Does anyone miss the cheesy song used as a heart wrenching crutch in shows from the early 00s?

Submitted by Donald_J_Putin t3_10xjfu2 in television

There was a time between west wing and Rick and Morty when shows would use music as an easy way to elevate emotional reaction to shows. It isn’t as common today.

The early scene I’m thinking is West Wing when the USSS agent is killed and they use the song Hallelujah (the great Leonard Cohen covered by Buckley).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxX-woxYZ84

It was novel. Maybe there were shows like Friends who also did it well. It conveyed emotion which the actors and script couldn’t.

It became the goto for shows for a long time to end episodes with a montage while playing some emotionally intense song. House was notorious for doing this.

The pinnacle like most things seems to be when it gets a good satire. Rick and Morty used Damage Coda in great satire of the “good turns bad” trope

https://youtu.be/4Js-XbNj6Tk

I am guessing it’s a factor of costs and the new media model of streaming services. It’s both derivative and expensive to nurse an emotional, recognized song for a moment. But I’m sure it still happens

So what are some recent emotional song moments like the 2000-20teens shows?

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Longjumping_Border16 t1_j7sye57 wrote

Oh my god, Fix You was in everything

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44problems t1_j7t083o wrote

Blackish did a storyline where the main characters separated. It was really raw but just such a heavy turn, even for a show that dealt with the real world often.

Some people really liked it but I hated it. Made me trail off from watching the show because it was such a downer. And it used goddamn Fix You ... In 2018!

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smesch83 t1_j7sypyl wrote

as a fan of teen dramas, I want to say that this was really, really comnon in the 90s already (and to some extent in the 80s too, in shows like "The Wonder Years").

but yes: by the mid-200s, shows like "One Tree Hill" often had three or four of these music scenes/montages per episodes. "Grey's Anatomy" and "Scrubs" (as more of a parody) did it a lot, too.

also, I haven't seen much "Baywatch" (lol), but I caught two or three episodes in the mid-90s where there were one or two complete songs (a sad ballad about forgetting while a character with Alzheimer's got lost on the way to the beach etc.) per episode.

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44problems t1_j7t0bie wrote

I remember the WB shows like Dawson's Creek telling you what albums each song came from.

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catclockticking t1_j7te0hp wrote

The “Grey’s Anatomy” to “Vh1 You Oughta Know Artist” pipeline (or was it the other way around?) was really flowing for a couple of years there

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Terribalgamer t1_j7ttsap wrote

Buffy did that in the early seasons at the Bronz. Smallville had a few episodes each season with a musical tie in

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smesch83 t1_j7ty4ln wrote

yes - I don't know the OP and I don't want to sound salty, but "The West Wing" and "Rick and Morty" are so normal on Reddit and it felt important to say "This was not perfected by [typical Reddit show] and then subverted by [typical Reddit show] because everything important happened on these shows."

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orangemaroon25 t1_j7su7n6 wrote

He wasn't killed. He just went into or out of an undercover persona. (Or went to TAHITI, for those who will get the reference)

Why do you think Leroy Jethro Gibbs knows so much about Air Force One and Secret Service procedure in the first episode of NCIS?

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Donald_J_Putin OP t1_j7uovrf wrote

Was this after he had to teach summer school along with Kirstie Ally?

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reddig33 t1_j7sri9c wrote

Honestly I hate that trope. It’s a shortcut for lazy writing and rarely well done. Frequently it comes off as total cheese.

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Donald_J_Putin OP t1_j7stl5q wrote

Yes, you are right. I just was citing how it was used more often a decade ago. Maybe viewers became more savvy

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catclockticking t1_j7tdxpk wrote

It’s partially that but your point about the streaming model is more on point — clearing music rights for streaming is a whole other beast from clearing them for syndication or cable, which is why many moderately popular shows that used the trope heavily aren’t available to stream. ‘Joan of Arcadia’ and ‘Judging Amy’ come to mind among cheesy shows I loved in the early 2000s.

‘Cold Case’ not only leaned heavily on music syncs to power the storytelling and pull easy emotional levers, they milked them for extra $$$. I distinctly recall a then-upcoming album release from Bruce Springsteen being cross-promoted on ‘Cold Case.’ Three or four of the tracks were played in the episode, and the episode was promoted on the opportunity to hear the songs before anyone else.

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LiveFromNewYeerk t1_j7u77mq wrote

>emotional song moments

not the same but i remember when chris cuomo got his own primetime show on cnn, they kept airing these commercials set to that song that goes "HOW YA LIKE ME NOW, HOW YA LIKE ME NOW, HOW YA LIKE ME NAAAAAAOWWWWWW" and it's like chris cuomo walking in a suit down new york city. no one really knew who he was at that point. how do we like him now? as opposed to when?

anyway it seems like that song was used a lot for a bit there.

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