Features | Awards

The Craig Finn Award For Best Beerdrunk Anthem

By Calum Marsh | 17 December 2009

The Almighty Defenders :: “Bow Down And Die”
from The Almighty Defenders
(Vice; 2009)







This is the soundtrack to that scene in the raunchy teen comedy when the heroes, reflecting on the lessons learned over the past seventy-five minutes and soaking in the graduation afterparty as it swirls around them, notice one another across the living room, raise their red plastic beer cups in salute, and nod knowingly.

This is the soundtrack to that scene in the hipster rom-com when the quirky love interest hands the misfit male lead a set of overlarge headphones, saying confidently, “this song will change your life.”

This is the soundtrack to that scene in the romantic comedy when the lead couple, having briefly separated angrily after a surprising fight/narrative revelation/amusing misunderstanding, are shown in crossfade-heavy montage gazing out behind rain-streaked windows, thinking longingly of one another, before they inevitably reconcile.

This is the soundtrack to that scene in the party/roadtrip movie when the four male protagonists, each loaded with alcohol and one-dimensional problems which can easily be amended by the film’s conclusion, sing in unison atop a crowded bar counter, much to the delight, rather than expected chagrin, of the unreasonably attractive female bartenders.

This is the soundtrack to that scene in my life, which at times resembles mainstream cinema so closely that I have to stop and remind myself that natural occurrences don’t technically qualify as “conventions,” when I choose the perfect song to put on in the middle of a crowded house party, or when I walk home at night in the cold and feel a sort of romantic loneliness, or when my roommate Neil plays the song on repeat for hours at a time and I can hear it distinctly through the paper-thin drywall separating our respective rooms, or when I’m too drunk, and everybody close to me is too drunk, and we just need a song to fill the void left by what we’re too far gone to say aloud—this is the soundtrack to that.