Five of the best music moments from ‘Bill & Ted Face the Music’

In partnership with Warner Bros.

Bill & Ted films have always provided us with some most excellent music moments. Bill & Ted Face the Music, in cinemas now and which sees Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter return in the titular roles, is no different.

These brilliant music moments are five reasons alone why you should check out Bill & Ted Face the Music on the big screen.

The supergroup to save reality

So, you’re tasked with penning a song that not only unites the world, but saves the whole of reality too – yep, no pressure! You could probably do a lot worse, then, than uniting the best of music’s past – and Bill and Ted’s daughters, Billie and Thea, do exactly that in Bill & Ted Face the Music, time-travelling to form a supergroup of Jimi Hendrix, Louis Armstrong, Mozart, the legendary Chinese ‘founder of music’ Ling Lun and (fictionalised) prehistoric drummer Grom.

Their journey through time leads to some hilarious intergenerational encounters too, like a young Louis Armstrong trying to convince Jimi Hendrix that he’s who he says, and Hendrix then going on to blow the mind of Mozart with an electric guitar rendition of one of the composer’s most famed pieces.

The supergroup’s initial jams may be a bit of a mess, but it all eventually comes together. Apt for a song that’s meant to bring everyone together, their resulting tune ‘Face the Music’ has something for everyone – earworm Mozart-like piano, some flute, Hendrix guitar, triumphant Armstrong trumpet and even a very Arcade Fire-sounding mass singalong. It sounds like the perfect song to close a festival with.

Wyld Stallyns go avant-garde

‘That Which Binds Us Through Time: The Chemical, Physical and Biological Nature of Love; an Exploration of The Meaning of Meaning, Part 1’… now that’s one heck of a song title. In the film’s opening scene, as we bear witness to Ted’s younger brother Deacon’s wedding to their step-mother Missy (yes, in the intervening years Missy has now divorced both Bill and Ted’s fathers), Bill and Ted play their latest number as a wedding band to a mostly disinterested crowd.

The Wyld Stallyns dub the track “their newest sonic creation” and, of course, their latest song to “unite the world”. And what does this latest effort involve? An electro theremin, perhaps? Check. Bagpipes? Check. Throat singing? Check. All in one song? Oh, you betcha. It’s quite the wig-out.

Kid Cudi as expert quantum-physicist

U.S rapper Kid Cudi may not be a historical figure but joins the gang after being transported to outside of Bill and Ted’s house after reality becomes unglued and begins to throw people about time and space willy-nilly.

Cudi’s presence in the film is a masterstroke, as he wryly plays the role of unexpected expert in all things quantum physics and is on hand to clear up some of the finer science-y stuff to the audience when we need it the most.

Mastodon mastering the sound of time-travel

What do you envision as the sound of travelling through time and space? Maybe the Doctor Who theme? Or the opening from The Mighty Boosh? Well, in Bill & Ted Face the Music, it’s the sound of Mastodon’s razor-sharp riffs and soaring vocals, which provide a neat head-nod to the heavy metal that filled the first two albums. We don’t know about you, but to us this does kind of sound like what we’d expect to be blasting out of nowhere while we’re hurtling in a phone booth through a time vortex.

Mastodon are just one of many bands who’ve recorded new music for the Bill & Ted Face the Music soundtrack, with other greats acts including Cold War Kids, FIDLAR, Lamb of God and Big Black Delta. The soundtrack’s lead single, meanwhile, comes from Weezer, whose video blurs the lines between reality and fiction in an extremely meta way – it sees Rivers Cuomo and his band auditioning to open for Wyld Stallyns (Winter making a cameo in a brilliant Wyld Stallyns/Weezer crossover t-shirt) – itself a nod to the fun fact that Weezer’s very first gig was closing for Reeves’ band Dogstar in March 1992.

A cameo from none other than Dave Grohl

It’s only brief but the Foo Fighters frontman’s cameo in Bill & Ted Face the Music is perfect. Bill and Ted head to the future to try and steal the ‘song to save reality’ from themselves (yes, really) only to find their future selves have had an upturn in fortunes and are world famous musicians once again, with the song in question in hand.

Only, as you might expect, there’s a twist… and it involves Dave Grohl. We won’t spoil it for you, you’ll just have to see the film instead.

Bill & Ted Face the Music is in cinemas now.  Find cinema tickets here. ©ORION RELEASING LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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