Two Sides of the Same Coin: The Influence of T-Bone Burnett and Mark Mothersbaugh

T-Bone Burnett and Mark Mothersbaugh have been amazingly influential to the modern movie soundtrack, and while they share some similarities, they are the opposite of each other in many ways. One was an enormously successful recording artist, while the other struggled with recording and ultimately stopped recording and moved into producing. One has won an Oscar, several Grammys, and quite a few other awards, while the other has not received the acclaim from his peers in the same way. But both have helped movies move away from the ubiquitous pop-themed soundtracks of the eighties and nineties (think Footloose and Sleepless In Seattle), to more integrated, quirky, and cool soundtracks and scores (for better or worse) in the 2000s.

Born Joseph Henry Burnett, T-Bone Burnett grew up in the Fort Worth area of Texas and became a singer and songwriter, influenced by the local blues and country music scenes. In the mid-1970s, Burnett toured with Bob Dylan as a backing guitarist. In 1980, he released his first solo album to some critical success, but little commercial appeal. Throughout the 1980s he released a few more albums with similar success, but mainly worked as a producer of musical acts, most notably Elvis Costello and Roy Orbison (in photos from that time, Burnett looks like a cross between Orbison and a 1960s mop-top band member). To see a list of the many albums he produced, click here.

In 1992, Burnett reportedly stopped recording because of his frustration with the process and what he felt were his limitations as an artist. Burnett threw himself into production, an eventually began work as a soundtrack producer for film. In 2000, Joel and Ethan Coen were looking for a producer who could deliver a soundtrack full of old-time American folk, blues, and bluegrass, and Burnett was the perfect choice as an accomplished producer and singer/songwriter in these musical genres. Burnett's soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou? was a huge success, both critically and commercially, and won Burnett four Grammys. The quirky, American roots music he chose and commissioned for the movie, and the commercial success of the soundtrack, woke movie production companies up. There was money to be made in non-top-40 catalog music! The soundtrack was so successful, it is listed on Amazon as the number 11 best-selling soundtrack of all time, it spawned a very popular musical tour called Down From the Mountain (which was filmed and turned into a documentary by D.A. Pennebaker), and made stalwart roots music artists such as Ralph Stanley and Alison Krause into household names. And the seamless integration of the music into the movie made for several memorable scenes in the movie. The credits sequence with Big Rock Candy Mountain, the usage of Man of Constant Sorrow (twice) as a plot device, and the wacky montage of the three main characters having fun and stealing a pie to the song I'll Fly Away are all great moments, but my favorite has to be the baptism scene using the Alison Krause song Down to the River to Pray.

The surprising success of O Brother, Where Art Thou propelled Burnett into the limelight. He went on to produce the soundtrack for Cold Mountain in 2004, Walk the Line in 2005, released his own solo album for the first time in 14 years in 2006, and produced the soundtrack for Crazy Heart in 2009, for which he won an Oscar for a song that he co-wrote, The Weary Kind.

Mark Mothersbaugh took a different route to Hollywood. Born in 1950, he attended Kent State as a young man. It was there that he met Jerry Casale and Bob Lewis, and the three of them formed the band Devo in 1973. The band was themed on art rock, punk, and New Wave music, and attracted a loyal following in the late 1970s. The emergence of MTV helped propel Devo to new heights. Their quirky style and signature jumpsuits and plastic hats were perfect for the new visual medium of music videos. Their commercial apex occurred in 1980 when Whip It hit #14 on the Billboard charts. Devo has maintained a cult following over the years and has been enormously influential on other artists.

Mothersbaugh began doing some solo work, mainly in film and TV, in the early 1980s. He wrote some music for the underground hits Heavy Metal and Doctor Detroit. He wrote the theme music to Pee-Wee's Playhouse in 1986. He was quite prolific during this decade, continuing to record and tour with Devo, and composing and recording music for film and TV. In the 1990s, as his work with Devo became less frequent, his composing for soundtracks ramped up. He began doing score work for big, commercial films such as Dumb and Dumber and Happy Gilmore, but it was his work on a very small film by an unknown director that began his key work in the industry. Wes Anderson hired Mothersbaugh to create the score for his first movie, Bottle Rocket. While the movie came and went with little attention, it proved to industry executives that Anderson could direct, and a few years later, he was able to make Rushmore.

Mothersbaugh's score for Rushmore in 1998 blended perfectly with Anderson's sensibilities of light, indie, punk and New Wave-influenced music. The soundtrack to Rushmore was critically lauded for being different, edgy, anti-establishment, and smart, but lost in that acclaim was Mothersbaugh's masterful work in scoring the movie and pulling the diverse songs together to theme nicely with the movie (along with music supervisor Randall Poster).  Consider the subtle but compelling score work in the opening of Rushmore here.

Mothersbaugh went on to score Anderson's other movies The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic, and The Darjeeling Limited. All of these odd, unusual, and light soundtracks help to set the scene in Anderson's odd, unusual, and light movies. Consider Mothersbaugh's introductory music in the The Royal Tenenbaums that segues into his Muktato Musik (Mothersbaugh's music ensemble he created to do score work) version of Hey Jude (click here). If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, Mothersbaugh should be very flattered. His influence has extended to many other music composers, including Jon Brion (I Heart Huckabee's, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Alexandre Desplat (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Fantastic Mr. Fox), Rolfe Kent (Up In the Air, Sideways),  and one could even argue Yann Tiersen (Amelie) and Thomas Newman (American Beauty). It seems I can't see a quirky independent movie without thinking of Mark Mothersbaugh.

So, Burnett and Mothersbaugh have had different paths, and one works mainly on soundtracks and the other on scores, but their influence on today's music in film cannot be underestimated, especially in the indie genre. Sadly, Mothersbaugh does not recieve the kudos of Burnett. He was nominated for a Grammy for his work with Devo, but has never been nominated for a Grammy or Oscar for his film work. Most film score nominations go to composers of more "serious" work, and Mothersbaugh gets overlooked. I look forward to any new projects that Burnett or Mothersbaugh work on.