I've never been that hip about music. I was the kid who grew up in Kingston and didn't know who the
Tragically Hip were when I started high school (the
Tragically Hip are Kingstonians like me). I used to only find out about a hip, cool or ground-breaking musician/band if one of my friends clued me in. But now I can actually pretend that I'm tuned into the music scene, all thanks to television.
I recall the days when it seemed like only
Dawson's Creek would prominently use songs in montage sequences but now it's become commonplace. Television is now one of the key advertising venues for new albums or singles, and it's getting way less subtle than previously (which is impressive because
Dawson's Creek had many good qualities but subtlety was never one of them). Did you enjoy the song you just heard in this week's episode of
The O.C. or
Smallville? Wait until the episode's over and we'll tell you the artist, album name and suggest that you buy the album on our website.
Sure it's starting to feel that television episodes are just advertisements for new albums or singles, and that we don't need well-written conclusions if we end with a music montage, but there's also some positives. A lot of cool music is reaching a wider audience. So even though major artists like
REM (who I like, don't get me wrong) practically sponsored an episode of
Smallville, the increased focus on music means that smaller artists and bands are also getting noticed by viewers.
Here's some musicians I've been introduced because of television (keeping in mind that I'm really really out of it about music):
-
Franz Ferdinand: So technically I'm already a fan of
Franz Ferdinand because I own and love their self-titled debut. However, I kept hearing this awesome song on television shows and was dying to know the song title and artist's name. After fruitless searching on the internet, I had a brainwave and realized the addictive song I'd heard in the first few minutes of the
Threshold premiere and in the promos for
Everwood is the new
Franz Ferdinand single "Do You Want To." As a result of the song's connection to both tv shows, I now am excited about buying the new album this Tuesday (October 4th!!!).
-
Death Cab for Cutie: Sure Seth Cohen's coolness has faded as the seasons of
The O.C. pass, but
Death Cab is blossoming. I didn't think it could be possible but I actually like
Plans more than
Transatlanticism. Also I noticed that
Death Cab has been high on the charts which means that they're reaping the rewards of their television exposure.
-
Postal Service: Okay, I actually had been loving
Postal Service before hearing "Such Great Heights" on
Veronica Mars, but it was only after seeing it on
VM that I bought the album.
-
Avril Lavigne: Now even I had heard of Avril Lavigne, but hearing her song "Take Me Away" on
Joan of Arcadia made me a fan. I loved "Take Me Away" so much that I searched the internet to find out who the artist was, and was taken aback that it was Avril Lavigne (I'd been avoiding Avril because I wasn't impressed by her pseudo Punk thing). I now own the album that "Take Me Away" is on and enjoy quite a few other songs.
-
Kim Richey - I bought the
Angel soundtrack CD mostly because of her beautiful song "A Place Called Home" (the other reason for the purchase was motivated by my Buffy/Angel verse fandom). This is a good example of excellent use of a song montage to end an episode because the song perfectly evokes the character's grief and the solitary state of the characters on the show: "Someday I'll go where there ain't no rain or snow. Dream of a place called home." I don't think that this lyric is played in the episode ("Shells"), but it also perfectly describes the journeys of all the characters, including Fred: "I'd rather walk a winding road, rather know the things I know, see the world with my eyes, no regrets, no looking back, no good-byes." The reason this song worked (other than that it's an awesome song) is that it wasn't a gimmicky montage (yes I'm talking to you
One Tree Hill,
The O.C. and
Smallville), rather it perfectly fits into the episode.
-
The Dandy Warhols - Thanks to
Buffy and
VM I not only know who this cool band is - it was awesome to understand why my film prof talked about
The Dandy Warhols in his lecture on postmodernism - but I also enjoy them.
-
Modest Mouse - Another indie band that's been working for years and is finally getting noticed thanks in part to exposure on shows like
The O.C. "Float On" always makes me feel better if I'm down about the state of the world.
-
Damien Rice - My discovery of
Damien Rice was a serendipitous television event. I initially mistook "Delicate" for
Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah" that was played in the season finale of
The O.C. Season One (please remember that I am really really unhip about music), so decided to check out Rice's whole album. I then realized that I'd heard him on
Joan of Arcadia and as I sorted out my confusion I became a huge fan of
Damien Rice.
As much as I also really love
Jeff Buckley's cover of
Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" (see I now am more knowledgeable about the song), the song is becoming a cliche. It was used in the ending montage of
House's 2nd season premiere (lessening an otherwise excellent episode), and it isn't even the 2nd time "Hallelujah" has been used in the final montage of an episode. According to Daniel Fienberg at
Zap2it.com:
"The effect [of "Hallelujah" playing on
House's premiere] was probably similar to when
Buckley's cover of
Cohen's "Hallelujah" was used for heartbreaking closing montages on
The West Wing, Without a Trace and
The O.C. all within the past couple years. The song pops up again for the same purpose in the new movie
Lord of War. ...
Buckley's recording of the song is the perfect showcase for the late singer's fragile voice and it's made all the more haunting by his premature demise, but seriously, this abuse has got to stop. Playing "Hallelujah" has become the equivalent of showing a dead kitty cat. Need some gratuitous tears? Cue up the
Buckley. Why bother working for it when you can let the soundtrack do the work. ... Forget about saving Katie Holmes. Save
Jeff Buckley."
This very similar observation was also made by Dalton Ross in the September 23/05 issue of Entertainment Weekly, who additionally observes that
Lost, Six Feet Under and
Resucue Me have also succumbed to music montage. Ross suggests that "Keep this cliche up, and viewers may start creating their own montages - by channel surfing."
Sure television columnists - like Feinberg and Ross - and people obsessed with tv - like me - have noticed the music montage cliche and over-dominance of music on television shows recently, but have most other viewers? Do the people who tune into a few shows a week get upset that there's often music montages or that only
Beck's music is played during an episode of
The O.C.? Do they care about the extended/gratuitous
U2 concert on
Entourage? Perhaps, like me, people are pleased that they're also getting some exposure to music in an interesting way (instead of mindlessly watching music videos for hours on end, not that I've ever done that, ahem) and maybe discovering some cool new musician or band that'll become their new favourite. For example, I think it's neat that
Saigon, an up and coming hip hop artist who's about to release his first album, is being showcased on
Entourage as an up and coming hip hop artist.
So if I start hearing
Arcade Fire or
Stars on television shows (I think that a
Stars' song may already be in a commercial), I'm going to be excited that excellent Canadian indie bands are getting more exposure. Hey, Canada's already getting name dropped by
Green Day (they mention Toronto in "She's a Rebel") and
Death Cab (Calgary's mentioned in "I Will Follow You Into the Dark"), so let's also get more play for the numerous excellent musicians of Canada! As a friend pointed out about
Death Cab's popularity, they've worked really hard so it's nice that it's paying off and they're getting recognized. Let's hope that the increasingly spotlight on songs on television pays off for more deserving artists.
So I say, bring on the music montage, bring on the purchasing plugs at the end of episodes if it keeps introducing excellent and hard-working artists to a wider audience. Of course, that doesn't mean that every episode has to end in a cliched music montage, I also want to keep getting well-written episode endings, like on
Gilmore Girls, that rely on good writing to create an effective and compelling conclusion. .... Now please imagine that a heart-warming yet intelligent song is playing to conclude my entry.
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savoytruffle reminded me of the Into Trouble community. It has stories about the BtVS/AtS boys in an AU boy band. I kept thinking about those stories when I was watching boygroove, especially the parts about the manager/producer, and because one of boygroove members is gay.