Pop Music Hacking

When Sherwood Schwartz decided to produce a TV show back in the 1960s, they needed a theme song. So Sherwood and George Wyle sat down over the weekend and cooked up "The Ballad of Gilligan's Island", a nifty little song that is also pretty catchy. (Schwartz also wrote the theme to "The Brady Bunch", another catchy tune)

TV Theme songs have always inspired me as somewhat of a hack. You have but a few seconds to place a catchy tune in the audience's mind and introduce them to the purpose of the show. Usually this is done in a very short time frame and on a tight budget by folks most people will never hear about who are just looking for a quick paycheck. Yet in this environment some of these guys do truly outstanding work.

It's difficult with TV theme music to separate the music to the shows you thought were awesome to just good music done in an unusual way. Many times if we really like the show, that "carries over" to our opinion of the music, making evaluating good theme song music more difficult. But if you remember the tune long after the show (or never saw the show but still like the tune) then that's hot.

Take this classic one from the 1970s

This has to be one of the top TV theme songs of all time. Wonderful rhythm, horns and wind counterpoint, great visuals. It just all fits together. I never saw the show that much, but I still like the song.

Morton Stevens wrote that song. He wanted to use some other music he had for the show's theme, but the producers didn't like it. Angry, he went to the piano and started pounding away expressing how pissed off he was. After about 20 minutes, he asked his wife to listen.

The rest is history. The song, considered by many to be the best theme song of all time, was nominated for two Emmys and is known by millions of people who never saw the show or weren't even born when it was on.

You wouldn't think an angry man banging on the piano would be an effective way to write music, even if it is angry music.

Then there's another master of the almost-dead art of TV Theme music, Quincy Jones. Jones is just tremendously good. When most theme songs were about setting up the story, Quincy set up the mood. Check out the jazz harmonica, the mix of instruments, and the rhythm work on the theme to Sanford and Son.

Not only do you understand a bit about the show, you start feeling immersed in the culture of the show -- the setting, time, and atmosphere.

I could go on with TV themes all day, but hacks in pop music are everywhere. Easily enough for a book, I'm sure.

The thing is, music itself is a bit of a hack, no matter how it's constructed.

Good art is all about subtly giving the audience something other than what they expected in an enjoyable way. In this way, it has a lot of similarities with jokes, and with technology hacks. The hacker is always figuring out a cool, easier way to gain benefit from technology, and the composer is always looking for new pleasures in old formats. When you add in things like composing it in ten minutes, or making it all up as you hum along, it makes music history an untouched goldmine of hacking stories.

EDIT: Since I'm dishing up TV themes today, I thought I'd throw in another great Quincy Jones theme. The guy just knew how to write great music.