I can't get it out of my head

In an episode of the se­ries Grey's Anatomy, first broad­cast in 2006, the song How to Save a Life by The Fray ap­peared. The se­ries' music su­per­vi­sor, Alexan­dra Pat­savas, had seen the band in Los An­ge­les and de­cided to use their music for the sound­track of the pop­u­lar se­ries. What's more, the se­ries used the music as if the scenes it ac­com­pa­nied were pro­mo­tional video clips. It was an im­me­di­ate suc­cess and How to Save a Life quickly be­came the of­fi­cial an­them for the se­ries.

The pre­sen­ter of the Feed­bac pro­gramme on Ràdio Flaixbac, Al­bert Planade­vall re­mem­bers that the song and the band, until then un­known here, be­came reg­u­lars on radio thanks to the se­ries. Planade­vall stresses that radio sta­tions con­tinue to play an im­por­tant role where music and TV se­ries are con­cerned. The radio is the most likely place to first hear that tune you can't seem to get out of your head: “The telly is a medium we take into ac­count,” he says.

How­ever, the radio pre­sen­ter points out that Grey's Anatomy is not the only se­ries to act as a plat­form for launch­ing a song. Planade­vall also re­mem­bers play­ing songs like I'll Be There For You by The Rem­brandts, used in the com­edy se­ries Friends, or Search­ing My Soul by Vonda Shep­ard, used in the se­ries Ally McBeal. No doubt the vol­ume of se­ries now on TV plays a part in help­ing tracks to the top of the charts.

The tele­vi­sion has also given rise to in­stru­men­tal pieces recog­nis­able from their open­ing bars, and Planade­vall uses the ex­am­ple of The X-Files. The title music by Mark Snow is now a typ­i­cal choice when­ever radio sta­tions in­tro­duce a mys­tery.

The ar­rival of the first crop of US se­ries was ac­com­pa­nied by CD re­leases of mu­si­cal com­pi­la­tions. In 2007, a com­pi­la­tion for Grey's Anatomy went on sale, and which in­cluded tracks by Rilo Kiley, Joe Purdy and Jamie Lidell, as well as Snow Pa­trol, whose track Chas­ing Cars­be­came the sig­na­ture tune. In less than 10 years, things have pro­gressed quickly in this sense: “I loved House and I found a per­sonal blog that com­piled all of the songs used, by scene and episode,” re­mem­bers the Ràdio Flaixbac pre­sen­ter.

Lost was an­other se­ries with an im­por­tant mu­si­cal com­po­nent that led to the reemer­gence of clas­sic songs. The music ap­pear­ing in the first episode of a sec­ond sea­son of a suc­cess­ful se­ries is key, as in the ex­am­ple of Lost. The sea­son be­gins with ref­er­ences to the Dharma mythol­ogy that places the ac­tion in the sev­en­ties. As the char­ac­ter fea­tured wakes up, we see a vinyl record and hear the song Make Your Own Kind of Music by Mama Cass El­liot. It is in this way that the se­ries re­pop­u­larised past songs for a new gen­er­a­tion hear­ing the music for the first time. Among the list of clas­sic hits in the se­ries are Won­der­wall by Oasis, Sham­bala by Three Dog Night, Down­town by Petula Clark, Catch a Falling Star by Perry Como, Are You Sure by Willie Nel­son, These Arms of Mine by Otis Red­ding and Slowly by Ann Mar­gret.