It’s been a decent week for music, but it’s honestly from odd places. Usually I wait for certain shows for my songs, but without the likes of Cougar Town and How I Met Your Mother, I have to dig a little more. How do you like Make It or Break It as a choice? Pretty random, right? The round-up for this week is still pretty good, though. And more eclectic than usual, I think, so that’s fun. Enjoy!
Freedom Fry – “Rolling Down” – Bones doesn’t use music very often, and when it does, it’s not usually that great. The people on the show seem to love overly wrought/emotional music that doesn’t stray too far from the theme music of the show. Consider me surprised then when they had a good song on their first episode back from a long break. I guess everyone has to get lucky sometimes. I thought this song was perfect to transition from the birth scene to the final denouement scene. To be honest, it was probably the best part of the episode.
Shelley O’Brien – “Turn to Spring” – There’s no way I’m going to recommend Make It or Break It to anyone. The show is kind of horrifyingly bad, but being a teen show, it does have some pretty good music. This week, this boppy song was a great choice for the scene where Payson hits it off with the new love interest, BMX boy. (I’m sure he has a name, but I don’t really care enough to learn it.) The song just puts me in a good mood, and it’s nicely appropriate for right now, so enjoy.
Snow Patrol – “The Weight of Love” – Grey’s Anatomy loves Snow Patrol. They use the band more than any other, I think, probably because the success of “Chasing Cars” in season 2. Part of me feels like I should be embarrassed to like Snow Patrol, because it’s the vanilla ice cream of TV music, but oh well. I like vanilla ice cream sometimes. I guess I’ll give up some of my indie cred; the songs are just so damn listenable. This song is no exception. It played at the end (the obligatory wrap-up montage song) and its crescendo nicely highlighted Christina throwing cereal on Owen.
This week was a pretty slow one for tv in general, so there wasn’t any music that cried out to me. But I guess that’s a good thing because it gave me time to listen to the Hunger Games soundtrack, which isn’t so much the music used in the movies, but rather music inspired by the movie/book.
I’ll admit upfront that I really loved the books. They’re fast reads, incredibly exciting, and significantly better written than the Twilight novels (which I have also read – did I mention I work in a bookstore?). With that in mind, I went to see the movie last week with high hopes, and I was mostly pleased. But this post is not about the movie, or the books for that matter. Let’s get back to the music.
I’m enjoying the soundtrack very much, especially the songs from Arcade Fire and Neko Case. They have a pseudo-futuristic feel to them, but they are also Appalachian and country. It all comes together very well. And, on top of that, as I was listening to the music, I had an epiphany. Each song not only evoked District Twelve, but also the short-lived but much-beloved show, Firefly. Remember this?
Moreover, after listening to the Hunger Games soundtrack, I started to believe that the whole series, Katniss, Peeta, the Capitol, owes a whole lot to Joss Whedon’s creation. In fact, I don’t think the one could have existed without the other.
There are a lot of correlations here. The most obvious is the Capitol and the Alliance: two big bad central governments filled with wealth and frivolity controlling the outer realms, the districts or the colonies. (One could also argue that both these regimes are mutations of Oz or Oceania, but that’s a different essay entirely). In both worlds, the centralized powers control the rim areas, in turns ignoring and oppressing the people who live there. They also like to make examples out of the people who rise up against them, the Capitol with the Hunger Games, the Alliance with their bounty hunters, who hunt and torture people who threaten unity.
There are other similarities between the book and the tv show as well, especially when you delve into CatchingFire and Mockingjay. One could argue (as I’m doing here) that Katniss is an equivalent to River, especially in the later books. Both women are deadly when they want to be; they are inaccessible emotionally to most of the people around them; and both represent threats to the government and are wanted and hunted because they expose a weakness in the government’s power. Sure, Katniss isn’t crazy in the same way River is, but I’m not saying that these stories are exactly the same.
I also see that Haymitch is an offshot of Captain Malcolm Reynolds. Both are men reduced and hardened by their past experiences with the government who rise to the occasion when needed and help to save the day. Oh, and of course, District 13 could be seen as the Browncoats; it’s not much of a leap there.
I could also argue that Simon, the Alliance-bred, uptight protector of River, is not too far away from Effie, the Capitol-bred, fastidious protector of Katniss. And the games-keepers? The ones who control everything and are willing to drive children to their deaths? How about the blue-handed men who hunt down River, killing everything in their way, as a parallel? Interesting crossover, right?
Obviously there are differences between the Firefly and Hunger Games. And there should be. I’m not saying that they are the same story by any means. All I’m arguing is that one seems to have influenced the other in my mind, just they way great art inspires future artists. I love the Isaac Newton quote “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” I would argue that that is what has happened here. But I thought it was worth pointing out that Joss Whedon, even though he hasn’t had a show in a few years, is still out there, is influencing the world.
Finally, with all that theorizing out of the way, enjoy the two songs I liked most from The Hunger Games album. They are really quite good.
Well, it’s another boring week in terms of music. Only one song of note, and that was on, no surprise here, Cougar Town.
Avalanche City “The Streets” – This song played at the end of the episode, right after Travis did his stepping routine. I thought it was such a fun, summery, beach song to play over Ellie finally surfing. It reminded me of the song used in the first season when the whole crew goes to the beach. Really great stuff.
And the song from the first season, Leona Naess “Leave Your Boyfriends Behind”
This was a better week for music than last week, and, oddly enough, it was because of the return of The Little Mermaid and Grey’s Anatomy. Weird, right? But I’ll take it if it means new stuff for me (and you, gentle viewer) to enjoy.
This was a seriously slim week in terms of music. I mean, seriously, a Grey’s Anatomy sized seriously. However, it’s also a March week in television, so probably I should be happy that there was any TV to watch at all. Only one song really jumped out at me and then one slipped in at the end upon web search, so here goes: my impossible small list of favorite songs of the week.
This week was pretty light on good music. Really, I’ve been getting most of my songs from the new season of Skins, but my plan is to wait until the end of this series and then post all my choices together for that show. But back to this week. Just two tracks really stood out to me. I hope you enjoy them.
Mary the TV Maven 