Ten bands Ferris Beuller is a fan of, based on the items seen on the walls of his room and songs heard playing on his radio:
- Roxy Music
- The Damned
- Killing Joke
- Cabaret Voltaire
- Big Audio Dynamite
- Sigue Sigue Sputnik
- Zapp
- Simple Minds
- The Smiths
- Flesh for Lulu
I will never tire of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I've seen it dozens of times, most recently Friday night. My original thought here was that I could identify ten bands from the posters and photographs seen on the walls of Ferris's room, but I could only get up to seven based on that. I blame myself; if I'd listened to more new wave music when I was in high school, I probably could have done it. Having failed, i turned to the diegetic soundtrack. What is diegetic music? Simply put, it's the music heard by the characters in the movie. In Ferris Bueller, "Danke Shön" and "Twist and Shout" are diegetic; "Oh Yeah" and "March of the Swivelheads" are not. The bands listed fifth, sixth, and seventh on this list are heard diegetically; Sigue Sigue Sputnick is heard playing on Ferris's stereo in his room; Big Audio Dynamite and Zapp are heard on the car radio. (And let me say as someone who was in high school in the Chicago suburbs at the same time Ferris was, I cannot possibly imagine what radio station he would have heard either of those bands on. Then again, see the second sentence of this paragraph.)
Speaking of Ferris Bueller's Day Off and music, here's something you may not have known. Behold the following album cover:
Who's that on the cover, you ask? Why, it's Polly Noonan, who had a small but memorable role in Ferris Bueller's Day Off; she appears at the very end as the girl on the bus who offers a gummi bear to Ed Rooney. I don't know exactly what connection she has to The Lemonheads, but in addition to appearing on the cover to It's a Shame about Ray, she can be heard on their previous album, Lovey.
