411 Music Ten Deep 08.27.10: Top Ten TV Theme Songs

Posted by Andrew Moll on 08.27.2010

From The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and The Sopranos to Cheers and Mission: Impossible, 411's Andrew Moll counts down the Top 10 TV Theme Songs in this week's Ten Deep!


(Disclaimer: All opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of 411 Music and its staff.)


Welcome to this, another exciting and fun-filled and intelligent edition of 411 Music Ten Deep. Not to blow my own horn, but I do have to tell it like it is. Let's get right into it with this' week's list, as we first look back to last week's list, which covered the Top Ten One-Hit Wonder Songs:




I was so hoping to see at least mention of Green Jelly and Three Little Pigs, but great list. Though I would also add M. Night's The Sixth Sense, yeah, it's a movie but, it is a one hit wonder..
Posted By: chAd_b (Guest) on August 20, 2010 at 02:56 AM

Come on, Unbreakable was a pretty good movie.

How could you forget "She Drives Me Crazy" by Fine Young Cannibals?
Posted By: Guest#3622 (Guest) on August 20, 2010 at 02:21 AM

I direct you to a little song called "Good Thing." FYC were a two-hit wonder, and two pretty good hits, at that.

Peaches - Presidents..
You Get What You Give - The New Radicals
Butterfly - Crazy Town
Heaven is a Halfpipe - OPM
Teenage Dirtbag - Wheatus
Mad World - Gary Jules
Posted By: Propagandhi (Guest) on August 20, 2010 at 08:06 AM

The New Radicals were a close call, but there are only ten spots. "Mad World" skipped my mind, but it's a really good song that I should have considered, although I'm not sure it became a "hit" in the US. As for the Presidents, how could you have forgotten "Lump"?

My Sharona wasn't just a hit because it was at the right time and mood for such a rock song. It re-entered the HOT 100 in 1994 and became one of 14 songs to do that after more and than a decade out of the charts. It was a hit because it was damn good.
Posted By: Jim (Guest) on August 20, 2010 at 12:37 PM

And Winona Ryder. Don't forget Winona Ryder.

Please explain to me how Blind Melon's "No Rain" is a one hit wonder ... By very definition, this column should focus on bands that literally had one hit and were done. Blind Melon follow-up up "No Rain" with "Tones of Home" and "Change" (off the same album), and the sophomore release would yield "Galaxie" and "Toes Across The Floor" ... not to mention the band's contribution to the Schoolhouse Rock collection, "Three is a Magic Number," which saw heavy rock radio play.

The rest of the list makes sense ... and the gripe I raise is an issue on lists like this across the board. Just saying ...
Posted By: Guest#0768 (Guest) on August 20, 2010 at 08:47 AM

I concede that Blind Melon isn't the best example of a one-hit wonder band, but sometimes it's more about perception than reality. Most people, including myself, know the band mainly for "No Rain," and aren't aware of their other work. I know it's unfair, but that's how these things go, sometimes.

Numan wis not and was not a one hit wonder..
Posted By: 16s (Guest) on August 20, 2010 at 07:57 PM

Gary Numan had one other song that reached the charts in the US, and that came in at #102. So for the purposes of the column, yes, he was a one-hit wonder. A great one-hit wonder, but still a one-hit wonder.



Top Ten TV Theme Songs



With the Emmy Awards thi Sunday night, I figured it'd be a good time to look back at some of the best TV theme songs of all-time. A good theme song helps get across the message and feeling of a show in just about a minute. Once you hear a certain song associated with a show, you get the feeling of what the show looks like, is about and everything else. These songs here are the best of the bunch; not just great songs, but ones that are virtually indistinguishable from the shows they appeared on. First, though, we look at the close calls, AKA, the honorable mentions:

Some Honorable Mentions: All in the Family; Hawaii Five-0; The Jeffersons; M*A*S*H; The Office (UK Version); Spider-Man




10. Cheers


As mentioned previously, the success and quality of a theme song comes from how it helps to define the show in just a one-minute long piece of music, and few themes did a better job of than the Cheers theme. "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" was written by Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart and performed by Portnoy and it perfectly capture the feeling of suffering through a long day at work before heading to the local bar and winding down, which is one of the things that the show itself captured so perfectly.





With its minimal instrumentation (containing not much more than a catchy piano riff), and chorus that practically begs you to sing along with it, the Cheers theme has become as instantly iconic as the show itself, and the two are forever to be intertwined. The phrase "you wanna go where everybody knows your name" came to define the show and the song on its own became the kind of song that the characters on the show would probably be listening to while in that bar.





9. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air


For a certain generation, or as I might more accurately refer to it, "my generation," the lyrics to the theme from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air weren't something that you had to learn or study or anything; you just know them, like you just know basic facts and things like the alphabet. If I just say "Now, this is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down," then many of you can immediately take it from there and take us to "Looked at my kingdom, I was finally there, to sit on my throne as the prince of Bel-Air."





At the time the show premiered on NBC in 1990, there weren't a lot of shows starring African-Americans and there certainly weren't any rappers that had become the stars of their own sitcoms, so Will Smith's song wasn't just a catchy and fun song from a guy known for them; it was an important piece in the show forming its own identity, one that was separate from everything else on television at the time.





8. The Greatest American Hero


Apparently The Greatest American Hero is about a guy who finds a red cape, which gives him super abilities which he then uses to try and save the world or whatever. I say this because I've never seen the show and don't ever plan on watching it, yet the show manages to have a life nearly three decades after its premiere. Or as it was eloquently put once, "I am the Greatest American Hero. My special power is being somehow memorable after a very short run on TV."





And why is this seemingly foolish and not particularly good television show from the early 1980s still remembered today. Well, 99.9% of it is because of the show's theme song, which is absolutely tremendous and even reached Number 2 on the Billboard Top 100. It starts out so sincere with the lines, "Look at what's happened to me/I can't believe it myself/Suddenly I'm up on top of the world/It should've been somebody else." As if that's no great enough, we get the triumphant chorus of, "Believe it or not/I'm walking on air/I never thought I could feel so free eee eee/Flying away on a wing and a prayer/Who could it be?/Believe it or not it's just me." There's nothing left for me to say, even; just listen to the song and feel great about yourself.





7. Mission: Impossible


When you have a television show that's all about a crack team of American government agents and saving the country on a weekly basis, you know that the tension is going to be high for each episode and you need to get that across to the audience in a non-obvious and non-annoying way. And what better way to go about it than having a great and simple theme song that lets people know exactly what the show is about in under a minute?





Lalo Schifrin's main title theme music was a perfect fit for the show; once the mission was set and the tape self-destructed, you were off to the races and that theme song was leading the way there. For each incarnation of the show, from an updated version in the late 1980s to the three Tom Cruise movies, that title theme has always been there, mainly because it just can't be improved upon. It's mounting tension and energy was perfect for the show and stands the test of time as one of the more famous TV theme song ever.





6. The O.C.


A lot of people dream about getting into a car driving out to the West Coast and Southern California specifically, with its idyllic scenery and weather and people; for many out there, it seems like the ultimate destination. That's the feeling that was expertly captured by Phantom Planet on their song, "California," a song that just sounded like Southern California, or at least what those of us who don't live there assume Southern California to be, and then gained popularity after becoming the theme song for The O.C.





The O.C. was guilty of quite a lot of things, mainly bringing the overwrought and hackneyed teen drama to the Twentieth Century and forcing MTV to start Laguna Beach which gave us The Hills which gave us Heidi which gave us Spencer, so fuck you Josh Schwartz. But it was responsible for giving a bunch of quality bands some exposure they wouldn't have gotten otherwise, and Phantom Planet was one of those groups. Their song was perfect for those shots the coast of the Pacific Ocean and made you want to immediately pack your things and get in an automobile.





5. The Monkees


"Here we come, walking down the street/We get the funniest looks from everyone we meet/Hey, hey, we're the Monkees/And people say we monkey around/But we're too busy singing/To put anybody down." There, that sums up the Monkees television show in just a few lines of lyrics. The show was the Beatles A Hard Day's Night shrunk down to a half hour, colorized and Americanized, and that theme song shared many of those same qualities, and it was a perfect fit.





The show itself was nothing but silly fun, and also incredibly infectious, and the same exact thing can be said about its theme song (or the entire Monkees catalog, for that matter). The song and television show were irresistible romps and immediately set the band apart from what the other bands at the time were doing. If you have a TV show about a band, you need a great song to go along with it, and that's exactly what The Monkees had.





4. Friends


The days of a TV theme song becoming a hit and climbing the charts are most likely long gone, because there are no longer any more shows that dominate the public consciousness and are watched by pretty much everyone. The mid-1990s, however, were a goldmine for TV shows that entered the zeitgeist, and many of those shows were, not coincidentally, on NBC. Friends was an instant hit in 1994, and it's theme song, "I'll Be There for You" by the Rembrandts, became a hit itself.





It became a hit on music video too, thanks to the tried and true and always fun gimmick of having the show's stars appear in the video along with the band. "I'll Be There for You" isn't a great song by any means, or really that good, actually, but it was incredibly catchy and pretty much inescapable for a time. You can't think of it without thinking of the show immediately, and it played a part in the show becoming as popular as it did, which helps make it one of the most famous theme songs on TV.





3. Miami Vice


Michael Mann's Miami Vice was the coolest show on television in the mid-1980s, and Don Johnson became the coolest man on television. If you're wondering why that is, all you need to do is click on the embedded video below and marvel at how effective that title sequence was in making Miami Vice look like nothing else on television. That wouldn't have happened without Jan Hammer's effective and pulsating score, which set a standard at the time for TV music.





Most of the work that Hammer did for the show was evocative and distinctive, and it's not a big surprise that the soundtrack for the show reached the top of the album charts. But it was that opening theme that set the stage for everything else, both with the music and show itself. If you saw that opening credits sequence, Miami Vice immediately became a show that you had to watch, and some of that is because of the work of Jan Hammer.





2. The Sopranos


The Sopranos was very similar to Miami Vice in that it looked and felt so completely different from all its television contemporaries and competitors, and it also had an opening credits sequence that drew you immediately into its world. Again, some of that comes from a perfectly selected theme song; in this case, it was Alabama 3's "Woke Up This Morning." As we see Tony Soprano driving through New Jersey with that song blasting, we immediately want to know what will happen in the impending hour.





I wouldn't suggest that The Sopranos became one of the greatest dramas in television history solely because of the music (I'm pretty sure David Chase had a little something to do with it), but you can't tell me that "Woke Up This Morning," was completely inconsequential in terms of the show's success. The Sopranos felt like an event each Sunday night, and part of that came from the opening of each episode which made it feel like something life-altering was going to happen. Coolness is a tough thing to capture, and The Sopranos nailed it at the beginning of every show.





1. The Wire


I know what you're thinking; I'm probably one of those guys who puts The Wire at the top of any list in regards to television, up to and including the greatest sitcom of all-time. I can't really disagree with that, necessarily, but that doesn't mean you can discount the importance of "Way Down in the Hole" and how it fit into David Simon's vision of modern-day Baltimore. Whichever version of the song you prefer, any fan of the show knows how the song is a piece of the puzzle, just as everything else on the screen was a piece.





The show itself rarely featured music, or at least music that didn't appear naturally on the show, so it automatically stands out when you hear a song pop up. "Way Down in the Hole" had to be there to help tell the story of each season, and it's message of the Devil constantly in hot pursuit ties in with the overall message of the show pretty well. From the Blind Boys of Alabama's version to Tom Waits' original to the Neville Brothers' to the version by the Baltimore teenagers to Steve Earle's take on it, "Way Down in the Hole" capture the feeling of trying to suppress the Devil at any moment. The Wire was a masterpiece in the truest sense of the word, and its theme song played a part in that since, as the show routinely pointed out, all the pieces matter.



That'll do it for this week folks, thanks for reading. If you have any questions, comments or concerns feel free to let me know, and make sure to leave your own lists in the comments. I'll see you all next week. And if you're out on your bike tonight, do wear white.