ONE OF THE best things you can do in the film and television medium—and can’t really do to the same degree elsewhere—is convey multiple, clashing moods and vibes at the same time. It’s easy to create the unease around someone saying one thing, that person doing something else, and the sound around them conveying something entirely different. Netflix’s new limited series Painkiller, from director Peter Berg, takes an insider look at different levels of how the opioid epidemic came to be—and uses different pieces of music to add extra layers to almost everything we’re seeing.
The show’s general music is an almost Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross-esque bit of industrial, electronic, original music. It fits with the edgy, largely-true (the show is made up of mostly fictional composite characters that represent real people) scarier-than-horror story being told. But when the licensed music kicks in—aka, the songs you may have heard before—it tells a whole different story.
For example: one character in the show who is a real person is pharma exec Richard Sackler (played here by Matthew Broderick). Sackler is credited within the show’s very first episode as, essentially, the creator of the wildly-addictive drug OxyContin; he shows a reckless pursuit of money and a complete disregard for the possibility of the drug’s abuse. This is, by all accounts, a terrible man. But the show’s opening scene—following an older Richard—plays for humor, as we see Richard unable to silence an annoying smoke alarm in his own house. On the nose metaphor? Maybe. Tells the audience exactly how to treat Richard—with utter contempt? Yes.
Some other uses of music are more straight forward. The first episode also features “Top Yourself,” a great rock song by The Raconteurs (one of Jack White’s projects). This plays during the introduction of Glen Kryger (Taylor Kitsch), a mechanic who eventually gets injured on the job and becomes addicted to OxyContin during his long road to recovery. The Raconteurs song isn’t particularly meant to stand for any larger point or significant juxtaposition, but just to tell us that before OxyContin got in the way of this dude’s life, he had a pretty decent and laid-back living.
Those are the kinds of stories that Painkiller tells, and the music tends to land anywhere in that range—from making a point, to just being a good representative of what we’re seeing.
Below, you can find every song used in the show, sorted by episode.
Episode 1, “The One to Start With, The One to Stay With”
“Sound of Silence” — Simon & Garfunkel
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“Down in My Hometown” — The Flatlanders
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“Top Yourself” — The Raconteurs
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“Blow Your Whistle” — Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers
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“Sabotage” — Beastie Boys
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“Candy” — Iggy Pop
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Episode 2, “Jesus Gave Me Water”
“Psycho Killer” — Talking Heads
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“Who Do You Love” — George Thorogood & the Destroyers
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“Ride with the Devil” — Boz Metzdorf
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“Something’s Got a Hold on Me” — Reverend James Cleveland
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Episode 3, “Blizzard of the Century”
“Hustlin'” — Rick Ross
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“Tusk” — Fleetwood Mac
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“Thunder Kiss ’65” — Rob Zombie
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“I Want Candy” — Bow Wow Wow
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“Kickstart My Heart” — Motley Crue
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“I Put A Spell on You” — Screamin’ Jay Hawkins
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“Shimmy Shimmy Ya” — Ol’ Dirty Bastard
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“El Diferente” — Frankie Figueroa Y Su Orquesta la Madre
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“Daydream” — The Lovin’ Spoonful
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Episode 4, “I Believed?”
“Chicken Train” — The Ozark Mountain Daredevils
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“Feels So Good” — Mase
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“Hustlin'” — Rick Ross
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Episode 5, “Hot! Hot! Hot!”
“We Wish You a Merry Christmas” — The Platters
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“Stupid Girl” — Garbage
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“Groove is in the Heart” — Deee-Lite
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“Macerena” — Los Del Rio
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“Step Into the Breeze” — Spiritualized
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Episode 6, “What’s in a Name?”
“Heroin” — The Velvet Underground & Nico
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“This Gift” — Mudhoney
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“Kettering” — The Antlers
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“Sound of Silence” — Simon & Garfunkel
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Evan is the culture editor for Men’s Health, with bylines in The New York Times, MTV News, Brooklyn Magazine, and VICE. He loves weird movies, watches too much TV, and listens to music more often than he doesn’t.
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