The music of the Great Gatsby

The film adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby has been doing well in the cinemas for a while and we are certainly loving the music! Fitzgerald coined the term ‘The Jazz Age’ to describe the era the book is set in and also uses the term ‘Yellow Cocktail Music’ to describe the sensory enjoyment of music. Yet the film’s music supervisor Anton Monsted has not chosen traditional jazz songs, in stead using music from contemporary artists including Jay-Z, Beyonce, Lana Del Rey, Florence and the Machine and Roxy Music. Anton explains the reason behind this:

"When Fitzgerald writes about jazz and talks about the music of his time, we wanted to reflect that in our telling of the story and we turned to hip-hop. But I hope that what we've also done is find some kind of weave between traditional jazz and a more hip-hop or contemporary sensibility."

Brian Ferry and Jay-Z also made their mark on the soundtrack albums and there are now three albums out. The song 'Over the love' really stands out to us. If the lyrics are listened to closely, Florence sings about ‘the green light’ and ‘having a lover on her mind’ which are two key aspects of the movie. The most recurring song in the movie is Lana Del Rey’s young & beautiful, which is a soulful rendition of the characters' emotions in the movie. We suggest you check out the awesome music of The Great Gatsby!