{"id":156,"date":"2014-05-14T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-14T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/2014\/05\/14\/i-dont-know-why-they-changed-the-music\/"},"modified":"2014-05-14T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-05-14T16:00:00","slug":"i-dont-know-why-they-changed-the-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/2014\/05\/14\/i-dont-know-why-they-changed-the-music\/","title":{"rendered":"I Don&#8217;t Know Why They Changed the Music"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two things you should know about me:<\/p>\n<p>1. I love cop shows.<br \/>2. I love film scores.<\/p>\n<p>And there was a small but perfect storm of these in 1996, when the TV series <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/High_Incident\"><i>High Incident<\/i><\/a> first aired on ABC. Here are the original opening titles:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qLOk57wq-oc\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/><small><a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/qLOk57wq-oc\">http:\/\/youtu.be\/qLOk57wq-oc<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n<p>Right? <i>Right?<\/i><\/p>\n<p>But then, after a few episodes&mdash;maybe even just one&mdash;the theme music changed to this:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"360\" height=\"270\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7heov0nwMKc?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/><small><a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/7heov0nwMKc\">http:\/\/youtu.be\/7heov0nwMKc<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n<p>What?<\/p>\n<p>I mean, it&#8217;s not bad music <i>per se<\/i>. It just suffers in comparison, since the original was so energetic, and the replacement is so&#8230; <i>emo<\/i>, for lack of a better word. Maybe the producers wanted to set a more downbeat tone, but that&#8217;s not how I remember the show.<\/p>\n<p>And it was a good show. I still remember the last episode. Jesus, that was heartbreaking.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway. <i>Music.<\/i> The same thing happened to <i>Veronica Mars<\/i>. Here&#8217;s how that show opened for the first two seasons:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yulQo5MZeJM?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/><small><a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/yulQo5MZeJM\">http:\/\/youtu.be\/yulQo5MZeJM<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n<p>And then this happened in season three:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Mm_XNQvjRqA?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/><small><a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/Mm_XNQvjRqA\">http:\/\/youtu.be\/Mm_XNQvjRqA<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n<p>I mean, come on. Just&#8230; come <i>on<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>Once again, it&#8217;s not a bad choice <i>per se<\/i>, but given how much personality and texture and just plain <i>attitude<\/i> the original <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheDandyWarhols\">Dandy Warhols<\/a> song had, the &#8220;remix&#8221; doesn&#8217;t hold a candle. And I believe deadening the opening titles like that contributed directly to the show&#8217;s decline and eventual cancellation.<\/p>\n<p>So here&#8217;s my advice to any current or future showrunners: make sure you have a good theme song when you start, and don&#8217;t change it unless you have a damned good reason. You can update the visuals as cast members change, or add revolving &#8220;tags&#8221; like <i>The Simpsons<\/i> (see below), but don&#8217;t mess with the music. That is your foundation.<\/p>\n<p>Those notes, those chords, those specific sounds are setting the mood for your show. More than that, they are signaling <i>continuity<\/i>. They tell the viewer that yes, this remains the awesome show you fell in love with ten or more seasons ago. Keep watching.<\/p>\n<p>Worried that your theme song will sound hopelessly dated after a decade? Pick the right music and it won&#8217;t be an issue. Herewith, a few exemplars.<\/p>\n<p><i>Stargate SG-1<\/i> (ten seasons):<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/aafGXNWHGaw?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/><small><a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/aafGXNWHGaw\">http:\/\/youtu.be\/aafGXNWHGaw<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n<p><i>Law &amp; Order<\/i> (twenty seasons):<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yVL0GBunw0A?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/><small><a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/yVL0GBunw0A\">http:\/\/youtu.be\/yVL0GBunw0A<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n<p><i>The Simpsons<\/i> (<b>twenty-five<\/b> freakin&#8217; seasons and counting!):<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DX1iplQQJTo?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/><small><a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/DX1iplQQJTo\">http:\/\/youtu.be\/DX1iplQQJTo<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n<p>Here endeth the lesson.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/snout.org\/HotSheet\/CKL.jpg\" alt=\"Curtis\" title=\"Curtis\" border=\"0\" height=\"32\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two things you should know about me: 1. I love cop shows.2. I love film scores. And there was a small but perfect storm of these in 1996, when the TV series High Incident first aired on ABC. Here are&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[43,16,12,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-theiinmeat","category-thisbusinesswecallshow","category-tv"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtiscchen.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}