Tuesday, 05/07/02

The first time I remember being struck by background music was in The Sopranos second season opener, the first episode I saw. It opens with that pretty montage over "It Was A Very Good Year", but later there's a club scene where the principals get to talk over Alejandro Escovedo's masterpiece "Guilty". "That's Alejandro Escovedo!" I exclaimed, before a stern shushing.

Since then, it happens all the damn time. It's like I got bit by a radioactive music supervisor. Smallville used Puracane songs twice in the last month or so, almost inaudibly. The Shield last week had the Magnetic Fields' "All My Little Words" coming out of the murdered schlub's widow's house when Dutch first dropped by (more prominently at the end). CSI scored a lot of points with me when I noticed a David Holmes song, off Bow Down To The Exit Sign, scoring a party. Buffy closed last week with an Alison Krauss song I hadn't heard before. I'm looking forward to seeing if Spiderman uses the Curve song, "Hell Above Water", that's turned up in some of the ads.

It makes me happy to recognize a tune lurking in a corner. I feel on top of things when somebody's getting paid to pick something I got to first. It pulls me right out of engagement with whatever I'm watching, though, because I'd always rather focus on the music, in what it says about the music director, or the production, or the performer's bottom line.

If I recognize it but can't place it, I get antsy. 09:28AM «

Bits pushed by Movable Type