The Greatest TV Series Ever: The Sopranos And Its Music

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

John Cooper Clarke: Evidently Chickentown
Fred Neil: The Dolphins

The Rolling Stones: Thru And Thru

Thanks to the joys of DVD boxsets, I’ve been catching up on loads of great TV shows over the last six months: Battlestar Galactica, House, The Wire. They’re all great shows but still nothing tops my favourite TV series of all time, The Sopranos.

I watched The Sopranos all the way through during its run on TV, and then watched the whole thing again when it came out on DVD. Apart from having the sharpest writing and dialogue of any TV show I’ve ever seen, one thing that really stuck out through the whole series was the use of music.

There’s no score, just songs, but they fit so perfectly it’s hard to imagine anything else working as well. The music supervisors did such an amazing job, some of the tracks feel like they were written just for the show. Some of the music highlights for me were:

John Cooper Clarke: Evidently Chickentown
Fred Neil: The Dolphins
The Rolling Stones: Moonlight Mile
Los Lobos: Viking
The Kinks: Living On A Thin Line
Elvis Costello: Complicated Shadows
Tindersticks: Running Wild
.

I could only find a few examples on Youtube, but the John Cooper Clarke track is one of my favourites. Sublime. Ever since watching the show, I started hearing songs that suddenly seemed perfect if I’d had the dream job of The Sopranos music supervisor. These would be a few on my list:

Little Feat: Easy To Slip
Terry Reid: Silver White Light
The Action: Brain
Humble Pie: As Safe As Yesterday Is
The Hollies: Heading For A Fall
Mink Deville: She’s So Tough
Bruce Springsteen: Streets Of Fire
Bob Dylan: Gotta Serve Somebody
.

Man, I miss that show…