[Dixielandjazz] A different place to hear music?

[Steve barbone]

TV shows using music from Benny Goodman to Indie Rock.

"It's become part of what audiences want to see and hear when they turn on
the TV: real songs by real bands," (Article below) Excerpted for brevity.

Cheers,
Steve


'Cold Case,' Hot Tunes: Springsteen's Soundtrack

NY TIMES By JONAH WEINER - January 7, 2006

Tomorrow night, the CBS crime drama "Cold Case" will feature the work of an
unlikely guest writer. He has won 12 Grammy Awards, has sold tens of
millions of albums, and has never worked behind the scenes in television.
What's more, he did not type out a single word for the show's script.
That writer is Bruce Springsteen, from whom "Cold Case" licensed nine songs,
building a murder mystery around his lyrics. The episode, titled "8 Years,"
follows four high school friends from 1980 through 1988, when one of them is
found dead. 

"Cold Case," a series that constructs every episode around the excavation
and resolution of an old unsolved crime, often uses music to suggest time
and place - Benny Goodman for the late 40's, for instance, or Cyndi Lauper
for the mid-80's.

But instead of turning Mr. Springsteen's songs, all originally released from
1980 to 1987, into mere backdrops, Meredith Stiehm, the show's creator and
the writer of this episode, used them to construct and advance the story.
Graduation day is narrated by the exultant "No Surrender," while the
climactic murder scene is set to the poignant "Atlantic City."

"The idea originally was to use no dialogue at all," Ms. Stiehm said. "His
songs are that rich, so full of characters and vignettes." Suffice it to
say, cars, highways and the Jersey Shore figure heavily into the plot.

Although Mr. Springsteen won an Academy Award for his contribution to the
soundtrack of the 1993 film "Philadelphia," he rarely lends his music to
television. "Cold Case" is an exception. The series, now in its third
season, had used two Springsteen songs in earlier seasons: "Walk Like a Man"
in its first and "Secret Garden" in its second. . . .

With the notable exception of "Miami Vice," which made iconic use of Phil
Collins's "In the Air Tonight" in 1984, television shows until recently
relied on anonymous session men for their incidental music. (Gathered under
the heading "library music," many of these performances have become cult
collector's items.)

Today, though, producers are using pop music instead. Prime time has
suddenly become a place to hear familiar songs from favorite groups, and to
discover songs by unfamiliar ones.

"It's become part of what audiences want to see and hear when they turn on
the TV: real songs by real bands," said Alexandra Patsavas, the music
supervisor for the teenage soap "The O.C.," the crime show "Without a Trace"
and the hospital drama "Grey's Anatomy." "Licensing songs," she added, "is a
an expense producers are considering more and more crucial." The cost of
licensing a song can vary widely, from about $500 to $30,000, depending on
the artist and the rights requested. . . .

Indie-rock bands, which typically enjoy no significant radio play, have a
lot to gain from hit television shows, where the audience for a single
episode can dwarf the number of people who bought, for instance, 50 Cent's
last album. "If it weren't for TV, indie bands would never reach audiences
this big," said Jen Czeisler, vice president of licensing for the
independent label Sub Pop. "Our bands don't get on commercial radio and they
don't get on MTV, so these shows are a huge opportunity for them." . . .
    
"Bands can't just rely on the old ways anymore," said Scott Carter, vice
president of marketing at Epic Records and Modest Mouse's product manager.
"These days, you have to have a lot more going on besides radio and video if
you want to sell a bunch of records."

Ms. Crowley of "Cold Case" said: "There was this stigma attached to
television, but now it's livening up. Whenever I approach a band for
licensing, I tell them: TV is the new radio."