Songs, when the audience recognizes them, can be a particularly effective way of generating a specific atmosphere. Remember that we’ve been told what we need to know about the song by Mr. Blonde—“Ever listen to K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the 70s?”— and the deejay who introduces it as a “Dylanesque pop bubblegum favorite.” Few of us might remember the 1970s, but if we do, a certain set of associations are activated: the vapidness of the “me” generation, its superficiality, its apathy. For audience members who can recall these associations, the banality of the song is heightened and the irony produced by the unsettling mixture of the trite and the terrifying is intensified.
