Smallville was an iconic show for a number of reasons. Not only did it launch the Arrowverse and gave us some of the best depictions of classic DC characters, but Smallville‘s soundtrack was also the stuff of legend. Over the course of the show’s ten years, the series’ music supervisors, Madonna Wade-Reed and Jen Pyken, crafted Smallville‘s many memorable music moments that still have fans associating certain songs inextricably with the series. What made Smallville so successful from a music standpoint was Wade-Reed and Pyken’s ability to find songs that were either popular or about to pop at the time, and then meaningfully tie them in with emotionally resonant moments on the show. And they never got better than these 10 most definitive needledrops on Smallville.
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10) “Pain” by Jimmy Eat World
Smallville certainly had some awesome fight scenes, but this one in Season 4, episode “Transference” stands out. Clark Kent (Tom Welling) and an incarcerated Lionel Luthor (John Glover) have swapped bodies. In this scene, which also happens to take place during a prison riot, Clark and Lionel switch back. “Pain”, by millennial favorite indie rock band Jimmy Eat World, perfectly underscores the chaos of the sequence and the culmination of the episode where Clark gets his body back.
9) “The Scientist” by Coldplay
Season 2, Episode 17 “Rosetta” on Smallville was a landmark episode, marking Christopher Reeve’s first appearance on the show. Decades after offering the definitive screen version of Superman, Reeve joined the Smallville cast as Dr. Virgil Swann, a billionaire astronomer and satellite communication magnate. Dr. Swann is the one who unlocks the secrets for Clark about his home planet Krypton and gives him a vital window into his destiny.
How does this relate to Clark and Lana Lang (Kristin Kreuk) chatting in a coffee shop? Having Coldplay’s “The Scientist” play in the background of the scene is one of the best examples of Smallville using music to subconsciously set the tone for the episode beyond dialogue and action. “Rosetta” revolves around Clark meeting a scientist who changes his life forever, and using the Coldplay song helps to keep that thematic through-line running without pulling focus in the scene. Furthermore, it’s also a showcase of music supervisor Wade-Reed’s keen eye for emerging musical trends. On the episode’s DVD commentary, Welling himself remarked that she featured “The Scientist”, which went on to go platinum in 9 countries, just as it was climbing the charts.
8) “A Little Less Conversation (JXL Remix)” by Elvis Presley, Junkie XL
Fans remember the Season 2 episode “Heat” as the episode when Clark’s teenage “urges” led to the development of his heat vision. To match Smallville‘s re-imagined version of a young Superman, the episode paired a re-imagined version of Elvis Presley’s hit “A Little Less Conversation” with the scene where Jonathan Kent (John Schneider) helps Clark get a handle on his newfound ability.
The use of Junkie XL’s remix here, which soared to number one on charts around the world in 2002, is yet another shining examples of Smallville’s music supervisors putting hit songs in the show. It also helps establish the episode’s midpoint and tonal shift. Up until this scene in “Heat”, Clark had been confused and afraid of his new power. “A Little Less Conversation” helps the viewer track the emotional shift into him embracing his heat vision, all while tastefully and suggestively alluding to the “little more action” that brought about this new superpower.
7) “Sober” by Kelly Clarkson
No show could put together an end-of-episode montage like Smallville. The use of Kelly Clarkson’s “Sober” is one of the series’s very best in the Season 7 premiere “Bizarro”. The song functions as a great unifier for all the characters’ emotional state at the end of the explosive season opener. We see Clark profoundly changed after Lana’s supposed death, Chloe Sullivan (Allison Mack) burns her death certificate after literally coming back from the dead, Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum) turns himself in for Lana’s murder, only to reveal in the scene that Lana is alive and in disguise in Shanghai. Lastly we get a powerful moment with new addition Kara (Laura Vandervoort), or Supergirl, flying off into the night.
“Sober” and Clarkson’s powerful vocals work so well in the montage because it subtly acknowledges the three month hiatus the viewers have had since we saw these characters last, as well as highlights that even though each person depicted has been through their respective ringer, they’re all resolved in tackling whatever comes next.
6) “You Could Be Happy” by Snow Patrol
Smallville could also nail an episode-opening montage, like the one that uses British indie rockers Snow Patrol’s “You Could Be Happy” to kick off the Season 6 episode “Promise”. Chronicling the official start of Lex and Lana’s brief and tumultuous marriage, the episode starts by giving the audience a moment to orient themselves before a fraught eighteen or so hours until the couple says “I do.” As “You Could Be Happy” plays, we see glimpses and of a happy, anticipatory Lex and Lana, as well as a heartbroken, resigned Clark. The song suits Clark’s state of mind around Lana getting married so well, one could mistake it as being written for the show.
5) “Let Me Go” by 3 Doors Down
This scene from Season 4, Episode 19 “Blank” is a fan favorite. In addition to the fact “Let Me Go” was climbing the charts at the time, the song was also a perfect lyrical tie-in to an episode about Clark losing his memory. Having the 3 Doors Down hit play while an amnesiac Clark and a torn Lana discuss their former relationship and complicated past did a wonderful job of adding to the scene’s subtext and amping up the characters’ yearning. Chloe catching the end of their conservation and declaring “Looks like the heart remembers more than the brain” only makes the moment more devastating and gives an additional dimension to the song’s plea to “let me go.”
4) “My Happy Ending” by Avril Lavigne
Clark and Lana weren’t the only tragic love story in Smallville. The majority of the show saw Chloe pining for, and almost always friend-zoned by, Clark. Never was that brought into sharper and more heart-wrenching relief than in the Season 4 episode “Facade”. “My Happy Ending” by Avril Lavigne was already the anthem of angsty, lovelorn teen girls everywhere in 2004, and using it during the moment when Chloe first notices the chemistry between Clark and Lois was a masterstroke. Plus, given that we all know Clark and Lois are destined to be together, the song was a perfect externalization for the resentment and sinking heartbreak Chloe feels.
3) “Collide” by Dishwalla
The Season 5 episode “Hidden” is remembered as one of the series’s best. A powerless Clark is shot and killed by a deranged peer Gabriel Duncan (Johnny Lewis). Jor-El (voiced by Terrance Stamp) to brings his son back to life and restories his superhuman abilities so that Clark can stop the nuke Gabriel has aimed at Smallville. Clark saves his hometown for nuclear decimation, and then has a cathartic reunion both with his parents and Lana, his girlfriend at the time.
Dishwalla was used as part of Smallville‘s soundtrack quite a few times throughout the series, but “Collide” stands out as it seems to both capture and elevate Lana’s shock and relief at seeing that Clark is in fact alive. The song’s lyrics also provide us with a peek into Clark’s anguish and mixed feelings at the end of “Hidden”. Of course he’s happy to be alive and that he saved his loved ones, but his de-powered average Joe bliss is over. Now that he has his abilities again, he will have to start keeping secrets from the woman he loves once more.
2) “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” by Five for Fighting
Both Smallville and the Five for Fighting hit “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” debuted in 2001, and therefore, a lot of fans hoped the song would make an appearance in the series. While using a self-referential song about Superman could’ve come off as on-the-nose, Smallville made it work by featuring the Grammy-nominated song in the first season’s most tender and moving episode, “Stray”. In it, Clark and the Kents take in Ryan James (Ryan Kelley) a young boy with the ability to read minds being abused by his step-parents.
The Five for Fighting ballad plays while Ryan and the Kents share a fond, poignant goodbye as Ryan is now going to live with his aunt. The scene both gave the fans what they wanted with the inclusion of the song, but also provided the perfect subtext for the moment where Ryan tempts Clark with the knowledge of Lana’s true feelings and cautions him about Lex. Clark, in true Superman fashion, refuses the insight into Lana, opting to “find out on my own”. He also doesn’t heed Ryan’s warning about Lex either, choosing to see the best in others. Using “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” here becomes stellar foreshadowing as to what Clark’s relationships with both Lex and Lana will evolve into, as well as hints at the hero he is destined to be too.
1) “Everything” by Lifehouse
Lifehouse’s “Everything” closes the pilot episode of Smallville where Clark imagines a slow dance with Lana in his loft. “Everything” was integral to shaping the tone of the series and providing a window into Clark’s teenage yearning that we’d never seen before on screen. Sure, we’d gotten glimpses from Christopher Reeve’s Superman films and Dean Cain’s portrayal of the character in Lois & Clark, but never had a young Clark been explored so thoroughly and so relatably until Smallville. The song, paired with the final scene of the episode, alchemized into a moment that was pure TV magic, and made us all fall in love with the show when it premiered in October of 2001.
In addition to “Everything” setting the bar for Smallville’s soundtrack, it became so iconic that it led to Lifehouse guest-starring on the show years later. The band played at the Smallville High Prom in Season 4, which led to another memorable musical moment that almost made this list — Lana and Clark slow dancing to their hit “You and Me”.
Smallville is currently streaming on Hulu. Did we forget one of your favorite needledrops on the show? Let us know in the comments!
