Music
The movie features original music by Tom Hanks, Adam Schlesinger, Rick Elias, Scott Rogness, Mike Piccirillo, Gary Goetzman and Howard Shore. In the movie, The Wonders rise to brief stardom on the strength of "That Thing You Do", a song written as a wistful ballad but which becomes an uptempo rocker during the band's first performance at a talent show. Written and composed for the film by Adam Schlesinger, bassist for Fountains of Wayne and Ivy, and released on the film's soundtrack, the song became a genuine hit for The Wonders in 1996 (the song peaked at #41 on the Billboard Hot 100, #22 on the Adult Contemporary charts, #18 on the Adult Top 40, and #24 on the Top 40 Mainstream charts). The track was nominated for a 1996 Golden Globe Award as well as a 1996 Academy Award for Best Original Song. Mike Viola of The Candy Butchers provided the distinctive lead vocals for the Wonders.
In the film, the title song is referenced with "All My Only Dreams" as the B-side. The actual 45 RPM single, released to record stores in North America, features "Dance With Me Tonight" as its B-side. The song has since been recorded by The Knack and Bubblegum Lemonade.
The soundtrack album (released under the Play-Tone name in conjunction with Epic Records) was also a hit, peaking at #21 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. The CD artwork is a replica of the fictional Play-Tone label used in the movie, and the liner notes are done in a mockumentary style, as if the Wonders had been a real group and the events of the film had actually happened. Hanks later used the success of That Thing You Do! as a spring-board to launch the actual Playtone Records label, through which the soundtracks of all his subsequent films, and other films like Bring It On and television programs like The Sopranos were released as albums.
The song that plays during the film's opening credits, "Lovin' You Lots and Lots," is credited to the fictitious Norm Wooster Singers, but was actually written by Hanks. This song is a good-natured parody of Ray Conniff, Mitch Miller, and other practitioners of the "beautiful music" or proto-Muzak formats that were a staple of adult radio during the early '60s such as on KPOL (AM)1540 in Los Angeles. Hanks also composed Guy's jazzy signature drum solo, "I Am Spartacus."
The song "Voyage Around the Moon" by the fictional Saturn 5 closely resembles "Pipeline" by The Chantays.
Various Internet rumors claim that Hanks based the band from Erie, PA, in homage to a real '60s group from Erie named Orange Colored Sky.
Read more about this topic: That Thing You Do!
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“This music crept by me upon the waters,
Allaying both their fury and my passion
With its sweet air; thence have I followed it,
Or it hath drawn me rather.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“As for the terms good and bad, they indicate no positive quality in things regarded in themselves, but are merely modes of thinking, or notions which we form from the comparison of things with one another. Thus one and the same thing can be at the same time good, bad, and indifferent. For instance music is good for him that is melancholy, bad for him who mourns; for him who is deaf, it is neither good nor bad.”
—Baruch (Benedict)
“During the cattle drives, Texas cowboy music came into national significance. Its practical purpose is well known—it was used primarily to keep the herds quiet at night, for often a ballad sung loudly and continuously enough might prevent a stampede. However, the cowboy also sang because he liked to sing.... In this music of the range and trail is “the grayness of the prairies, the mournful minor note of a Texas norther, and a rhythm that fits the gait of the cowboy’s pony.””
—Administration in the State of Texa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)