TCJ 4.3 - It's That Song From The Telly

It’s been a somewhat surprising development to me that songs that I hear on NPR’s World Café, All Songs Considered, 92 Zew, and Pandora, have been increasingly showing up on TV shows and commercials. I think the first one might have been when I started hearing The Postal Service in UPS commercials. Earlier than that, technically, I learned that “Woke Up This Morning,” by the British group Alabama 3 that I heard on World Café a few times, was the theme song for this new show called The Sopranos, but I never actually saw The Sopranos at that time, so I’m sticking with The Postal Service.
Since then, it’s become rather commonplace for bands I considered Indie bands and more in my milieu, to show up on rather mainstream commercials. It’s a great way for these bands to get there music out to a wider audience, and, hopefully, sell some music and concert tickets. I think Apple might be doing the best job of this at the moment, using music from The Bird and The Bee, Feist, and Chairlift, among others, to promote their Macs and iPods (by the way, “Bruises” is the best song on Chairlift’s album, by a lot, I’m sorry to say). I just recently heard Alexi Murdoch’s “Orange Sky” in the promo for NBC’s Southland, and I’m always glad to hear that song.
This mix I’ve put together, however, isn’t quite the Indie lovefest you might expect from the preceding paragraphs. It was my aim to be inclusive of songs that are inexorably tied to the TV shows on which they were featured. This explains the inclusion of the rather anti-Indie songs by The Rembrandts and Phantom Planet. Another theme song which always makes me think of the show in which it was featured is “We Used to be Friends,” from the underappreciated neo-noir classic, Veronica Mars. Even when I’m watching the DVDs, I rarely can skip the opening credits, soley because of the song.
“Da da da” by Trio (originally released in 1982) was featured in a Volkswagon commercial back in 1997 and became a pop culture sensation. In an interesting bit of meta-TCJ, “Instant Karma” is the song referred to in Dar Williams’ “I Won’t Be Your Yoko Ono” in the lyric “you don’t know a person like me / I could sell your songs to Nike.” I remember seeing that commercial during the 1992 Olympics and being fascinated. It’s such a great combination of music and marketing.
There are a great many sites on the interwebz that chronicle the usage of pop songs in commercials and shows. Below are listed some interesting offerings from Paste Magazine which I enjoyed while researching a few of the songs on the list.

http://www.pastemagazine.com/high_gravity/2008/08/10-best-songs-in-commercials-during-the-olympics.html

http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/lists/2008/11/the-12-best-tv-theme-songs-from-current-shows.html

1. Clock from 24
2. We Used to be Friends – The Dandy Warhols
3. Instant Karma – John Lennon
4. Bruises – Chairlift
5. Hold on Tight – Electric Light Orchestra
6. Short Skirt Long Jacket – Cake
7. Opening (Dexter) – Daniel Licht
8. All These Things That I’ve Done – The Killers
9. I’ll Be There for You – The Rembrandts
10. I Melt With You – Modern English
11. Woke Up This Morning – A3
12. Hello Goodbye – The Beatles
13. Boss of Me – They Might Be Giants
14. Better – Regina Spektor
15. California – Phantom Planet
16. The Story – Brandi Carlile
17. One Two Three Four – Feist
18. Lost Theme – Michael Giacchino
19. Closer to Free – BoDeans
20. Da da da – Trio
21. The Part Where You Let Go – Hem
22. It’s a Jungle Out There – Randy Newman
23. Because I’m Awesome – The Dollyrots