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Bigger than the song: the glasses
Steve Stoute, then a Sony executive, made the soundtrack for the film. Sony distributed the movie, and Will Smith and his manager wanted a soundtrack to go with it. The song became a hit, and the glasses spread through popular culture because of the song and the video, which carried Smith's lyric about making them look good.
Stoute asked why the music business wasn't getting paid off those glasses, when Ray-Ban had done nothing beyond handing Smith a pair. The man who handled product placement for the glasses was trying to find him around then, looking for whatever would do the same thing next. Stoute's thought was that if a song could sell something like 14 million pairs, he could do this all the time.
That idea led to Beats headphones appearing in music videos later, which Stoute traces back to the same thought. He quit the record business to work inside an advertising agency and learn the language, the people, and the movements by doing it.
Why were 1990s film soundtracks such big sellers?
Studios paired a hit single and a music video with the film so each one advertised the other. The Bodyguard soundtrack from 1992, led by Whitney Houston's 'I Will Always Love You,' was certified 17 times platinum by the RIAA. Will Smith's 'Men in Black' won the Grammy for Best Rap Solo Performance at the 1998 ceremony.
How did Wayfarers come back after Risky Business?
Ray-Ban introduced the Wayfarer in 1952, and the style had faded by the early 1980s. After Tom Cruise wore a pair in the 1983 film Risky Business, demand rose, and Ray-Ban's owner at the time, Bausch & Lomb, pursued more film placements. The sunglasses in Men in Black were Ray-Ban's Predator 2 model.
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