The music from the film “The Great Gatsby” is a blend of hip-hop and jazz. Jay-Z joined Anton Monsted and Baz Lurhmann in producing the music for the movie and it has been a hit. They brought together many different talents in music such as Andre 3000, Beyoncé, Lana Del Rey, wil.i.am., and many other artists to weave together the popular music. One of the main reasons why they blended the two genres of music is because of their popularity. Jazz was very popular at the time F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote “The Great Gatsby” and hip-hop is very popular now. Jay-Z is a very well known force in hip-hop not only for his music, but for his persona as a businessman and producer as well. He incorporated some of his own songs into the movie but also helped produce the rest of it.

The mood of the music really helps set the tone of the movie. In the party scenes there is up-beat, exciting music playing that makes you want to dance and have a good time like the people in the movie are. They use “jazz vernacular” and incorporate it with the hip-hop beats to make for a very exciting party scene full of dancing. In Jay-Z’s song “100$ Bill” he wrote it “as a direct response to the scene” in the movie, so it flows perfectly.

The scenes in the movie also affect the music. If you just listen to the music, you can only get so much out of it. The movie provides a visual for how the song is meant to be felt and shows how the people are reacting in the scene. For example, the song “Young and Beautiful” by Lana Del Rey is fantastic when you listen to it, but when you listen and watch the scene, you see the connection between Daisy and Gatsby and how they feel about each other. It gives you a new feel for what the words truly mean.

The music absolutely fits in with the movie and the theme. The blend is perfect and it really controls the mood of the scenes and causes you to feel for the situations. The party scenes make you feel happy and worried about nothing but having a good time and the music incorporated with those scenes set the tone for how the party is going. The first party scene is happy and crazy, while the second one (where Daisy shows up) is meant to be darker, and that is where “Back to Black” is played to get you to feel differently about the two parties.