Grid Effect

While watching The Sopranos on Sunday and hearing a Doors song in the background, it dawned on me that all four dramatic series we deem appointment television utilize music in profoundly effective ways. Along with The Sopranos, The Wire, Friday Night Lights and Rescue Me (Starts back up a week from tomorrow on June 13th) use the music as almost an unnamed character and when it’s absent its effect is even more resonant.

I decided to discuss this after I stumbled onto this radio interview with Martin Bruestle, a producer on The Sopranos where he details the selection process for music in the series. They go over the significance of “Comfortably Numb”, their intentions to use “Thru and Thru” to conclude the second season and the meaning behind the Italian folklore song, “Ninna, Ninna”, at the end of the episode before memorial day weekend, “The Second Coming”. All three contain lyrics that pertain specifically to the heart of the characters and speak to their current state. In several ways, unless you are intimately familiar with them, what the music says about Tony’s, AJ’s, Carmela’s or Chrissy’s psyche might go undetected.

The Wire’s usage of music is handled much differently. Generally speaking, the only time you hear any music on this series it is played within the setting. Meaning it is audible to the audience and the characters, coming from a passing car or from someone’s radio. The only exception to this I can recall is the closing montage at the end of every season. The music in this series is used to establish setting rather than to resonate emotion and is a hybrid of classic rock, mowtown, R&B and rap/hip-hop (I’m still not clear what the difference is between these two is, but I can always distinguish them, go figure). But when it is absent, it’s eerily noticeable: Wallace’s death, Bodie’s death, Michael’s killing, Michael’s father’s death, Ziggy’s killing, Omar killing Stringer, etc. In virtually every other crime drama music overheads all pivotal plot points (usually a score, not pop music), this isn’t the case with David Simon, he uses music to create a realistic approximation of the urban environment, when the music is absent, something devastating/chilling is generally about to happen.

Rescue Me uses its music probably more than any of these series’, probably egregiously so. As opposed to The Wire, anytime something relevant happens to Tommy Gavin, you can almost que up the modern alternative rock, and much like The Wire, their method works for their series. The music on this series seems to be meticulously chosen and tends to consist of indie bands. Damn near every episode concludes with a montage encompassing every character before fading to credits where often something life-altering takes place for one of them (Usually Tommy).

Friday Night Lights doesn’t use music as liberally as Rescue Me but it is definitely more random. I guess the best way to paraphrase this is it works in the scenes where they use it and tends to when they do not, but occasionally are wondering where it is when they opt to leave it out. Other than climatic points in the series, they often use some sort of hard rock or rap in footbally scenes and soft rock in the pivotal relationship sequences. The two that come to mind specifically are Daniel Johnston’s, “Devil Town” (used twice actually, once before they play their first game without Jason Street, and secondly at the State Championship parade); and The Killers, “Read My Mind” as the town of Dillon sets up the makeshift football field in “Mud Bowl”.

Since all four series use music in remarkably different ways and all four methods are immensely effective, there isn’t necessarily a right way and a wrong way; just an appropriate way as it pertains to any given series. Music doesn’t make any of these narratives, but it certainly enhances the experience of following them and adds another element to already multi-faceted scenarios and characters.

Back tomorrow with links.