From ushering indie-minnows onto the next level or giving heritage acts a boost, TV shows are increasingly crucial for music acts, and a good soundtrack can become as iconic as the program itself. Whether it’s Stranger Things playing homage to classic ’80s artists or noughties teen-fest Skins vomiting up Bloc Party and Crystal Castles into the toilet of their out-of-control house party, these are the small screen wonders with the biggest tunes.
The O.C.
Artists featured: Death Cab for Cutie, Franz Ferdinand, Interpol, The Killers, Imogen Heap, Phantom Planet
Chrismukkah came early for Y2K indie lovers courtesy of this banger-filled glossy Californian teen soap, with geeky music connoisseur Seth Cohen (played by Adam Brody) being a ride-or-die Death Cab For Cutie fan, helping to propel the band from the college-rock margins to the mainstream. The show birthed multiple compilation CDs, artists such as Gwen Stefani and Beck used episodes to premiere new tracks, and a club called The Bait Shop showcased performances from the likes of The Killers and Modest Mouse.
Best sync: The gasp-inducing season two finale (once parodied by Saturday Night Live) where Marissa Cooper shoots Ryan Atwood’s brother Trey in order to save him was memorably accompanied by Imogen Heap’s ghostly ‘Hide and Seek’.
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Skins
Artists featured: MGMT, Crystal Castles, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Mogwai, Vampire Weekend, Skepta, Florence+ TheMachine
A soundtrack that’s a glitter-bomb of MySpace indie sleaze. Such was E4’s flagship show’s infiltration into music culture that the cast earned two NME covers. The first was headlined ‘Sex, Skins And Standing In The Way Of Control’ – a reference to how it helped popularise the Gossip disco-punk anthem, despite frontwoman Beth Ditto being initially angered by the sync as she mistakenly thought the series was about skinheads (rather than just Bristol teens). Foals played a secret bash for a ten-minute online episode, Skins Live events hosted line-ups including new ravers Late Of The Pier and there was even a Skinslife record label.
Best sync: Soulwax’s remix of Gossip’s ‘Standing in the Way of Control’ provided the needle-drop for an infamous trailer portraying a hedonistic house party. A close second is the cast’s fourth-wall breaking into singing Cat Stevens‘ ‘Wild World’ for the season one closer.
Peaky Blinders
Artists featured: Nick Cave, Anna Calvi, David Bowie, Black Sabbath, Arctic Monkeys, IDLES, PJ Harvey, Radiohead
From the portentous opening theme, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ ‘Red Right Hand’ , onwards, the expertly-curated Peaky Blinders’ soundtrack is the feather in this gangster drama’s (baker boy) cap, stuffed with musical outlaws. It even spawned its own music festival in 2019, with on the bill. Anna Calvi contributed myriad moments, including a rendition of FKA Twigs’ ‘Papi Pacify’, her arresting original track ‘Wish’, and her version of David Bowie’s ‘Lady Grinning Soul’.
Best sync: Several remixes and covers of ‘Red Right Hand’ are threaded throughout the series, by artists ranging from PJ Harvey to Arctic Monkeys – arguably the greatest is the Iggy Pop and Jarvis co*cker team-up from series four.
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Twin Peaks
Artists featured: Angelo Badalamenti, Julee Cruise
The haunting and beautiful score for David Lynch’s ’90s cult phenomenon Twin Peaks was created by his long-time collaborator, composer Angelo Badalamenti. Not only does it perfectly compliment the beguiling and nightmarish tone of the show, it also stands alone as a masterful piece of music. It’s mainly instrumental, with occasional dreamy vocals from Julee Cruise.
Best sync: ‘Laura Palmer’s Theme’ recurs throughout the series. Beginning with eerie synth notes (later sampled by Moby on ‘Go’), a piano grandly swells with dread and hope, as the mystery of the domed beauty queen unfolds.
Atlanta
Artists featured: Kamasi Washington, 21 Savage, Sade, Funkadelic, Sam Cooke, Young Thug
Since this comedy-drama was created by Donald Glover, it should come as little surprise that the soundtrack slaps. Although it revolves around an up-and-coming rapper named Paper Boi (Brian Tyree Henry), it isn’t wall-to-wall trap music. Next to paying homage to its titular city Atlanta’s hip-hop roots with tracks from Rich the Kid, Young Thug, Migos and OutKast, it also makes space for well-judged retro hits from Funkadelic and Sade.
Best sync: Paper Boi singing along to Cheryl Lynn’s funky 1983 R&B track ‘Encore’ in a car ahead of a drug deal.
Stranger Things
Artists featured: Kate Bush, Modern English, The Clash, Limahl, Metallica
The sound of ‘80s Hawkins, Indiana (and the Upside Down) is dominated by by the vintage synth original score – and iconic theme song – written by Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein of US electronic band Survive. From period-signifiers like Limahl’s ‘The NeverEnding Story’ (sung by Dustin and Suzie in season three) to Max discovering she can use Kate Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)’ to break free of mind-control from dastardly demon Vecna, syncs are used with flair as canny plot-points.
Best sync: Season four’s repeated deployment of ‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)’ in 2022 catapulted the track to the top of the UK charts some 37 years after its original release, while other ’80s-perennials like Metallica’s ‘Master of Puppets’ also experienced streaming surges.
Euphoria
Artists featured: Billie Eilish Jamie xx, Bobby Womack, Orville Peck, Lorde, Steely Dan
HBO’s OTT high-school drama may have courted controversy for its lurid explicitness (featuring more co*cks proudly on display than a Reform UK party conference) that makes the Skins gang look practically celibate in comparison, but it packs an inordinate number of songs into each episode as tightly as carbon molecules in a diamond. As well as original music from Labrinth, its omnivorous soundtrack time-portals from Gen Z playlist stalwarts like Billie Eilish and Orville Peck, to Bronski Beat’s ‘80s queer-anthem ‘Smalltown Boy’; an eclectic sonic playpen where Baby Keem brushes shoulders with Steely Dan and Sinead O’Connor. Gerry Rafferty’s 1979 cut ‘Right Down the Line’ gained a new lease of life on TikTok following its appearance in season two.
Best sync: The climax of season one boasted a co*ke-fuelled hallucination soundtracked by Labrinth and show star Zendaya’s pulsating ‘All of Us’.
The Sopranos
Artists featured: Alabama 3, Journey, Frank Sinatra, Moby, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, Mazzy Star, Saint Etienne
Bringing a new meaning the phrase “mafia hit”, ‘Woke Up This Morning’ became acid-country band Alabama 3’s signature song after it was personally selected by The Sopranos’ creator David Chase as the theme for his 1999 mobster powerhouse. Each sync was chosen by Chase, who sometimes consulted with Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt (who played Silvio Dante on the show), and spans classic rock (The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd), ‘90s ambience, hip-hop, and 1950s jazz.
Best sync: Van Morrison’s euphoric 1970 R&B song ‘Glad Tidings’ being played moments before Tony Soprano blows his cousin Tony Blundetto away with a shotgun.
This is England ’90
Artists featured: James, Happy Mondays, The La’s, 808 State, Ludovico Einaudi
In his This Is England TV trilogy – spanning the years ’86, ’88, and ’90 – Shane Meadows charts the lives of former skinheads Lol, Woody and the gang through a changing Britain, and by the time, we get to This is England ’90, we’re onto the summer of love, as they discover baggy clothes, the Stones Roses’ ‘Idiots Gold’ (as Woody calls their timeless ‘Fools Gold’) and The La’s lysergic ‘There She Goes’.
Best sync: The opening rave montage of episode two is soundtracked by Happy Mondays’ ‘Hallelujah’ and couldn’t nostalgically conjure up swivel-eyed Madchester more evocatively without Bez jumping out from behind your couch shaking a pair of maracas or Shaun Ryder flogging your TV to pay for crack cocaine while you’re watching it.
‘Music From Battlestar Galactica and Other Original Compositions From Giorgio Moroder’
Artists featured: Giorgio Moroder
You may be exclaiming: “What the frack?!” at the inclusion of this outlier. Hot on the moonboots of Meco’s disco Star Wars album in 1977, a year later Giorgio Moroder reworked the score of the original 1978 Glen Larson space opera (that inspired the masterful 2003 Ronald B Moore reboot) into a pass-the-quaaludes Studio 54 spin-off soundtrack, bulked up with his own original compositions. It’s kitsch, camp, and one for record shop crate-diggers.
Best sync: Not technically a sync, as it was never featured in the parent show, but Moroder’s ‘Theme From Battlestar Galactica’ transforms its militaristic brassy opening music into a mirrorball moment, that suggests the Cylons are pumping poppers into the Twelve Colonies of Mankind’s air-conditioning.
