The Netflix-released Kodachrome features some great songs and, among them, hidden gems. One is “Melt Away” by Galaxie 500, as Sanjay Narayan points out in his article. As a music supervisor, rekindling a love for a song, artist, or genre is one of my favorite parts of the job–as is introducing music to an audience that wouldn’t otherwise hear it!
When I was in high school and finally lifted a self-imposed ban of all music recorded after 1979, I took a break from the energy and machismo of Led Zeppelin and AC/DC and gravitated towards the laid-back sounds of Galaxie 500. I can still remember when I told an older peer what I was looking for, now that I had opened up decades of music to myself, and received an enhanced reissue of the On Fire CD the next day that I would’ve worn out, if possible.
I was born the same year that On Fire came out, but, for the film, “Melt Away” from This Is Our Music happened to be a perfect fit for the character, Matt, emotionally and chronologically.
For an awesome history of the band, I highly reccomend Temperature’s Rising: An Oral History of Galaxie 500 by Mike McGonigal. Luckily, Naomi Yang (bassist) kept a lot of memorabilia, from music store receipts to a wedding invitation they got their typeface from, and makes it as much a oral history as it is a visual one.
– Chris Piccaro