the hunger games are iconic & changed pop music | a video essay

[@EljohnMacaranas]

What was your favorite Hunger Games soundtrack cut?!

[@noneapplicable1327]

Safe and Sound is so good!

[@EljohnMacaranas]

That one eats, my personal fave might acc be Olivia’s 😭

[@bill_moraitakis]

meltdown is SUCH a bop

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Meltdown is too good! Like how did they get everyone onboard?!

[@Kysdoogle]

not actually part of the soundtracks but the lucky one is imo really katniss coded

[@paarthm9681]

safe and sound is in my opinion, the best song from the soundtracks. it captures katniss' relationship with prim and rue so well. and can't catch me now is so lucy, olivia rodrigo killed it.

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Honestly, it’s such a good song, I was mad the Academy snubbed it! I’m hoping Olivia gets a nod bc whoa… the homework was done!

[@SummersFrost]

Lorde really was the architect of an ERA. She deserves way more credit like woah

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Lorde was truly an IT girl… like who else was curating soundtracks by herself this young?!

[@lolarandall3973]

I manifested folklore by making safe and sound my personality when I was 12

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Your power!

[@Karlsteins]

My soundtrack rank : 1. Safe & Sound - Taylor Swift & The Civil Wars 2. Can’t Catch Me Now - Olivia Rodrigo 3. Atlas - Coldplay 4. Yellow Flicker Beat - Lorde Honorable mentions (these are non lead soundtrack but amazing songs too that fits the movie so well): 1. The Hanging Tree - James Newton Howard, Jennifer Lawrence 2. Nothing You Can Take From Me - Rachel Zegler, The Covey Band 3. Kingdom Come - The Civil Wars 4. Pure As The Driven Snow - Rachel Zegler 5. Silhouettes - Of Monsters and Men 6. Elastic Heart - Sia feat. The Weeknd 7. Everybody Wants to Rule The World - Lorde

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Aaaah! Love the list! The songs from the deep cuts and within the new film are so good like music is central to the series in its own way 😭

[@00pium_kingvampstan]

no eyes open?? 😭

[@Jadorelainie]

Shooting Arrows At The Sky was a really on the nose but nicely done song.

[@massaijoyner936]

I can see Ethel Cain being in a hunger games soundtrack because her sound fits in the hunger games universe.

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Oh Ethel would have been amazing on these soundtracks

[@summerchild_]

Oh yeah, the one calling women that don't shave nasty? The one that unprompted posted "you have coarse hair on your pussy and your asshole. You are not delicate you are a BEAST". Nah, I don't need woman-haters on my thg soundtrack

[@Jooliwn]

Not knowing if lucy gray lived or not literally kills me like PLEASE SUZANNE (Also lorde shouldve been on the soundtrack but shes hibernating so...)

[@EljohnMacaranas]

I feel like not knowing makes her even more magical but I do know she got the peace and revenge she deserved thanks to Katniss 🫡

[@kartkaesque]

Olivia Rodrigo is really following Taylor Swift's steps Good for her

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Like honestly learning from the industry herself

[@luciaalicea8186]

This video is so real. No film soundtrack will ever come close to these. So many amazing songs on all 3 albums. Abraham’s Daughter, Safe & Sound, Come Away To The Water, Dark Days, Rules, Kingdom Come, Atlas, Mirror, Silhouettes, Who We Are, Kingdom, Scream My Name, Yellow Flicker Beat ALL SO GOOD!

[@EljohnMacaranas]

No joke… the music had no business being good. Normally soundtracks are sorta cash grabby nonsense but not these!

[@00pium_kingvampstan]

I LOVE TS’s songs for the soundtracks. Eyes Open and Safe and Sound in my eyes, tell very similar stories from different povs. Eyes Open is abt how everyone wanted to see her fail, and how she wanted to prove them all wrong, but ended up leading into Safe and Sound, as she wanted to prove to herself, that she could protect Rue, but failed, and again, wanted to prove to herself that she could protect Rue, and she couldn’t. Which leads back into Eyes Open and wanting to prove everyone wrong, and she couldn’t, so now she has to prove it to herself, instead of the people, on Eyes Open.

[@EljohnMacaranas]

I think Taylor really went above and beyond in that she got to provide two original songs, everyone else merely did one. I know Safe and Sound won a Grammy but Eyes Open also deserved some sort of recognition. When the Taylor’s Version dropped, I saw so many young or new Swifties discover it!

[@00pium_kingvampstan]

@@EljohnMacaranas I only got into the Hunger Games (and Taylor Swift somewhat recently, like a year ago or so) recently, and I didn’t know abt either of those songs, and now there are both some of my favorites from her.

[@slystone4892]

The Hanging Tree is beautiful, the best song and then Safe and Sound.

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Literally cannot believe the series was powerful enough to get Hanging Tree to #12 in 2015, if we were using today’s points, it may have been number 1 now!

[@slystone4892]

@@EljohnMacaranas yea what a shame and Safe deserved much better what a gorgeous song

[@EljohnMacaranas]

@@slystone4892 I blame the Oscars bias against pop didn't really fade until the middle of the 2010s decade

[@noneapplicable1327]

u need to do this about Twilight like those soundtracks were so fucking good 😭😭 the muse song and the breaking dawn soundtrack was so good 😭

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Honestly I might lol

[@loriar1027]

Totally agree!! Love the music in Twilight!

[@lyckastahl9311]

My favorites are Safe & Sound, Who We Are and Everybody Wants To Rule The World (just captured the tone so well), Dead Air and Scream My Name (I think it’s definitely underrated by the fans)

[@EljohnMacaranas]

The last two were HITS that got away like Lorde really masterfully curated the best of pop in 2014 (bar Taylor ofc) and made art

[@cristinamartinez9693]

Eyes Open is still my number 1 of all of Taylor’s discography (also cuz I’m a huge THG fan lol) but it’s incredible what this series has brought us and the amazing and talented songwriters it attracted. THG is tied with Twilight for best soundtrack tho cuz it’s iconic with songs like Roslyn by Bon Iver and Heavy in you arms by Florence+the machine. Thank you for this great video!

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Eyes Open is so good! Also thanks for watching, I might do a Twilight one as an excuse to revisit the movies tbh, they get an annual viewing from me

[@joshlikesfries]

Growing up in the early 2010s I never really understood the hype for movies, like my 10 year ood brain was WAY TOO YOUNG TOO SEE these types of movies. Now I’ve grown up I formed an attactment to the story even though I haven’t read the books and I only watched Mocking Jay part 1 in like 2014 but the MUSIC really did it for me. OKAY BUT I just wanna laugh how Charli just watsed a at a Miley Cyrus concert then wrote that Masterpiece ugh QUEEN!

[@EljohnMacaranas]

I was like 16 when the first came out my dumbass did not get the movies the way I do now! Like literally I was there bc JLaw was so good and I loved the action lol But yaaaaa the music is killer and Charli is a genius

[@lankyimnida595]

thank you for mentioning Charli's contribution to MJ pt.1's soundtrack because I suddenly remembered again how she just watched HG in 2020 then a fan commenting how she literally got a song on the soundtrack

[@EljohnMacaranas]

It's so funny she was like "did not watch the movies" and created one of the most stunning tracks on that record. Like I remember hearing it for the first time and really just going "wow... this is someone who GETS the story" then in 2020 she was like "omg i just saw these lol"

[@Jadorelainie]

TBOSAS soundtrack really is taking it for 2 runner up! Rachel Zegler is doing her thing there and The Garden is beautiful.

[@EljohnMacaranas]

It’s so well done OMG 😭 I’m obsessed with her little ballad at the talent portion

[@caedmoon2712]

Kind of sad you didn’t talk about silhouettes by of monsters and men for catching fire. I thought it did a really good job of portraying Snow and Katniss’ relationship leading into the next film.

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Relistened just now and wow it’s a great song!

[@yunacarman]

One of my favorite songs 😭

[@angelic5424]

I love that song so much! It really got me into Of Monsters and Men. So amazing.

[@ryanxamp]

the mockingjay pt 1 soundtrack curated by lorde to this day is my all time favorite movie soundtrack. sooooo many underrated songs on that album. Yellow Flicker Beat, All My Love, and the charli and tove lo songs are incredible. Lorde's cover of Ladder Song is what got me into Bright Eyes. All the Lorde songs of course are great. This album definitely deserves more praise. I know Kanye is a bad person, but hes still my favorite artist musically and you can definitely hear his influence as he is Lordes favorite artist as well. Alot of these tracks are giving Yeezus industrial sound.

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Oh agreed on all points, this was a rare opportunity for an artist to really make something of a soundtrack. It’s never been replicated, aside from a pale regrettable imitation in 2019 with the subpar Charlie’s Angels reboot soundtrack

[@fay5630]

Why the hell did I just found out safe and sound was a hunger games sound track 😂

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Oh because it def transcends the movie haha and it wasn’t used within the movie itself 😭

[@Bruncleboxtop]

Okay but full tea I would love a mini series that follows the life of Tigris that encapsulates her childhood being the older cousin of Snow. It’s implied that she had to sell her body in order to financially sustain her and her family that leads to her finding out about the second rebellion and siding with the rebels. I’d love it to be filmed to a similar style of The Crown where you slowly see her develop the feline features.

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Literally we need to know the deets because how did she go from risking her job to make Snow look decent to straight up rooting for a teenage girl to assassinate him 😭 and the feline features 😭

[@lusinebaghyan8864]

I love Abraham's daughter so much. The ambiguity of what is happening, the music and the lyrics are so good.

[@EljohnMacaranas]

It hit really hard as the credits song… like the atmosphere it brought

[@DanielHernandez-gx4kh]

So when are we gonna admit lorde did it the best

[@EljohnMacaranas]

I mean… she curated the best soundtrack of them all. And honestly I’d been hoping she’d been the one for BoSaS but Liv did a decent job 😭

[@veronicanaumov2981]

Safe and Sound but I really liked "Can't Catch Me now" from "A ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" uh I also loved hanging Tree.

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Safe and Sound’s just so timeless but Can’t Catch Me Now feels so tied to the movie… like I have to rewatch BoSAS

[@NerdyLlama21]

Very interesting video essay! I haven't listened fully to Pure Heroine, but my brain usually connects Yellow Flicker Beat to Team. In that sense, I think that Team would've fit nicely into the series too.

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Team was a perfect song for The Hunger Games at least for Katniss and District 12 and maybe her relationship to Gale early on

[@PhoenixOfelia]

There is anew one coming out about Haymitch Abernathy in his games called sunrise on the reaping

[@EljohnMacaranas]

OH I AM SEATED

[@ready4itaia]

Omg I have been looking for a vid that covers the hunger games' soundtracks, thanks for doing this!

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Aaaah! Thanks for finding it!

[@Sequoya]

Great video! I adore the Hunger Games. The soundtracks are superb! Suzanne Collins was inspired by Survivor as well, and I’m a super fan of the show. Also, check out the T-bone Burnett produced record “wrecking ball” by Emmy Lou Harris. It totally fits the vibe.

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Thank you so much! Aaaah! Always a delight to read your comments! 💙 Suzanne’s so talented and agh! I love Survivor, my friend works on the recent seasons haha! Omg I have to! Thank you! Def listening!

[@peace_elise]

Omg so glad someone made this video bc this all needed to be said on how the soundtracks are phenomenal! Great video. Safe and Sound definitely added to my love of the series when the first film came out, and I then became a huuuge fan. One song you didn't touch on is Just A Game by Birdy from first soundtrack, I love how it captures Peeta and Katniss' pretending to be in love in the Games to survive and the conflict Katniss has if she should consider Peeta romantically, but not being able to afford thinking about that since survival is the priority.

[@EljohnMacaranas]

These soundtracks are so killer and yeah wow! That track’s so good! Like man that first album really was underrated!

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Also what other movie series do you want me to cover?!

[@noneapplicable1327]

Oh Twilight for sure!

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Maybeeeee

[@czarekdomeracki182]

Honestly 50 Shades of Gray franchise had consistently amazing soundtracks

[@EljohnMacaranas]

OMG wait, the 50 Shades series did pop off

[@the_fressno]

50 shades' nick Jonas and Nicki songs 😭🖐️

[@howdydee]

Kingdom is my favorite song on any of the soundtracks but it’s also one of my favorite Charli songs. I wish she would make more music like that but I don’t think that’s the direction she wants to go in 🤧

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Oh she hasn’t been remotely interested in acoustic organic sounds in so long even though I do think she’d thrive there 😭

[@HK-gm8pe]

My favorite song of all time is Scream my name by Tove Lo.that she wrote for the mockingjay part 1 ,.she is one of my favorite music writers

[@EljohnMacaranas]

That one’s so good!

[@denviatch]

To Ve Lo? Hahah iconic meme

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Literally that video lives rent free 😭

[@lolarandall3973]

The twilight soundtrack walked so the hunger games soundtrack could run

[@EljohnMacaranas]

The Muse track from Eclipse… art!

[@kartkaesque]

That Taylor Swift picture in thumbnail 😭😭

[@EljohnMacaranas]

We gotta highlight the woman who paved the way for later slays 😭

[@msk-qp6fn]

@@EljohnMacaranas taylor is popular but i dont think we know just how much her influence permeated the mass media

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Oh she’s singlehandedly driving engagement for the girls and the gays to the NFL, Taylor’s genuinely THAT powerful

[@alexisatkinson7420]

Hey hey- just saying hi and great video. These soundtracks really did the thing. KZbinr Naomi Cannibal predicted/ hoped good soundtracks would come back with a vengeance and when I watched her say that I was just saying how I miss the how they R&B renaissance and the Disney renaissance of the 90s overlapped in such a beautiful way that I wish would happen in its own way now. Anywho, Safe &Sound has a special place for me but as a fellow songwriter can’t catch me now has really drawn me in as of late, also the one she sings about her boyfriend. I’d be cool if you did several YA movie soundtracks because a lot of the time they surpassed the movie in quality in cases that weren’t the Hunger Games. I know it ain’t YA but 50 shades def had that conundrum but a few futuristic/space love triangle YAS had that issue too. Also Barbie for obvious reasons. Maybe even Frozen b/c I stand in my dislike of their quality but will not deny the infectiousness of the soundtrack. Def the first Miles Morales Spiderman or any of the Tobey Spiderman soundtracks because PERFECT MARRIAGES! The Gatsby soundtrack who’s anachronistic songs I didn’t enjoy while watching but definitely on their own. I think that’s already a lot… if I think of anymore I’ll be back. Off to finally watch your Troye Sivan vid 😁✌🏾

[@EljohnMacaranas]

The Disney renaissance and their soundtracks with the mega celebs and new arrangements definitely makes me yearn for that time period. Omg the 50 shades movie soundtracks were just too good for such lame movies. Spiderverse soundtracks are part of the DNA of the story so it’d make sense those were perf! Man the Gatsby soundtrack was something else omfg… Lana was robbed! Thank you so much for your lovely and detailed comments! Aaaah! 💙

[@alexisatkinson7420]

@@EljohnMacaranas Lana 👏🏾was 👏🏾 robbed!👏🏾 the marriage of music and movie was OTHERWORLDLY!! She really does know how to finesse a soundtrack because that Once Upon a Dream cover still HAUNTS ME in the BEST of ways. Can't wait for your hot takes. Hope you're doing well and being as gentle and creative as you need to be, always a fan in me 😁

[@fajr162]

guts reheated leftover ijbol

[@EljohnMacaranas]

We got lucky that did not happen bc like tbh most soundtrack cuts artists do today are like demo rejects 😭

[@SebzDevYT]

So like... when is the 50 Shades of Grey trilogy video happening?

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Oh I gotta do those movies bc ummmm… kinda camp dumb movies but killer soundtracks

[@SebzDevYT]

@@EljohnMacaranas oh, were there movies? Im talking about the albums babeee

[@EljohnMacaranas]

😭😭😭

[@kartkaesque]

Jennifer Lawrence should sing more

[@EljohnMacaranas]

She has such a good voice omfg like she needs to do a musical!

[@michaeltyler6635]

Can u please make a video talking about Melanie Martinez portals!!!

[@fabycho6791]

The only movie of this genre I ever liked was catching fire

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Catching Fire was genuinely a marvel of a film lmao

[@summerchild_]

I'm so disappointed the Ballad of blah blah and blah didn't have a killer soundrack with killer music. Can't catch me now by olivia is meh

[@EljohnMacaranas]

Some of Lucy Gray’s songs are good but very underdeveloped, Lionsgate def was broke

[@summerchild_]

@EljohnMacaranas a Hunger Game Album shouldn't be the protagonist singing non stop, it should have Lorde or her modern equivalent.

[@EljohnMacaranas]

The movie’s name is literally A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes… but yeah I’m shocked they didn’t get Noah Kahan to do a duet with Olivia

[@RealVincent1989]

@@EljohnMacaranas What ? No. The soundtrack is amazing

[@Lizzie-pv3gj]

Can't catch me now is beautiful and haunting. It encapsulates the Hunger Games prequel and character driven plot, but mostly it represents not just Lucy but all tributes who died at Hunger Games Arena coming back to haunt Snow