtape from director to viewer. And then there’s Suicide Squad, which crammed in everything from The White Stripes to Creedence Clearwater Revival in an attempt to make us feel something, anything, everything. Umbrella Academy isn’t doing anything revolutionary with its song choices, it’s just doing it really well. And unlike Suicide Squad, which had about as much artistic intent as a Now That’s What I Call Music! compilation, it’s also absolutely essential.

Umbrella Academy’s soundtrack does a whole lot of the heavy-lifting when it comes to the show’s tone. For one thing, music is in Umbrella Academy’s DNA. The source material is a comic written by My Chemical Romance mastermind Gerard Way. You just know that if comics could produce sound, Way probably would have synced up a playlist to every one of artist Gabriel Ba’s panels. Television is able to do that, and that’s why every needle drop makes the show feel unmistakably more like itself.

Without the music cues, what is Umbrella Academy? It’s still weird, what with the time-hopping super-antics and  talking chimp and Donna Reed android. But without the sounds of The Kinks, Fitz and the Tantrums, Tiffany, and They Might Be Giants ringing out in that first episode, the show would feel like a morose cross between Marvel’s The Defenders and The Haunting of Hill House. Those music cues, which start right at the top of the first episode, let you know you’re in for something dramatically different–something that wants to remind you that “I Think We’re Alone Now” remains a banger.

Let’s get into the four major music cues from Episode 1, “We Only See Each Other at Weddings and Funerals.” The first one in the first episode is “Picture Book” by The Kinks,

Even if you don’t know the original context of the song, a track from the band’s masterwork The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, you get the right vibe. The album is about the allure of nostalgia, the deceptiveness of memory, and the claustrophobia of growing up in a tight-knit community, all themes that are hella relevant to the show. “Picture Book” is the most upbeat and optimistic of all the songs, and it’s usage right up top is a great way to establish the team’s origin; everything was gonna be all right back in 1989 when Sir Reginald Hargreeves scooped up those seven miracle babies, back before the years of violence, death, and estrangement. “Picture Book” kicks off the show on a positive note, but one that has painful pangs of nostalgia.

Then there’s the flashback fight scene of the academy teens in action at a hostage situation, a scene fittingly scored to the soulful power pop of Fitz and the Tantrums’ “The Walker.”

The song’s a gem of a ditty, one that’s definitely gotten stuck in your head if you’ve watched trailers or commercials over the last five years. It’s cool and it’s got a swagger to it, and–appropriate considering the age of our heroes in this scene–the whistle adds a youthful energy. It’s the kinda jam you hear in ads for fun family movies; this time around, though, that whistle scores a surprisingly grisly fight scene that ends with young Ben covered in blood.

Then we get the best scene of the entire first episode, and possibly the entire series (if you’re as big a fan of needle drops as I am, I guess): that Tiffany scene.

I dare you to think of a song that better captures teenage angst and the blood rush of adolescent emotion. It’s a perfect song for a bunch of jaded and broken 29-year-olds to wistfully, sometimes mournfully jam out to. Their father figure is dead, their lives are estranged, but all of the Umbrella kids are unknowingly united by the power of Tiffany–a song that you just know they all had dance parties to back before all the mayhem. The scene is goofy and it’s almost cringingly sincere, but that’s what makes it so great; every single character bares their souls to the viewer through dance.

The episode closes out with a frenetic fight set to They Might Be Giants’ “Istanbul (Not Constantinople).”

Along with the Tiffany choice, this one really solidifies what this show is and why it’s different from all the others. This isn’t a hard-hitting rock song, the kinda thing you’d expect to hear during a bloody brawl. It is, however, totally in line with Number Five’s attitude. TMBG are an avant-garde nerd band, tongues planted in cheek while fingers rock the accordion. They’re the kinda band teens love because they’re so weird, so smart, and so irreverent. They’re the exact band that a smart and snarky know-it-all like Number Five would love, and that’s why they score his shining scene of badassery.

The hits keep coming in later episodes, most notably a shoot-out set to Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” and a post-apocalyptic montage powered by the beat of Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds’ “In the Heat of the Moment.” Each choice is offbeat, maybe a little incongruous, but that’s what makes it work. It’s what sets Umbrella Academy apart from not only every other Netflix show, but even other superhero movies with platinum soundtracks. It’s the main reason I dig this show… and now I need to go watch that Tiffany montage one more time.

Stream Umbrella Academy on Netflix