20 TV shows with the best soundtracks and music
By Sundi Rose
The O.C.
Hear me out, folks. While most of us remember The O.C. as a melodramatic teen soap with lots of rich, pretty, white people making terrible decisions about their own lives, some of us remember all the really cool music the show introduced us to.
Aside from launching the careers of Rachel Bilson, Adam Brody and Olivia Wilde, it also reintroduced Peter Gallagher’s eyebrows back to the mainstream. These are all important contributions, but this show also gave us early 2000s musical gold. Before iTunes was a real thing, and Soundcloud was just a twinkle in its creator’s eye, this show was giving us indie life.
For teenagers across the country, The O.C. was just the indie band-primer they needed, reaching outside the top 40 world they were trapped in. Bands like Death Cab for Cutie, The Killers, Nada Surf and the Dandy Warhols got their introduction to the popular culture partially thanks to this show. Brody’s character, Seth, considered himself quite the musical aficionado, and we can all thank him for his eclectic tastes in music.
Death Cab was a staple on the show, mostly thanks to Seth. He often drops their name, gives their CDs away as Christmakuh presents, and the band even makes an appearance at the local hangout, The Bait Shop.
The O.C.‘s use of music was nothing short of visionary. Before this moment in teen TV, you didn’t often hear a song playing behind critical dialogue, and it become impossible to divorce the music from the storyline. Just try to imagine Marissa’s death without Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah.” You can’t.