Copyright Screen Rant
Let's be clear, Back to the Future should never be remade. Nevertheless, the Robert Zemeckis classic is so rich in pop culture references, it's fascinating to ponder what changes would be made in a modern version. What music would Marty McFly use to terrify his father? What name would Marty adopt instead of "Calvin Klein?" What could replace Marty's makeshift skateboard in the iconic Hill Valley chase? One of the biggest changes, however, would be Marty's performance at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance. Marty rocks out to Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode," and the students dance with delight to this unfamiliar music from the future. If Back to the Future's present day was 2025, however, Marty would need another song to rock out to, and there's only one real candidate. The Only Song That Could Replace "Johnny B. Goode" If Back To The Future Was Set In 2025 Back to the Future begins in 1985, then Marty travels back 30 years to 1955. Chuck Berry released "Johnny B. Goode" in 1958, only a few years after the school dance. If Back to the Future were set in 2025, the Gen-Z Marty would time-travel to 1995, meaning the song he plays during the dance scene must come from the mid-late '90s. In order to pack the same punch as "Johnny B. Goode," the song would need to be guitar-driven, instantly recognizable, culturally significant, and unique enough to make someone backstage call their cousin to recommend a "new sound." Only one song ticks all of the above boxes, and that's "Song 2" by Blur. I can 100% imagine Marty strumming the clean intro line before hitting a distortion pedal, screaming "woo-hoo!" into the microphone, and blasting the audience with a wall of sound. Released in 1997, "Song 2" remains a guitar anthem today and is widely recognized as a defining tune of the 1990s. The song's heaviness stood apart from both Blur's usual sound and the waning grunge movement, so it's easy to picture Marvin Albarn calling his British cousin Damon to play McFly's performance down the phone. Like "Johnny B. Goode," "Song 2" is also straightforward enough to believe a professional band could pick up the basics from Marty's brief instructions alone. And as much as we can all agree that Back to the Future shouldn't get a remake, it would be hilarious to witness a hall of teenagers accustomed to Backstreet Boys and N*Sync suddenly start bouncing up and down to Marty's gain-soaked riff. What Would Marty Play To Scare Students From 1995? While "Johnny B. Goode" goes down a treat in Back to the Future, Marty McFly loses the crowd when he gets too carried away. Marty starts to incorporate music closer to his own era, copying the likes of Angus Young from AC/DC, Pete Townshend from The Who, and Jimi Hendrix. He also performs the tapping technique popularized by Eddie Van Halen before looking up to stunned silence. Marty surmises that the students aren't "ready for that yet," so which music released between 1996 and 2025 would a mid-'90s audience have a similar reaction to? Compared to the 1950s, the '90s were a far more musically diverse and less conservative time. Performing something truly shocking would be a lot harder for our 2025 Marty McFly. Rage Against the Machine's seminal first album landed in 1992, so students from 1995 would likely be unmoved by hearing nu-metal. Marty could dip into some late '00s/early '10s metal from bands like Bring Me the Horizon and Lamb of God, but without screaming vocals, the guitar parts alone would lack shock value.
