Your Dislike of the Westworld Player Piano

Westworld Telegraph

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First off, I apologize. I can’t recall which of you disliked the player piano oldies so much, so I can’t properly address this email.

When I was a kid my favorite music was by the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd. The reason for this is the same for almost all kids tastes in entertainment and that is our taste is based on what we’re exposed to and our reverence to our parents. In my case, my parents loved the music of their teens and so that’s what I loved until I was able to develop my own tastes in music.

Along with this cycle of generational music exposure and appreciation there’s the joke that what’s relevant and popular now will one day be a golden oldie. Someday on an oldies station somewhere will be played Baby Got Back and Down With the Sickness. To that end, given Ford’s age and the generally accepted estimate of the time-frame in which Westworld takes place, the songs Ford would have been exposed to would have been what his parents listened to as teens in the 90’s. This explains why most of the music played in the brothel are from this era. The fact that the specific songs seem to fit into the narrative of Westworld the tv series is more a choice of the producers, but that they exist at all fits some of the themes of the series and, more importantly, the themes of the park within the show itself, that everything old will one day be new again.

The choice of the orchestral Paint it Black during the heist, awesome as it was (personally, I wouldn’t change it), may feel out of place because it’s very obviously for the tv viewing audience and doesn’t fit into the otherwise more natural use of the player piano. Westworld, the tv series, is meant for consumption by us, the early 21st century viewing audience, and as such, I’m fine with the producers choices of both the player piano music from the 90’s and the repurposing of other popular music for use of helping set the mood, especially when it’s done in a style that more fits the scene, the way Paint it Black was.

Ultimately its a TV show and meant to simply entertain. Really you should just be glad they went the way they did with the music. It could have been worse. They could have gone with a jug and washboard band playing Tub Thumping or Zoot Suit Riot.

Love the podcast.

Jeremy

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