BY JOE REID |

Trailer Tunes: 'Girl Most Likely' and Icona Pop's 'I Love it'

At the intersection of movie trailers and music, what does Icona Pop's "I Love It" tell us about Kristen Wiig's latest?

Trailer Tunes: 'Girl Most Likely' and Icona Pop's 'I Love it'

There's always so much to unpack about a movie trailer: the stars, the plot, how much of the plot is being totally given away. But in many cases, the part of the trailer that sticks with you the longest is the music. Be it a pop song or a piece or orchestral score, it's the music that most often makes a trailer.

This Week's Trailer: Girl Most Likely, Kristen Wiig's latest comedy, wherein she attempts to get her rock-bottom life together with the help (or lack thereof) of her ridiculous mother, played by Annette Bening.

This Week's Tune: "I Love It," the infectious, enthusiastic, and Scandanavian-as-hell hit by Swedish pop duo Icona Pop.

How Literal Is It? It's actually a decidedly ironic song choice, intended to underline how much Wiig's character, in fact, does not love it. She's hanging out with younger love interest Darren Criss, feeling conspicuously old among all the awful Millennials, arguing with her mom. She certainly doesn't "love it" when the tree-swing she's sitting on breaks and falls. Weirdly, the tone of the song is so much the opposite of the story that it feels just as literal as if it were directly on the nose.

How Emotional Is It? Any way you slice it, this is a FUN song. Not for nothing is it in every third TV promo and commercial (we'll get to the downside of that in a second). For a movie that is looking to find the humor in a woman's downward spiral (and, one assumes, redemption), this is a really effective song to deliver the promise that this will be a great fun time at the movies. It also picks up where an earlier music cue -- Blondie's "Dreaming," which has a similar poppy kick, though more of that Debbie Harry edge -- leaves off, creating this really cool musical continuum.

How Definitive Is It? Here's where we get to the downside. "I Love It" is fun, it's current, it promises a good time. It's also everywhere. I'm not sure how well it serves your movie to have it sonically confused with Snooki & JWOWW or a Target commercial (Macy's? Philadelphia Cream Cheese? I honestly can't remember, and that's the problem).

Overall Trailer Tune Effectiveness: Somewhere in the middle. The positives are readily apparent, but they started off so well and so singularly with Blondie. Falling back on something so omnipresent as Icona Pop feels pretty standard.

Previously: The Top 10 Movies When Moulin Rouge! Was Released.

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