As an example, look at how Captain Marvel uses the Nirvana song “Come As You Are” when the main character has a conversation in her head with The Supreme Intelligence. Unlike in Transformers: The Animated Movie, the song doesn’t coordinate with any specific action in the scene…the Supreme Intelligence just plays it on vinyl while Captain Marvel slowly walks forward. It’s mostly there because its lyrics kinda sorta match the plot, but you have to turn your brain off before you remember that our title hero disappeared from Earth in 1989 and would have no subconscious memory of this 1992 song.

Another example of an awful needle drop can be found in Army of the Dead, the zombie film Zack Snyder dropped on us before he decided to direct the two “we have Star Wars at home” Rebel Moon films. At the very end of Army of the Dead, “Zombie” by The Cranberries plays, but it doesn’t tie to any onscreen action.

It’s just used as a somber-sounding song with the word “zombie’ in it as we see what Omari Hardwick’s character is doing at the end of the film. The use of this song is that much more egregious when you consider that it was written as a song protesting war and otherwise has nothing to do with the walking dead.