The Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse Soundtrack Just Made Music History
The 2018 film "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse," directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman, was a boldly stylistic and striking foray into the flagging superhero genre, and featured a wild multi-dimensional story that brought multiple Spider-People (and a Spider-Pig) together from various threads in Marvel Comics canon. The main character was Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), although audiences also met a few versions of the original Spider-Man Peter Parker as well. Critics and audiences loved "Into the Spider-Verse," and the film would go on to win an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
The 2023 sequel, "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" resembled "The Matrix Reloaded" in many ways. It was twice as visually dazzling, and it was more narratively ambitious ... and it was only half of a movie. For being so much bigger, "Across" is ultimately the lesser movie. We'll have to wait to see if "Across the Spider-Verse" is good after we see "Beyond the Spider-Verse," currently in production.
"Into the Spider-Verse" was also notable for its soundtrack, a double-platinum-certified album that featured tracks by Blackway and Black Caviar, Nicki Minaj and Anuel AA featuring Bantu, Lil Wayne and Ty Dolla $ign featuring XXXTentacion, and Jaden Smith. The biggest hit on the album was "Sunflower" performed by Post Malone and Swae Lee. "Sunflower" was also eventually included on Post Malone's 2019 album "Hollywood's Bleeding."
According to the RIAA's website, as of February 8th, 2024, "Sunflower" has become the very first pop single in the RIAA's history to be certified Double Diamond. That means it has been streamed or downloaded over 20 million times. Leave it to Marvel movies to continue to break records.
Double Diamond
It's worth noting that Post Malone has already reached multiple impressive milestones in his career. Earlier this year, he became the artist with the most RIAA-certified singles ever, with 17. Post Malone's fifth studio album, "Austin," debuted at #2 in the summer of 2023, which was also his fifth album to debut in the top 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. "Sunflower" is the fourth highest-selling single of the 2010s. Weirdly, the song, as a single, only ever charted as high as #20 on the Billboard charts. Post Malone has been nominated for 10 Grammys, with two of those nominations being for "Sunflower."
Swae Lee was nominated for Grammys for writing Beyoncé's "Formation," and for writing Travis Scott's "Sicko Mode." He is also a respected solo artist in his own right, having released "Swaecation" in 2018.
The "Sunflower" music video was uploaded to YouTube five years ago and has accrued over 2.3 billion (with a B) views.
The song is weirdly downbeat for a superhero movie, but it certainly taps into the emotional, echoey longing that suffuses many of the biggest pop hits of the '10s. "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" isn't a film about longing or love, but "Sunflower" punctuated Miles Morales' taste. In the film, Miles listened to it on his headphones while working on his artwork in his bedroom. Comedically, Miles didn't quite know the lyrics, but was keen to hit Post Malone's high notes. The music then bled into his ordinary life as he prepared to go to school. The song then fades into "Familia" by Anuel AA.
"Spider-Verse" was a huge hit, and now — like so many films in the 1990s — the soundtrack has become even larger. Marvel, although contracting, isn't quite done with the record books.