Sex and the City vs The Devil Wears Prada: A Tale of Two Soundtracks

One City, Two Soundtracks, Two Very Different Results

As a white guy who legally became an adult in the 2000s – but whose emotional readiness for adulthood was delayed until…well, now – there weren’t many feminine areas of the culture I felt comfortable.

But after all-night security guard shifts in college – nights spent roaming an empty, haunted campus for 8 hours – my weekly ritual would consist of getting McDonald’s breakfast (Sausage McMuffin with Egg all day) on the way home, and plopping down in front of the next episode in my roommate’s DVD collection of Sex and the City.

My roommate was not, as you may have assumed, a white college girl, she was a big Black man named Pete Ogombe. RIP big man.

If Gombers could watch Sex and the City then I could watch Sex and the City. And it was just light enough, just entertaining enough, to watch while eating fast food after pulling an all-nighter.

The Devil Wears Prada – especially the cerulean speech, and Tucci’s Halston monologue (we all need a Nigel) – was the push through the door that opened me to re-thinking my previously close minded stances on “clothes”, or what the entire world calls, Fashion. Not so much that fashion is something to take so seriously, but that it is something you don’t have to take so seriously.

“Fashion is not about utility. An accessory is merely a piece of iconography, used to express individual identity”

–Doug, friend of Andy’s in The Devil Wears Prada

I’m also a big fan of the coming-of-age film, and The Devil Wears Prada might be the best workplace coming-of-age movie of all-time: the coming-of-age a person has in their mid-20s when their career is starting to take the place in their life that friends had previously occupied.

Andy (Hathaway): My personal life is hanging by a thread.

Nigel (Tucci): Well join the club. That’s what happens when you start doing well at work. Let me know when you’re whole life goes up in smoke. That means it’s time for a promotion

So while Devil and SatC might not seem that comparable, well, I think they are.

BECAUSE ALSO, NEW YORK CITY

Released just 2 years a part, Sex and the City (2008) and The Devil Wears Prada (2006) are the most successful, late 2000’s, based-in-New York City, bro-friendly chick flicks of all-time. What a category.

Devil makes as successful a character out of New York City as the SatC series did, and which the SatC film, failed to do.

Hell, in the opening montage of Devil we get a bigger dose of New York than at almost any point in the entirety of SatC.

There was a time in my late 20s, I’m privileged to say, where I visited New York in the summer, probably 3 summers in a row. I went again in 2019 and it reminded me of how every visit to New York feels like a completely new adventure, each time I visited friends there we would carve our way through completely disparate swaths of the city.

The Statten Island Ferry one year, the West Indian Day parade (yes, the one in Crown Heights) the next. Questlove DJing at the Brooklyn Bowl one night, Rock The Bells on Randall’s Island another. From sushi in queens to cocktail hour at the Tavern on the Green that turns into a 4am bar-close of a Thursday night in Hell’s Kitchen. I never saw the same parts of town twice.

This is all to say there are three things that hold a similar place in my 20-something wannabe-cold-but-just-really-sensitive-instead heart:

• The city of New York,
• the apprentice-on-the-rise narrative of The Devil Wears Prada,
• and Sex and the City’s glimpsing behind a door of what (it seemed to me), women “really talk about”.

SEX AND THE CITY SOUNDTRACK

Like some of the sexual politics – and almost all of Carrie’s relationship choices (AIDEN. YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE WITH AID-) – the soundtrack to the Sex and the City film has not aged well.

I grew up to Salaam Remi’s music. My life would probably literally be different if it wasn’t for his contribution to hip hop and the broader American culture. But as Executive Music Producer on the Sex and the City film, he weaves a collection of songs that are stuck in the mid-2000s. And it starts with the intro.

The film Sex and the City opens with what feels like a cheap knock-off of the tv’s highly iconic, Groove Armada-penned theme song, even though it probably cost a good amount (I have no idea) to have an orchestra perform it live for this Pfeifer Broz. version.

The faults in the SatC soundtrack are all there in that opening remix: snares on the wrong-side of 808, too thin and too loud in the mix, a vibe stationed somewhere awkwardly between hip hop and EDM but not quite either, an attempt at modern that now feels dated. The soundtracks sounds expensive like a Chrysler 300 looks like a Bentley. And in that trying and failing to seem expensive, it comes off as all the more hollow.

The Aaron Zigman score (he did The Notebook soundtrack, Jayme) is very series-Sex and the City: it’s meringue meets the whimsy of a John Williams’ lighter work (when Big throws open the doors to Carrie’s new closet), meets the rare, tasteful use of a native-inspired drum beat when the white roses fall into the New York City street, at the feet of Big’s black limousine.

For an even more tasteful use of native drums, listen to this fire ass track from a Siksika pow wow.

While “Walk This Way” (Run-DMC version) is an early win as the backdrop of Carrie’s cleaning/moving/runway/metaphoric cleaning of her closet montage, it’s an hour into the movie before we get its 3rd song with words.

In that first sixty minutes we get a classic-looking, New York Italian dinner scene between Steve and Miranda, with a well-placed seemingly-Italian song Shazaam can’t identify, strumming softly in the background.

The background music is solid in SatC (at the club for the engagement party we get two solid, modern-lounge backdrops) but the moments where the non-score music surfaces are almost all weak points.

The scene right after the tasteful Italian diner scene, we get Big surprising Carrie with…a makeout session on his patio…to the tune of a song that drunk whispers, “kisses…kisses”. Cool.

Sex and the City has always been a bit camp, but “kissess…kisses” isn’t aware of itself enough to be camp.

If it wasn’t for the very real budget concerns that I can imagine are involved in Executive Music Producing a movie soundtrack, “Real Girl” is nearly unforgivable as a song choice.

Mutya Buena takes the backing track of Lenny Kravitz’s 1991 single “It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over” and just does nothing new with it. It even seems to have thinner strings and drums than the original.

I can imagine the decisions. “We need “It Ain’t Over” but we can’t afford “It Ain’t Over'”.

I’m clearly speculating, but “It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over” is one of those perfect pop songs that if you’re going to cover, you need to fucking knock it out of the park or not try at all.

And the original “It Ain’t Over til It’s Over” could’ve actually been a better fit. Where Kravitz uses the term in reference to staying in a relationship, it would’ve been re-contextualized as Carrie’s relationship with herself after a break up, and would’ve foreshadowed the ending when we learn it really wasn’t over between Big and Carrie.

It would’ve become, for a moment in the film, about a woman on the rebound, single and strong, down but not over.

OTHER NOTES FROM THE SEX AND THE CITY SOUNDTRACK

“It’s Amazing” by Jem is a good song, and it’s fun for a 3-second tracking shot in a salon. Then the music, and the film, quickly fades into a 2008 vibe that feels like it’s from 2004.

“New York Girls” by Morningwood during a fashion week runway scene should work better than it does. It doesn’t not work. But as we know, not not working isn’t enough for fashion week.

“Love Will Keep Us Together” is used mostly in the background, but in the context of the scene it gives us some of the camp (and some of those questionable sexual politics) we’ve come to expect from SatC.

“How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” by Al Green is a winner, and its use under Steve and Miranda’s Brooklyn Bridge reunion, coupled with the earlier background music at their Italian restaurant, makes a case for their relationship as the musical, if not entire, heart of the film. They have the best arc of the movie, the best use of music, and arguably, the most New York moments of the film.

Using Jennifer Hudson’s song “All Dressed In Love” at the end brings us out of the movie for a moment, though its chorus is what we wished more of this soundtrack would be.

Since Jennifer Hudson is also Carrie’s assistant in the movie this means that in the SatC universe, Jennifer Hudson is both Carrie’s assistant and Jennifer Hudson. It’s that kind of unevenness that is just so very SatC soundtrack.

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA SOUNDTRACK

Right out of the gate The Devil Wears Prada puts us right where it wants us. In its opening montage we get more NYC than we get in the near entirety of Sex and the City.

A getting-ready-for-work-in-the-big-city montage to KT Tunstall’s “Suddenly I See” gives us shots of the city, shots of fashion (“pictures of fashion” says the straight white man), and the lyrics “she likes to leave you hanging on a wire” right as Andy (Anne Hathaway) kisses her boyfriend (Adrian Grenier) and foreshadows the troubles to come in their relationship. And the line “I feel like walking the world, like walking the world” gives me Andy-in-Paris-getting-iced-by-Meryl Streep vibes, “don’t be ridiculous…everybody wants this”.

Early on, Andy gets The Job the way people get jobs in movies: by being so not the typical person for the job that the hiring person can’t help but hire them. And in the next scene – Andy’s first day of work at the fashion magazine Runway – we hear “Vogue” by Madonna which not only fits the frenetic nature of the scene, and New York City, but Vogue is the magazine that Runway is pretending to be, the real life magazine where an internship can turn into a book can turn into a Meryl Streep film.

After Andy leaves the table where we as an audience are meant to turn on her friends (or at least I turn on them, like, “you’re really fucking with your friend’s livelihood in the most expensive city I’ve ever eaten street pizza in?”) – and while still wearing “that” black Fendi dress with plunging gold necklaces – we hear the deep bass of “Our Remains” by Bitter:Sweet as Andy now knocks on the door of the fashion industry (literally!) party. The song is perfect for the all-black-everything turn Andy is taking: dressing the part, annoyed by her friends and boyfriend who belittle the seriousness with which she is now taking her job, walking through the threshold of her new life.

Right around then we get a remixed “Crazy (James Michael Mix)” by Alanis Morisette. Not sure if the remix was cheaper, but it fits the sonic world of the film better than the original. Like in fashion, it’s the little details that set Devil’s soundtrack apart.

Moby’s “Beautiful” as Andy attends her fist gala, does what we wanted “New York Girls” to do in SatC. It gives us that paparazzi-frenetic, big crowd feel.

And while the film could’ve faltered with its only real ballad scene, “Sleep” by Azure Ray fits in with the rest of the otherwise up-tempo soundtrack.

Plinking synths over reverbed, plaintive piano hit all the moody tones of the more mysterious, boozy sides of the soundtrack – giving real emotional weight to what is otherwise a first world, upper-upper class problem: too much success at work affecting your personal life.

Not only that but we get soft yellow street light tracking shots of New York City at night. What an idea Sex and the City!

“Bittersweet Faith”, the second track by Bitter:sweet on the soundtrack, continues that boozy, I’m-an-adult-now vibe at the gallery when Christian kisses Andy on the cheek.

“Beautiful” by U2 might be the weakest song in the film, but it’s perfectly utilized in its Paris-at-night collage that leads into the best runway scene of the film. 

Everything in this soundtrack feels like Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly on the red carpet at the Fashion Week of the world: it’s the flashing bulbs of the paparazzi in Paris, the chic wardrobe Andy evolves into, the silver bob of Streep. The soundtrack always keeps one foot firmly in its sound story and one foot in the Top 40, bridging us into the otherwise unrelatable, seemingly cold world of high fashion.

I love this deleted scene by the way. If Miranda Priestly was ever going to say, “thank you” this is exactly how she would say it (because Meryl Streep is Meryl Streep, of course).

VS.

Music in a film, like props, should feel organic. You shouldn’t notice it until you absolutely need to, or when the director wants you to: until those movie moments that take your breath away. Margot stepping off the Green Line bus, David Bowie’s “Cat People” in Inglorious Basterds, using “Wipe Out” as Benny begins his run from The Beast in The Sandlot’s apex.

I want Sex and the City to New York-me. I want it to Old New York-me. Like Carrie’s disappointment in her new area code, “I want the Old New York”. Ok Carrie, ok Sex and the City, give me old New York then.

Give me Sinatra, give me The Ramone’s, give me Jay-Z. Give me classic and bombastic.

The faults in SatC‘s soundtrack highlight the faults in the film.

As much as I like the movie, it just isn’t the vibe of the show. It’s heavy where the show was mostly on the light side. It also completely misses an opportunity for the 4 leads to have like a mini, throwback vacation in NYC at a moment when they’re all suddenly single again (Harry offers to watch the kids, of course, letting Charlotte have a weekend with “the girls”).

Yes, I’m complaining as a fan about not getting what I want, but that’s the challenge of making a movie that serves as a sequel to an entire series. The way the Downton Abbey was probably too much of exactly what I wanted from it, Sex and the City‘s movie wasn’t enough of it.

There’s a point in The Devil Wears Prada where Andy’s dad visits her for dinner in the city. There’s a point in Sex and the City where Carrie insists on getting drinks with her assistant, Jennifer Hudson/Louise. 

In Devil, before we enter the restaurant, there’s an establishing shot. A 3-second tracking shot, at night, hovering over the river, 10 stories up, looking down the long avenues of Manhattan. You feel like you’re floating on the Hudson.

There is no such establishing shot in SatC in the lead-up to the drink between Carrie and Louise. There’s not even a pan around the room, an attempt to create another iconic location for the next generation of young women to get drinks at. Just…two people getting drinks at the corner of a bar.

And that’s the difference between the soundtracks: one sets a timeless tone from a timely story (a career in the paper-based magazine world seems quaint in 2021’s internet). The other is too stuck in its own head to take a moment to look, to show us, life itself in the middle of New York City.