Vacation Robo-Post: The Best TV Show to Listen To

Let me speak on behalf of one of those (alleged, although in reality not actually) teen shows - Veronica Mars. Fantastic soundtrack full of great lesser-known bands. And the Dandy Warhols for the theme song was pretty inspired.

And to jump the gun on other posters, it should be said Grey's Anatomy has featured some pretty great artists (like Rilo Kiley)....and let's remember that "Laguna Beach" almost single handedly got Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" to the top of the iTunes download list a year or so ago.

I ended up hating Rescue Me, but it did have some good music - I remember an Afghan Whigs song in the first season that was really good (and really well-placed).

Burn Notice has some good Latin music, but they tend to only play 5-second clips, as if to remind everyone that, yes, they are in Miami.

I guess it has to do with age. I used to be just like the young whippersnappers of today with my music. If we had iPods back then, I would have probably had earphones projecting from my ears. In fact, I used to have a Sony cassette Walk-Man back in the day. All of you kids can go look that up on the internet and get a laugh. At 50, I still like music, but it doesn't define my existance like it used to.

I for one, don't really care for the soundtrack side of TV shows today. I watch them for the story. I get a little tired of almost every show having to end with a montage of the characters at the end of their day or story moving in slow motion while some emotional song is playing. Give me more story. I'll listen to my transistor AM radio if I want music. Where the hell did I put my reading glasses and where is my Geritol.

@Chaddogg -- I'll second your nomination of Veronica Mars, which introduced me to several bands (including the Dandy Warhols). Plus I'm always happy for an opportunity to name-drop one of the great they-didn't-know-what-they-were-missing shows of recent years.

While hardly undiscovered, I'll also nominate Scrubs. Every single week, 22 eps a year for 6 years now, they've featured a single by someone. They've skewed mainstream to indie, rock to pop to punk -- anytime I'm in the mood for some music, I'll look at the Scrubs playlist to see what I might have missed, or to explore other music by the same or similar artists.

I agree with Mark U about Scrubs - they have gotten a lot of publicity for their music choices, and it has all been well-deserved. The ability of that show to transition from comedic to dramatic just through a well-placed song is one of my favorite parts of the show.

This is off topic, but is John C. McGinley on steroids? Just curious.

I love hearing snippets of my fave music in reality show montages - such as about a 6-second loop of Spoon's "I turn my camera on" in just about every episode of Season 2 of Top Chef.

I used to watch the OC as much for the story as for the music. I think One Tree Hill does a decent job with their songs.
I think Weeds is also a great show for music as it introduced me to Regina Spektor and Sufjan Stevens.
I think Entourage has some good hip-hop music, but there isn't a single song or band the show has introduced me to.
I also second Scrubs as a comedy that uses music effectively as does How I Met Your Mother. I actually have been introduced to quite a few songs by that show.

Northern Exposure provided great music exposure.

I discovered Joe Purdy when watching Grey's Anatomy, but I know a lot of people know him from "Wash Away" on the first episode of Lost. He is a phenomenal songwriter... my favorite to listen to on a rainy day.

Grey's Anatomy always has good music. Actually all of the episodes have been named after a song.

I also use to love watching Smallville for all the music.

Soundtracks, whether they be from movies or TV shows, are usually horrible albums. If I hear a song that I like, I just find out which one it is and download that song. Soundtracks have more filler than a solo act's CD. Besides, if a song is on a TV show, there is a good chance that the artist was not good enough to make it with their own record deal. Most of those songs on soundtracks are from C-list acts that caught the ear of some drugged-up A&R.

Alias. Most of the best songs accompany Sydney's missions... especially if said missions take place in nightclubs.

Discovering the Julee Cruise albums from which Twin Peaks drew much its music made the whole thing worthwhile.

I really like much of the music that came from How I Met Your Mother. Especially their use of Bloc Party in the season 1 finale (I must clarify that I had the album, but that episode cemented the song "This Modern Love" as one of my all time favorites). Other bands I picked up from HIMYM are The Weepies, The 88, Jaymay, The Explorers Club, and a renaissance for Supergrass. It's a shame so many of the original music got changed on the DVD.

I really like the music from Entourage. I find myself on the HBO page after each episode, and then find myself downloading at least one song.

While I didn't love the show, I really, really enjoyed the theme song for Hidden Palms. It's a song called "Blind" by Megabass. Very good track and available on iTunes.

While on the topic of music used in shows, can we hope for a moratorium on "Hide and Seek" by Imogean Heap in this fall's pilot's crucially dramatic scenes. I still think this is what brought down Smith.

Scrubs simply needs a third advocate. Besides constantly introducing new music, the show gives you a reason to go back to old albums. I know I would never have given Fountains of Wayne (of Stacy's Mom fame) a second thought had I not heard a few more of their songs on Scrubs.

And while many may not agree with the O.C.'s brand of teen dramedy, nobody can say they haven't found themselves rushing to a computer after a scene to find out what song just played behind Adam Brody.

The Gilmore Girls seemed committed to supporting the type of music that rarely gets played on commercial radio. They had cameos from a startling array of indie rock royalty, including Joe Pernice, Yo La Tengo, Sonic Youth, and Sam Phillips (all in just one episode). They weren’t afraid to be obscure, with rapid-fire indie-rock references sprinkling the dialogue of most episodes. Once they even partly re-enacted a memorable scene from the Brian Jonestown/Dandy Warhols documentary "Dig!" (including a cameo by a member of the Brian Jonestown Massacre). On top of that, Grant Lee Phillips had a regular role, Sam Phillips provided incidental music, and more mainstream people like Carole King and Sebastian Bach appeared regularly. I don’t think any other show can beat that kind of commitment to music.

However, they didn’t have the (usually cheesy) montages set to pop songs that are standard for other shows, and are probably pretty effective music promotion. Those montages usually make me feel like somebody’s trying to sell me something.

I'm sick of most musical montages on television, no matter how good the song is. I admire the Wire for sticking to diegetic music for all but one episode per season, and those are used to show a forward time jump that couldn't be accommodated by the normal narrative. The second season montage is how I discovered Steve Earle.

I didn't love the show, but the opening of the last episode to Dylan's Series of Dreams was brilliant.

One of the greatest musical punchlines was the Sopranos episode that ended just before Meadow was to sing "My Heart Will Go On" only to play "The Happy Wanderer" over the end credits.

It was Judging Amy. They played a lot of Norah Jones, it was really beautiful and appropriate. I guess it's Grey's Anatomy now.

Spin City and Scrubs are obvious for me. Lost is the more subtle one with their very tiny array of songs.

I always thought that "Freaks and Geeks" used good music - I especially loved the Grateful Dead song at the very end of the last episode. However, my main shout-out goes to the CW show "Supernatural" - they use AWESOME music in every episode, they use it really effectively, and they lead off with a weekly "then" montage of their past adventures, with a different rock song every week. I have never seen a show that so effectively uses music, or that uses so much cool music.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Scrubs for me. Not only did both of those shows showcase interesting music on a near-weekly basis, both shows have also had really excellent musical episodes. I own the soundtrack to the Buffy musical episode "Once More, With Feeling" and still listen to it often (usually in secret, at the risk of significant ridicule by my family).

Loved the music on Joan of Arcadia, but like many other series, they changed the tunes for the DVD series. boo!!

gilmore girls set the standard for me. david byrne is the music supervisor for "big love" - i don't know if there are CD's out of it, but the use of both diegetic and non-diegetic music in the show is great - there was an incredible scene a couple weeks ago set to dylan's "knocking on heaven's door".

I was born in another country and proud of it and it wasn't my white house that got blown up Mr. Big Mouths.

USN DAV

Have to keep the love going for "Scrubs". I have discovered a lot of great new music to which I probably would not have listened otherwise. Also, Ted's acapella band is always there with a theme song or two from a great old favorite TV show.