The new FX show Love Story, which follows the romance of John F Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, is not a good show. It’s melodramatic yet emotionally distant, and its dialogue is sometimes laughably on the nose. But its soundtrack aims much higher. It’s full of memorable tunes from the 80s to the early aughts, like Stereolab, Fiona Apple, The Cocteau Twins, and Mazzy Star. The effect of this pairing is somewhat jarring and speaks to a larger problem with the use of popular music in movies and television shows. Why do some soundtracks work while others don’t?

The «needle drop» is a well-documented and well-loved feature of cinema. It’s when a licensed song (as opposed to an original score) plays in a film or TV show. Needle drops not only «drop,» but they also announce themselves by making a spectacle of their arrival. It’s when «Dirty Work» plays in One Battle After Another, or «Everybody Wants to Rule the World» in Marty Supreme, or «Where Have All the Flowers Gone» in Bugonia, to name a few recent Oscar-nominated examples. These moments quickly become iconic, cementing a popular song into a popular story, making both of them more popular in the process. Some needle drops can make good movies even greater. But others take you out of the story and highlight just how flat the story was to begin with.