LOS ANGELES – Brett Harrison couldn’t stop talking about the Killers.
The 23-year-old actor, already a veteran of sitcoms like “Grounded for Life” and “That ‘70s Show,” was bouncing up and down as he talked about his new role on “The Loop,” an upcoming Fox comedy that has a soundtrack instead of a laugh track. At the end of the “Loop” pilot, the girl of Harrison’s dreams walks away in another man’s arms as the Killers’ “Somebody Told Me” blares in the background.
“I can’t believe I get to be on a show with a moment like that,” he raved. “If it was any other song, it wouldn’t work.”
One problem: Only a few days after Harrison was getting overcaffeinated about “Somebody Told Me,” the Killers decided not to license the song to “The Loop.” The producers rushed to substitute the Bravery’s “Honest Mistake,” but that abrupt change of fortune symbolizes the elevated levels of risk and reward when it comes to TV music today.
For decades, the formula for music on television was simple: Dramas got composed scores, sitcoms got nothing, and actual songs stuck to the opening credits.
Then “Miami Vice” came along in the ‘80s and showed that TV could sound like movies, wallpapering every episode with songs by name-brand artists like Phil Collins, Glenn Frey and Tina Turner. And with few exceptions in the dozen or so years after, when you heard songs on TV, they were ones you had already heard several hundred times on radio.
Not anymore.
“Ten years ago, it was more important that music be extremely familiar to people,” says Alexandra Patsavas. “It added value because you knew it. And now it adds value because it works.”
As the music supervisor on “The O.C.” and later “Grey’s Anatomy,” Patsavas has been at the vanguard of a movement that’s made TV a leader, not a follower, when it comes to music.
“The O.C.” has released five soundtrack albums in 21/2 years and pushed bands such as Death Cab for Cutie and the Thrills into the mainstream. “Grey’s Anatomy,” which just released its first soundtrack CD, is packed with tunes from previously cult-y bands like the Chalets, the Postal Service and Rilo Kiley. The new romantic dramedy “Love Monkey” is set in the record industry, and upcoming episodes will introduce CBS viewers used to the classic rock of “CSI” to groups like Si(asterisk)Se and She Wants Revenge.
And they’re not anomalies; you can find dozens of TV soundtrack albums at any good record store, with exciting new music reflecting as many genres.
Part of this shift is simply generational. Where baby boomers used to run every show on television, now there’s a mix that includes producers in their 40s, 30s and even 20s, who didn’t grow up on Motown or the Stones, but on the Replacements and Nirvana.
“Modern rock radio 10, 15 years ago was really cool,” says Nic Harcourt, the music supervisor for “Love Monkey” and the disc jockey for the taste-making L.A. radio show “Morning Becomes Eclectic.” “And those people are coming through now as producers and directors, and they were informed by that. I think it’s a generational thing. You’re seeing, for want of a better term, Gen X flexing its muscles to influence the culture.”
“I think that it’s a testament to adventurous producers who are interested in enhancing their shows with music that isn’t top 40 hits,” says Patsavas. “You have producers who grew up with (indie) music and hold it dear.”
At the same time TV was becoming more adventurous musically, beginning with late ‘90s teen dramas such as “Dawson’s Creek” and “Felicity,” radio was becoming timid. Conglomerates like Clear Channel instituted rigid playlists on all their stations, and young bands had to find another outlet to be heard.
“Commercial radio no longer offers a lot of choices for people,” says Patsavas. “People are smart, they want to hear new music and this is another way to reach fans.”
“It’s so hard to get music played on commercial radio and MTV doesn’t play music anymore,” says Harcourt. “If I was in a band, I’d be sending my CDs to every music supervisor out there.”
When Josh Schwartz, then 26, created “The O.C.,” he wanted the characters to talk about and listen to the kind of music he enjoyed. One of his stars, Adam Brody, bent Schwartz’s ear about Death Cab, and soon Brody’s TV alter ego Seth Cohen was preaching the gospel of the group. A year and an appearance on the show later, the band had gone from struggling indie outfit to major-label player.
Since Patsavas joined the show early in the first season to lighten Schwartz’s workload, “The O.C.” has become such a trend-setter that the Beastie Boys, U2 and Coldplay have all debuted songs on the show.
“There are some bands we can’t get,” says Patsavas, “but bands in general are extremely open to licensing. Extremely open to licensing. If you’re a band that sold 50,000 records but you don’t fit into a KISS (radio) format, where do you get heard?”
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Patsavas and Harcourt gravitate toward unknown bands because they love the thrill of discovery, but the smaller price tag doesn’t hurt.
CBS’ “Cold Case” is one of the few network shows to still lean heavily on classic hits – “The flashbacks wouldn’t work otherwise,” says producer Jonathan Littman – but they’re so expensive to use in an episode that there’s no money left over to pay for video rights.
“”Cold Case’ hasn’t come out on DVD and I don’t think we’ll ever be able to release it,” says Littman.
And even the new bands can get expensive in a hurry.
When “The Loop” creators Will Gluck and Pam Brady put “Somebody Told Me” at the end of their pilot last March, the Killers were still an up-and-coming band that had only recently performed on an “O.C.” episode. As the show moved closer to airing nearly a year later, the license fee was suddenly $50,000, which is at the top end for TV.
In the end, it wasn’t even the money that killed the deal; the Killers just felt they didn’t need the exposure anymore.
“They were like, “We’re awesome. We don’t need you. Stop lowering our property values with your pesky TV,”‘ jokes Brady, who was pleased to get the Bravery instead.
PH END SEPINWALL
(Alan Sepinwall is a staff writer for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. He can be contacted at asepinwall(at)starledger.com.)
AP-NY-01-31-06 1312EST
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