ChordStrike

Music On TV

  Artists and record labels have been using TV to promote their music for quite a while now. Most of the time,  I don't pay much attention.

I didn't even know TV shows had soundtracks until I saw my first episode of Scrubs. It was an episode in which Colin Hay (Men At Work) followed J.D. (Zach Braff) around and while playing a great acoustic version of Overkill. I immediately went out and looked for the song and found the soundtrack to Scrubs. Which is fantastic.

Then I found Rescue Me and went bananas over the quality of music on the soundtrack and the brilliant music selection. I quickly bought that one and wish they would release a second one. Those are the only two TV soundtracks I have ever bought and I thought it would stay that way.
 

But recently I think the quality of the music on TV has been stepped up. The shows are reaching deeper into all music genres and featuring songs by lesser known, but stellar artists that I love. 
I was totally surprised to hear The National's Fake Empire featured on Southland (great new cop show). That song placement actually contributed to my decision to add the show to my DVR schedule.

You could have knocked me over with a feather when I discovered even cheesy reality shows joined the 'good music' on TV category. I saw an American Idol Ford Video featuring the contestants covering  Lykke Li's, "I'm Good I'm Gone." Her CD Youth Novels is one of my favorites right now. And on the CW's addictive show, Privileged, they featured the great Jenny-Owen Youngs, song F*** Was I.

I find that I'm listening more and more to underlying musical sequences for songs or artists that I would like to buy. Has this stuff been here all along? Have you ever bought a CD or a song after hearing it on a TV show?

P.S. - Just for fun - here's Colin Haye on Scrubs. Love it!

Repeat Offender - Songs I Never Get Sick Of

When I was a kid I would play my favorite songs over and over again.  I had to know all the lyrics perfectly due to the ridicule I would receive in carpool if I didn’t know every song on the radio. I recall Mediate by INXS to be the most complicated task of my youth.
I played songs I liked back-to-back repeatedly every day. My sister hates The Beatles because of me.
Eventually, I would get sick of the song and it went on “hiatus.” I compare song hiatus to the period between a movie’s theatrical release and its DVD release. Once the song was out of ear-range for long enough, I could add it back into my regularly scheduled listening activities.
But it was never the same. That song would always be slightly annoying and not get as much play-time as the latest obsession.
On the rarest of occasions, however, a song comes along that I never get sick of. Every time it comes on the radio, I listen to it – when it pops up on my iPod, I never skip it. I still love it almost as much as I did when I first heard it.
This is a bit embarrassing, but here are my top 3 – and clearly, they have no base in genre or artist! 

  Freedom ’90, George Michael ,– I love, love, love this song.  Even writing about it, I have had to find it on my IPod so I could listen and type. I am not even a giant George Michael fan. The lyrics are honest and I love that. “There’s something deep inside of me – there’s someone I forgot to be…." I feel like he decided to tell his fans who he really was and that the ‘leather jacket’ era was over.  And the video was AWSOME too. It featured a bunch of models lip synching the lyrics, and him burning the jacket that made him so famous in the Faith video. I just can’t get enough.

Into the Mystic, Van Morrison –– this song relaxes me like no other. It makes me feel like everything in the world just might be okay, and I have nothing to be afraid of: When it's over, it's over. Half the time, I don’t have a clue what the man is saying. Even in the first 3 seconds of the song – “We were born before the wind, also younger than the sun, and blah blah blah blah boat was blah, as we sail into the mystic?”  No, I have never looked up the lyrics.  I am sure someone will tell me and put me out of my misery.  I listen to it almost every night before I go to bed, and it always sends me off into a peaceful and relaxed sleep.

Teenage Dirtbag  by Wheatus, which replaced Canary in a Coalmine by The Police (because you can’t live in the past.) I love songs that have a great story. I never listened to Iron Maiden, but this song is good enough to make me want to give it a try. Who doesn’t love it when the dorky, nice guy gets the girl instead of the IROC driving, gun-toting boyfriend? (if that sentence makes no sense to you, go listen to the song.)

Am I the only one that does this? What songs do you never get sick of? Discuss.