We’ve already talked about guilty pleasure playlists, which are great, but you know those songs that strike a chord somewhere in your heart when you hear them and you have to immediately crank them up as loud as possible and bask in them? We need a good name for that feeling,1 but I know you know what I’m talking about. It’s when you hear those seven notes and then Shania Twain says Let’s go, girls. When the guitar kicks in at the beginning of Footloose. When you’re coming out of your cage and you’ve been doing just fine.2
There’s something about the song that is such a bop you can’t help but sing and dance along too it, even if it’s not what you normally listen to. Suddenly we all are Emma Stone with the card from her grandma in Easy A.
I’m not usually a play-it-on-repeat kind of gal. I need variety. I like to put playlists on shuffle and be surprised about what comes up next.3 But you know what song I can listen to on repeat?4 Because I was certainly surprised that this, of all songs, is the one I can’t stop listening to.
Your eyes are not deceiving you: this is, indeed, a clip from the 1995 Disney classic, A Goofy Movie. I know, I wasn’t expecting it either. This wasn’t even one of the movies I watched a lot as a kid. But I2I by fictional pop star Powerline is just so good?? I could listen to it every single day and get that same dance-around-the-kitchen burst of happiness. I even went so far as to dust off my GarageBand skills and turn it into a ringtone5 so I can have a surprise listen whenever my phone rings. Highly recommend making your ringtone something delightful so even spam calls can make you happy.
I did a quick search before writing this to find the video clip above and discovered that it’s no accident that this song is awesome. This great article at /Film from a few years ago talking to key players from the song’s creation taught me some fascinating things:
The team specifically set out to create music “that would come across as timeless and yet be hip and cool for the time”
The scene was choreographed and recorded and then animated to match the reference footage — you can learn the dance because it’s all humanly possible
The director “was really wanting to make a John Hughes movie in animation” which is maybe why I didn’t latch onto it as a little kid but can see why millennials love it6
The character of Powerline was inspired by pop artists like Prince, Michael Jackson, Bobby Brown, and David Bowie and was meant to be epic
The team thought, if we want this song to sound as good as Prince’s music, maybe we could get ahold of his producer. So they DID. And he AGREED. The producer of I2I literally also produced Purple Rain. They even recorded tracks at Prince’s Paisley Park studio. I mean, what? No wonder this song is so great!
And speaking of the dance, if you want some extra Powerline dopamine hits, check out this creator on TikTok who has an entire playlist of himself in costume doing the dance routine and having the best time.7
So this is your sign to go rewatch A Goofy Movie (it’s streaming on Disney+) and put I2I on a playlist so you can turn it up to 11. There’s a very good chance this track is going to end up on my Spotify Wrapped at the end of this year.8
Is there a word already? If there is or you have an idea what it should be send it my way!
UNLESS I’m listening to an album for the first time, in which case you have to listen to it all the way through in order, as the artist intended.
Did you recognize the lyric in the subheading of this post? Then you already know where this is going and are probably pretty stoked about it.
Message me if you want it, I’ll send you the file — I know it at least works on iPhones!
I also read somewhere (probably Twitter) that A Goofy Movie is to fathers and sons what Lady Bird is to mothers and daughters, do with that knowledge what you will.
I played it at least 5 times while writing this newsletter.