The Era of Music Driven TV
On ‘Big Little Lies,’ ‘The Leftovers,’ and music supervision.
Music has always been an integral part of television and the art of storytelling for the screen, but now so more than ever. The television industry is finally recognizing the phenomenon in an official capacity by adding a “Music Supervision” award category for the first time with the forthcoming 2017 Emmy’s, for which nominees were announced earlier this month. Television music composition has been awarded since 1955, but this is the first time that soundtracks of previously released music are being recognized in their full capacity.
Where different artistic aspects define and string together the narrative of every TV show, writing and cinematography have taken a backseat (or, rather, been upstaged) by the ascendancy of the TV soundtrack. Oxford Music Online characterizes television music as having a number of important attributes, including enhancing “mood and narrative structure and meaning.” These “intradiegetic” tunes, or those that are background in the sense that they play out unseen and without an evident source, were first used in a television setting after World War II and then picked up in the ’80s before evolving into a legitimate means of TV storytelling after the turn of the century. This has recently become particularly evident as Peak TV has shifted, with music moments in series like The Sopranos, Lost, and Breaking Bad becoming less of a rarity. Big Littles Lies, one of the biggest shows of 2017 and a “Music Supervision” nominee, exemplifies the new era of TV that we’re entering: the music driven series.
One of the fiercest proponents of music in Big Little Lies is a six-year-old, the youngest daughter of Madeline (Reese Witherspoon). From the first episode, viewers are treated to PJ Harvey’s “The Wind” as she uses the aux cord in her mother’s car on the way to school. The daughter, Chloe, continues to play DJ throughout the series, narrating much of her classmates’ and her mother’s lives through song. Jane (Shailene Woodley) and her iPod, which she takes running, house another character defining track-list. The same goes for the third member of the show’s seaside mom trifecta, Celeste (Nicole Kidman), who resorts to her iPod while contemplating her abusive husband.
In an interview with Vulture, Sue Jacobs, the music supervisor of Big Little Lies, credited audiences’ appeal to “really using source as a score in a way that most people don’t do.” Jacobs, who was hired after director Jean-Marc Vallée decided that he didn’t want a composer behind the show’s music, noted that they were offered a soundtrack album, which is rare for any TV series. “Here are songs here that no one had ever heard of before, and then mixed together with Neil Young,” Jacobs said in the interview. “You can’t beat it.”
The Leftovers is one of the greatest oversights in the multitude of critically acclaimed shows infamously overlooked in Emmy nominations. Just this year, the show received its first and last well-deserved nomination for Best Guest Actress for Ann Dowd. What was perhaps most surprising was that The Leftovers wasn’t among Big Little Lies in the nominations for “Music Supervision,” since that was such a hallmark of the show, even beyond the title sequence play. By the third and final season of the show, which wrapped last month, the creative team fully recognized that the show was a story told by music, moments strung to together by song. The title sequence was perhaps the most obvious example of this theme, since it became an experiment in music throughout the series. The first season’s theme took on a religious tone, with fresco-styled graphics set to church-like hymns without lyrics. The second season’s theme stepped away from the “Prestige TV vibes” and. The third season’s theme kept the same visuals as the second season, but changed songs with each episode.
In The Leftovers, thanks to music supervisor Liza Richardson, grief is the Wu-Tang Clan and Judy Garland, all within the same episode (Season 3, Episode 2). Various versions of The Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind” pop up throughout the second season as different characters feel themselves slowly going, or finally recognizing, that they’re crazy. The space in the afterlife is constructed in the mission-oriented, peripherally blurry yet clean-cut manner that makes up some of our strongest dreams. This space, which Kevin often occupies, is made all the more impactful by the music.
A bulk of the music in The Leftovers told us what we wanted to know all along, without even realizing it. Like the show’s characters, viewers spent three seasons trying to discern the sudden departure of 2% of the world’s population and grappling with the existential consequences of those left behind. At Kevin’s most surreal moments, those that get closest to the truth, he’s accompanied by at times superficially strange but always poignant music choices. In the series, these were often Kevin’s moments in the afterlife (purgatory, heaven, etc.), like when the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” plays as Kevin cuts a key from his fictitious “identical twin brother.” Remarkable for its absurdity, the song is also perfect for what it represents. This is the moment that Kevin comes to terms with his selfish actions, especially when it comes to Nora. This is a realization that would drive him in the years to come until he finally found Nora, and it was his turn to accept the insanity (or reality) that she needed him to believe.
Perhaps most emblematic of this trend is a moment in the Season 2 finale. When attempting to once again come back from the dead, Kevin finds that he must sing karaoke in the hotel bar. The song that he spins is Simon & Garfunkel’s “Homeward Bound,” which turns into a lovely ballad of sorts with the lighting, situation, and Theroux’s unprofessional singing voice. Glimpses of past episodes are intercut with some lines, serving as Kevin’s memories and reasons to return to Earth. Towards the end of the song, when he sings, “Home, where my love lies waiting silently for me,” we see the image of Nora, his beloved, smiling with tears in her eyes. The juxtaposition of this monumental decision to return to the land of the living with the image of Kevin’s beloved is the kind of simple, seemingly innocuous detail that drove the series. The questions of purpose and existence were answered, or peacefully put on hold, by the series finale of The Leftovers, which finished where it began: on a love story.
In addition to Big Little Lies and The Leftovers, the shows GLOW, Mr. Robot, Stranger Things, Fargo, and Master of None are all prime examples of this current phenomenon. A common denominator here is HBO, as well as other cable or streaming networks, which speak to the budgetary differences that allow for more generous music licensing. But before peak and prestige TV, some of the biggest champions of the TV soundtrack were crime procedural shows, which are predominantly products of the “Big Three” television networks: NBC, ABC, and CBS. Often the crime shows to best utilize music are the “high class comfort food” series, shows like Castle, Bones, NCIS, CSI, etc. The original Hawaii Five-O, which premiered in 1968, was notable for its use of music, beyond just its iconic opening theme. The reboot has since followed suit. When Law & Order: SVU (as well as other Dick Wolf incarnations) decide to add music, other than the beloved theme song, those moments are always the most impactful and often the most tragic in each episode. Some of the most horrific moments in Criminal Minds, the ones that test viewers’ humanity, are set to music. Often these shows rely on music to help bridge the gaps of experience between audiences and characters, between the unimaginable pain in the storylines and the comfort of experiencing them within your own home.
Music has been a part of TV for nearly a century, but the recent shift towards the music driven series speaks to the way in which stories currently need to be told in order to be properly understood. Music in television no longer needs to be just accompaniment, and has instead transcended into its own storytelling medium. Shows like Big Little Lies and The Leftovers, among others, use music to cue viewers in on what questions they need to be asking in order to get the answers that the series are meant to deliver.
