After watching I Saw the TV Glow , the new film from director Jane Schoenbrun, I felt a sensation I hadn’t felt in a while: I need this soundtrack. The genre-defying movie is a surreal story about two high schoolers in the 1990s who become obsessed with a Buffy the Vampire Slayer- like show called The Pink Opaque . It’s a rich film that draws on horror, ’90s television and Schoenbrun’s experience coming out as transgender.
But it also boasts some incredible tunes, like a hypnotic cover of Broken Social Scene’s Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl by the artist yeule and performances from King Woman, Sloppy Jane and Phoebe Bridgers, who appear on-screen as musicians at a club the characters visit. Justice Smith, left, and Brigette Lundy-Paine star in I Saw the TV Glow. Credit: A24/AP The full soundtrack has more to love: The swelling emotion of Caroline Polachek’s Starburned and Unkissed and the throwback rock of Proper’s The 90s , with lyrics about the TV show Xena: Warrior Princess .
Listening, I felt like a kid again. That was just Schoenbrun’s intention. The director thought the film needed a “great teen angst soundtrack.
” But they were also nostalgic for the idea of soundtracks in general. They remembered thinking, “‘Wait, where did those go?’ You know, because the soundtracks of my youth were such a huge part of what brought me to movies,” they said in a video call. Citing soundtrack “canon picks” like Donnie Darko , The Royal Tenenbaums .