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July 28, 2026 
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Auteur-core! 9 great songs that reference filmmakers
9 songs, 35 min 20 sec
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| David Cronenberg Tommy Keith for The New York Times |
Dear listeners,
The pop provocateur Charli XCX probably could have convinced just about any musician she wanted to appear on her new album, “Music, Fashion, Film,” the proper follow-up to her world-conquering 2024 phenomenon, “Brat.” But she opted to include only a single featured artist on her new release, and it’s not a musician at all: It’s … David Cronenberg.
Yes, that David Cronenberg: the 83-year-old Canadian filmmaker behind such body-horror cult classics as “The Fly,” “Videodrome” and “Dead Ringers” — among many other incredibly brat contributions to the cinematic canon.
Cronenberg’s spoken-word feature on the album’s introspective electro-pop closer, “No One Lasts Forever,” might seem random, but if you’ve been paying close attention to Charli XCX over the past few years you know that it’s not. Charli made some visual allusions to Cronenberg’s 1996 cult classic “Crash” on her 2022 LP of the same name, and her deep love of art-house cinema is apparent to anyone who follows her entertaining account on the cinephile social media site Letterboxd. (Her profile lists Cronenberg’s beyond-caustic 2014 Hollywood satire “Maps to the Stars” as one of her four favorite films. Honestly, respect.)
Charli isn’t the first musician to pay homage to a filmmaker in a song. In honor of her Cronenberg connection — and in hopes that she will inspire a new generation of pop film-lovers — I put together a playlist featuring a few other songs that reference great filmmakers in their titles. Some (like the offerings from David Bowie, Sparks and Fugazi) are loving homages, while others (from Le Tigre and CMAT) reveal a slightly more ambivalent relationship with their cinematic subjects.
I hope this playlist helps you discover a few new songs you like, — and that it inspires you to add some new titles to your watch list. If you’re so inclined, you can also read my review of Charli’s “Music, Fashion, Film.” (Spoiler alert: I like it!)
Do you think it’s dangerous to have Busby Berkeley dreams?,
Lindsay
1. David Bowie: “Andy Warhol”
Though the pre-eminent pop artist Andy Warhol was known for more than his filmmaking, it’s the artist’s cinematic side — and his famous screen tests — that David Bowie references on this 1971 “Hunky Dory” homage: “Andy Warhol, silver screen / Can’t tell them apart at all.” Bowie wrote the song before he ever met Warhol, but he got to play it for the artist at the Factory shortly before its release. Bowie later admitted that he was perplexed by Warhol’s typically Sphinxlike reaction to the song: “I don’t know if he ever liked it or not.”
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
2. SZA: “Scorsese Baby Daddy”
On this 2024 track from the deluxe edition of her hit album “SOS,” SZA yearns for a partner who will bring as much emotional investment to a relationship as she will. “Addicted to the drama,” she sings, before making a major contribution to the English language by coining the phrase “Scorsese baby daddy.”
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
3. Le Tigre: “What’s Yr Take on Cassavetes?”
The members of the feminist electro-pop trio Le Tigre stage a spirited debate about the pioneering independent filmmaker John Cassavetes on this infectiously sing-songy cut from their 1999 self-titled debut. In response to the title’s question, they toss out a number of possible verdicts — “Misogynist! Genius! Alcoholic! Messiah!” — without ever settling on one, perhaps suggesting that all of the above can be true.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
4. Fugazi: “Cassavetes”
Here’s another take on Cassavetes, from the legendary D.C. punk band Fugazi. (The devoutly independent Fugazi clearly felt a kinship with Cassavetes, a maverick auteur who made self-funded films on the margins of the Hollywood system.) The guitarist Guy Picciotto handles the lead vocals on this track from the 1993 album “In on the Kill Taker,” hollering his poetic admiration and having some fun with the pronunciation of the name of Cassavetes’s wife and collaborator: “Gena Rrrowlands!”
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
5. Stereolab: “Brakhage”
This opening track on Stereolab’s 1997 album “Dots and Loops” is named for the experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage, whose unconventional and often abstract works sought to shake up viewers’ perceptions. Brakhage’s ideals stand in ironic contrast to the placid world of numb consumerism that the singer Laetitia Sadier surveys here — “we need so damn many things to keep our dazed lives going” — though the song’s intricately layered instrumentation echoes the textures of Brakhage’s hand-painted frames.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
6. Sparks: “Tsui Hark”
As Charli XCX would decades later, the droll L.A. art-rockers Sparks feature the voice of a noted filmmaker on this track, from the exquisitely named 1994 LP “Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins.” The Hong Kong director Tsui Hark introduces himself and discusses his career in the most straightforward terms possible — “I’m Tsui Hark, I’m a film director / I’ve made several films” — to the accompaniment of a simple, mesmerizing keyboard riff and a pulsating techno beat.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
7. CMAT: “Peter Bogdanovich”
The Irish pop singer-songwriter CMAT (Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson) transports us to the fraught set of Peter Bogdanovich’s great 1971 movie, “The Last Picture Show,” on this lush and dreamy 2022 single. The song seems to be sung from the perspective of the film’s young star, Cybill Shepherd, with whom Bogdanovich had an affair that would result in the end of his marriage to the film’s production designer, Polly Platt. CMAT further delves into the power dynamics of this love triangle in the music video, in which she plays Bogdanovich. (She has said she wrote the song after listening to a podcast about the making of the movie; I’d bet anything it was Karina Longworth’s excellent “You Must Remember This,” which devoted an entire season to Platt’s story.)
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
8. The Magnetic Fields: “Busby Berkeley Dreams”
Stephin Merritt honors the elegance, glamour and geometrically ambitious choreography of the Golden Age Hollywood director Busby Berkeley by writing a ballad so achingly beautiful it could have been sung and danced to in one of Berkeley’s films. When I say it’s one of my favorite tracks on the Magnetic Fields’ 1999 triple LP “69 Love Songs,” I mean it: It made the cut of the hotly debated Amplifier playlist I made a few years ago featuring my 11 favorite songs from that wonderfully sprawling album.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
9. Charli XCX featuring David Cronenberg: “No One Lasts Forever”
Finally, let’s go out with the Charli-Cronenberg collab that inspired this playlist. I usually feel so stressed and/or grossed out while watching a Cronenberg movie, but I am pleasantly surprised by how serene his speaking voice is here, and how generous he is with the wisdom he brought back from a near-death experience: “I really feel, and you hear me reassuring you, that oblivion is freedom,” he says, successfully talking Charli — and all of us, really — out of an existential crisis.
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
The Amplifier Playlist
“Auteur-core! 9 Great Songs That Reference Filmmakers” track list
Track 1: David Bowie, “Andy Warhol”
Track 2: SZA, “Scorsese Baby Daddy”
Track 3: Le Tigre, “What’s Yr Take on Cassavetes?”
Track 4: Fugazi, “Cassavetes”
Track 5: Stereolab, “Brakhage”
Track 6: Sparks, “Tsui Hark”
Track 7: CMAT, “Peter Bogdanovich”
Track 8: The Magnetic Fields, “Busby Berkeley Dreams”
Track 9: Charli XCX featuring David Cronenberg: “No One Lasts Forever”
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Have feedback? Ideas for a playlist? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at theamplifier@nytimes.com.
