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There was a time, 20 or so years ago, when it seemed as if TV music supervisors were among the most important people when it came to shaping public tastes. There were, as yet, no video or music streaming services, so music featured in a hit show could blow up as a result. One music supervisor – Alexandra Patsavas, whose work included selecting tunes for Grey’s Anatomy – became so influential that Lena Dunham’s Girls featured a storyline in which two characters dreamed of having their lives changed by getting a song approved by her on Grey’s Anatomy, most likely a wispy piece of indie electronica over which a doctor would gaze wistfully into the middle distance while another patient copped it.
While music supervisors may no longer have Patsavas’s power to create new stars through a perfect piece of placement, the work of music supervisors these days is more imaginative than it has ever been, and it can be highlighted in ways it never was before: think how many times you’ve Shazamed something while sitting in front of the TV, or checked Spotify to see if there’s a playlist of the soundtrack. And often, they’re brilliant: try the perfectly judged dad rock of The Bear, or the incredible assemblage of early 1980s Black American music in the crack epidemic drama Snowfall. It helps, too, that a strong needle drop – the moment a featured song begins playing – can be a great promotional tool on social media.
Amelia Hartley, who has worked in music supervision for more than 20 years and whose credits include the startlingly exciting soundtracks to Peaky Blinders and SAS Rogue Heroes, credits the rise of prestige TV with opening up the spectrum of soundtracks. “HBO and other big producers started to do big drama series that used anachronistic music in incredibly creative ways,” she says, highlighting the launch of Boardwalk Empire in 2010. “From then on, people moved away from the idea of drama being a score-led thing, in a Jane Austen-type way, and into soundtracking with really cool commercial music, lifting the drama to another level. And when the streamers came on board, they really embraced that.”
Ed Bailie, who supervised the music for Netflix’s reboot of Top Boy, points out the effect very dramatic use of music can have on people’s perception of the whole soundtrack. “People know Top Boy is an east London drama, so that leads us to grime, trap, UK hip-hop and drill. But we’ve got cues in there from Wreckless Eric, and we’ve got reggae. It’s a far broader musical palette.”
OK, but no one who watches Top Boy is coming away from it thinking about Wreckless Eric, just as no one who watches SAS Rogue Heroes is thinking about Vera Lynn. They’re remembering gunfire and booming hard rock. Bailie laughs. “That’s true.”
Rogue Heroes has been peppered with startling “needle drop” moments, where the soundtrack and action marry perfectly. In season one, a parachute mission is backed by the slow-burn intensity of AC/DC’s Live Wire, while German defences in Crete are stormed to the sound of Motörhead’s Overkill. More recently, in season two, a jeep raid in occupied Italy is soundtracked by Deep Purple’s road warrior anthem Highway Star. Each time, the music ratchets up the excitement, but also produces an uncomfortable sensation: should brutal, unforgiving warfare be this exciting? And for those thinking it all sounds a bit metal, The Fall, Bauhaus, MC5 and more are also used to great effect.
For both Peaky Blinders and SAS Rogue Heroes, Hartley focused on anachronistic music: the former, set a century ago, used dark and brooding singer-songwriters, such as Nick Cave and PJ Harvey. The latter, set in the second world war and based on Ben Macintyre’s nonfiction bestseller, goes hard on – for want of a better word – thug rock: boomingly aggressive 70s and 80s hard rock and punk, with some interesting and telling digressions.
Season two director Stephen Woolfenden gives an example: “There’s a wonderful reveal of [SAS founder] David Stirling at the end of episode one with The Teams That Meet in Caffs by Dexys Midnight Runners – and that’s a beautiful moment.” He’s right: the notion of early Dexys, a band of ragtag ruffians bent on their own direction, soundtracking another bunch of young men with the same purpose is perfect on many levels.
Even within the hard rock sphere, Hartley was able to find less raucous moments. “One I like is She Sells Sanctuary by the Cult at the end of episode four. It’s an emotional episode, and I like the way the guitar comes in at the end and lifts you out of the episode.’
Both Peaky Blinders and SAS Rogue Heroes were written by Steven Knight, who had very clear ideas himself about what he wanted, reflecting the fact that music supervisors are adamant that they are there to work with writer, director and editor, not to foist their choices on them.
“When I’m writing,” says Knight, “I’m imagining what’s happening on screen in total. So that means imagining the movement of the actors, the words that are being said, but also the soundtrack. I found the soundtrack is a very mysterious thing that most people don’t question. We watch something, and we hear music, and we never ask, ‘Where’s that music coming from?’ So you take advantage of the fact that there is an extra suspension of disbelief when it comes to music.” So the door is open to anachronistic music.
But, says Knight, modern alternative music is not just there to display the exquisite taste and outstanding knowledge of the production team. It’s because the music that might have emotionally affected the characters at that point in history would simply seem laughable to modern audiences. “So it felt like pulling away a barrier to have the music work directly on the emotions of the audience. And what I think people forget is that most of the people in the SAS at the time were in their late teens or early 20s. The music needed to reflect the explosive emotions of people at that age.”
So far, we’ve been talking about “non-diegetic” music – songs that only the audience hear. On most shows, there is a clear division between non-diegetic and diegetic (what the characters also hear), but on Top Boy it could often feel as though the dividing lines were blurred. For the show, Bailie had to look not just for old music, but for new tracks and even unreleased tracks. Although he scoffs at the notion of music supervisors acting almost as A&R consultants (music industry talent-spotters) that was a decent chunk of his job on Top Boy.
“One aspect of the A&R thing that’s always tricky is production turnaround. By the time we’ve picked the song, mixed it, mastered it, then waited the many months before the show is finally released, the track will likely be out, unless you can get them to hold it back. We are so beholden to our benefactors who help point us towards great music – the A&R people, the managers, the sync agents, the people in record stores. And for Top Boy that was a really deep dive, because being on the cultural pulse was really important.”
What music supervisors don’t want is to create new cliches, or to select something too on the nose. “I’ve ruined any pleasure I might get from watching TV drama,” says Hartley, “because all I do is watch it and think about the music.” Bailie, though, did create a TV music cliche, as one of the music team behind the John Lewis Christmas ads. “It morphed and manifested into ukulele songs with slightly annoying, cutesy voices behind them. And that wasn’t what we were doing, but that’s how other people emulated it. But you always want to build your own thing.”
Maybe SAS Rogue Heroes will create a new cliche of AC/DC, the Saints and the Stooges becoming the soundtrack to the second world war. If so, you know who to blame.
