The art of the "Under Pressure" needle drop

The first episode of Based On A True Story has its charms (their names are Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina), but the show ultimately won’t survive comparisons to Only Murders In The Building, another series in which people make a podcast about some local slayings. The pilot takes a big swing to differentiate itself in the final moments of the episode, set to that classic Queen/Bowie needle drop. But it is nigh impossible to earn “Under Pressure” in episode one. Sure, Ava and Nathan are under a little bit of pressure (kinda-sorta poor, pregnant, experiencing marital issues), but not enough pressure, at this stage, to deserve “Under Pressure.” The song is a crescendo moment, one that should come after the protagonists have been on a journey, not when they’re at the beginning of one. Based On A True Story tries to get the audience on board by fast forwarding to an “Under Pressure” moment, but it’s a major misstep. [Mary Kate Carr]

The Magicians earns its “Under Pressure” moment by being fun and not taking itself seriously at all. The characters are indeed under pressure, but have you ever heard of a sillier way to deal with pressure than casting a little spell so all your classmates in various different dimensions have to sing along with you? It’s less about the pressure, and more about “watching some good friends screaming let me out.” Quentin (Jason Ralph) and his pals are all in different versions of peril, and by a wacky set of circumstances, this musical moment is what brings them all together. At this point in the series, we’ve come to care about this ragtag group of magicians, and it somehow makes perfect sense within the context of this show that singing Queen and Bowie would save the day. It’s even riskier to do “Under Pressure” as not just a needle drop, but a performance, especially with actors who aren’t all singers. Yet the joy and sincerity of the situation makes up for any of its imperfections. There’s a reason this moment is so beloved within the niche community of Magicians fans. [Mary Kate Carr]

When it comes to needle drops, it’s easy to associate The Americans with “With Or Without You,” and I sure have in the past. But the show nailed its song choices for its era, especially its use of “Under Pressure.” (Insert obvious joke about how Philip and Elizabeth were constantly, um, under pressure as Russian spies living in the U.S.). The song breaks out during season four’s “Clark’s Place,” an episode that continues to build the astounding arc around the couple’s efforts to stop the FBI from finding out about his treachery towards Martha.

“Under Pressure” plays at a pivotal moment, neatly encapsulating each character’s anxieties. Philip and Elizabeth succumb to it by fucking, Martha (Phil’s “wife” while he pretends to be Clark for her) lies alone in the dark, and Stan is trapped between both parties but is only on the periphery of the truth. It really is the terror of knowing what the world is about that’s haunting all of them. [Saloni Gajjar]

The official position of this list is that you can’t earn “Under Pressure” in the first episode, but Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip really wants you to believe they earned it. And hell, seeing it in hindsight, they very nearly do. Even now the pilot simmers with potential, chock full of famous faces, a winning concept, and a powerful, prescient showrunner at the wheel. (“People are having contests to see how much they can be like Donald Trump?” is one of the throwaway lines in the classic Aaron Sorkin rant, delivered by Judd Hirsch’s Wes Mendell, that feels like a conk on the head now.) When Jordan (Amanda Peet) hands Matt (Matthew Perry) his controversial anti-Christian comedy sketch and says “Open with it next week,” strutting away as the “Under Pressure” needle drops, it’s tempting to hand them the win. But you do not, under any circumstances, gotta hand it to Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. Ending the pilot episode with “Under Pressure” is the same flavor of hubris that ended up sending the series right off the rails. The anti-pilot “Pressure” ruling stands. [Mary Kate Carr]

Sex Education thrives when it focuses on underrated characters like, say, Tanya Reynolds’ quirky, lovable erotica writer Lily. Unafraid to own her personality, she’s always been one of the show’s most interesting characters. So it feels earned that she gets the coveted “Under Pressure” needle drop. “I like writing stories,” a young Lily tells her mother in season three’s sixth episode. She’s quickly put in place by the response: “Maybe keep ‘em’ to yourself.” Cue the lyrics to “Under Pressure” because what else summarizes this teen girl’s crisis: Her parents and teachers won’t allow her to explore her curiosity, sexuality, and creativity. Let her grow up at her own pace and in her own way, people. [Saloni Gajjar]

I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry was already enough of an offense to good taste without dragging Queen and David Bowie through the mud. It’s 2007, and Adam Sandler and Kevin James play two buddies who get gay married to commit fraud. Except then they obviously get investigated for fraud, so Chuck and Larry have to double down on their gayness, which is funny because they’re straight and it’s 2007. They become accidental queer icons, which in the world of this movie somehow translates to the queer icon needle drop “Under Pressure.” This song plays while the married “couple” walk in the pride parade and then approach the courthouse where they are meant to defend their fraudulent gay marriage. Chuck and Larry are under pressure alright, under pressure from their own terrible decision-making, and these jagoffs deserve whatever’s coming to them. Did you know a Chicago politician actually cited this film as a reason he was hesitant to support strengthening LGBTQ+ protections in the year 2020? Chuck And Larry not only doesn’t earn “Under Pressure,” it is a true blemish on the name of “Under Pressure” needle drops everywhere. [Mary Kate Carr]

The team at Payne Motors has never felt more constrained than in the season one finale of NBC’s gone-too-soon sitcom American Auto. CEO Katherine Hastings, played by a pitch-perfect Ana Gasteyer, has to face scrutiny from the public and media about the car company’s multiple issues. How will a ragtag team save this multimillion-dollar automobile business? Don’t worry, they somehow accomplish it in “Profile” and celebrate by sitting in the conference room as “Under Pressure” plays. Is this rock song suited for the claustrophobic office setting over something like Grosse Point Blank or The Americans? You might think not, but can you think of anything that succinctly describes corporate shenanigans more than “Chippin’ around, kick my brains around the floor / There are the days it never rains but it pours.” [Saloni Gajjar]

Smash, you madman. By its final hour, the series had completely fallen off the rails and had no interest in getting back on them. Case in point: a whole cast rendition of “Under Pressure,” one which really should sound a lot better than it does, considering the Broadway pedigree of (most of) these singers. The performance should also feel a heck of a lot more earned, since the Tony Awards are imminent, and these are theater people. Instead, the entire enterprise is unrooted from reality. For Smash, that was a good thing. But for “Under Pressure,” we could do without this performance. [Drew Gillis]

John Cusack’s Peak Cusack Era passion projects, both of which he co-wrote and produced, each center on Midwestern dudes journeying through the past and feature some pretty killer needle drops to help tell those stories. I’m partial to High Fidelity—which, like Grosse Pointe Blank, he wrote with D.V. DeVincentis and Steve Pink—as it’s, you know, the best Chicago movie ever and has the better soundtrack. (Also, Fidelity’s cranky record-store owner feels … more relatable than Grosse’s hitman?) But that’s no slight on the 1997 film, which boasts a score by Joe Strummer and ’80s cuts by the likes of the Jam, Violent Femmes, and Siouxsie and the Banshees. The comedy also, of course, throws in the very appropriate “Under Pressure,” which swells as Cusack’s assassin, while at his high school reunion, comes face to face with a former classmate’s baby—and the idea of family and adulthood. [Tim Lowery]

Much like another primetime medical television series, Scrubs became well known for its needle drops over the course of its nine seasons. In the second season, Scrubs still had a lot of its best musical moments ahead of it (including and especially an original musical episode), but the deployment of “Under Pressure” here does not disappoint. In the second season, the doctors are still young and figuring out how to keep their heads above water. Elliot (Sara Chalke) faces being sued by a patient, while J.D. (Zach Braff) learns a difficult lesson about the role that luck plays in diagnoses that knocks him down a few pegs. There is perhaps no more pressurized environment, nor a profession in which one regularly encounters “the terror of knowing what this world is about” than working in a hospital. Scrubs didn’t shy from the terror, but it leaned into the joy, too, which is crucial to unlocking “Under Pressure.” This website previously called the song choice “unimpeachable,” so we’ll let the ruling stand. [Mary Kate Carr]

Frankly, Happy Feet Two didn’t do enough to earn its own existence, let alone an “Under Pressure” needle drop. It’s clear what the filmmakers were thinking: Pink joined the cast for the sequel (replacing Brittany Murphy after her untimely death), and it makes sense given her powerhouse vocal that they would just want to let her wail. Wail she does, amid a very literal interpretation of the lyrics. Most of the penguins are trapped in a pit (“splits a family in two”) unable to fend for themselves (“the terror of knowing what this world’s about”) and the rest of the creatures have to apply pressure via rhythmic movements in order to free them from their icy prison. Glad the penguins and pals were able to once again solve their problems through music and dance, but “Under Pressure” is better than this. [Mary Kate Carr]

In Aftersun, “Under Pressure” comes at the climax, a whole-body-chilling moment. As 11-year-old Sophie and her father Calum end their vacation in Turkey, reality melts away, and the adult Sophie tries to find Calum in a surreal nightclub setting. It’s unclear whether she’s trying to fight him or embrace him; the complicated, contradictory feelings she has toward him are the point. The drama of “Under Pressure” scores this scene fairly literally. The song is about a painful iteration of love, and after living with this small family for almost 90 minutes, the theatrics are totally earned. [Drew Gillis]

The true test of whether a film earns its “Under Pressure” bona fides is whether the character in question is really about to pop—and few film characters end their movies closer to contracting the emotional bends than Lance Clayton, Robin Williams’ character in Bobcat Goldthwait’s excellent, pitch-black 2009 comedy World’s Greatest Dad. Lance’s life sucked before his aggressively awful son Kyle (Daryl Sabara) accidentally died while performing auto-erotic asphyxiation, but the PSI only increases as a small lie meant to confer his kid a bit of posthumous dignity snowballs into a massive, life-altering fiction. The moment Lance finally embraces the truth, telling a crowd who’ve become fixated on Kyle as a sort of blank slate to project their own hurts on that his son was just an average douchebag, is the moment that irresistible bass line kicks in—and keeps going, as Goldthwait uses the full four minutes of the track to highlight Lance’s sudden freedom, the camera locking on to Williams’ face as he processes joy and grief in simultaneous moments, while Freddie Mercury scat-sings him toward catharsis. [William Hughes]

Everything in Valerie Cherish’s (Lisa Kudrow) world happens at a 10. In her head, “Under Pressure” is probably playing on a near-constant loop, whether she’s learning her character has changed from a cool co-ed to Aunt Sassy or chasing her tweenage daughter off her lawn. But in the series’ second season, those of us watching at home hear it too. The scenario? Valerie, playing a fictionalized version of herself, has to pretend to perform fellatio on Seth Rogen, who is playing the fictionalized version of her former tormentor Pauly D, in a dream sequence. Valerie doesn’t actually want to pantomime the act, so she simply squats on Seth’s lap while they film his face reacting. The whole thing is appropriately bizarre and hysterical, so we’ll grant this an “earned”—nothing is ever as deep as Valerie thinks it is, but she believes in the depth with such conviction, you have to hand it to her. [Drew Gillis]