Subordinating sound to screen: television music supervision in an imagocentric world

Abstract

This article combines a sound studies perspective with a television industry approach by placing interview data from prominent television music supervisors in conversation with textual analysis of their projects. Using interview and textual data from cathartic moments in television dramas like Six Feet Under, Nip/Tuck, and Breaking Bad, I argue that the structural logics of subordination in the American television industry contribute to an imagocentric culture. Specifically, the music supervisors I interviewed emphasised music’s separation from and subordination to television’s storytelling function and believed that artful music design should use music as a “flavour” or “texture”, offering synaesthesia as a way of bypassing the discussion of sound as a constitutive element in the narrative resolution. Finally, the supervisors foregrounded financial constraints as a primary influence on their creative labour, using licensing discussions to decentralise the creative contributions of music in the television narrative. Themes of subordination, synaesthesia, and financial constraint worked together to decentralise the importance of music to the creative professionals responsible for this work. By putting music supervisors’ perspectives in conversation with textual analysis of their projects, this article demonstrates the disconnection between music’s crucial role in shaping television messages and the devaluing of sound in the television landscape.

Keywords:

• Television music
• soundtrack
• industry studies
• television drama
• imagocentrism

Notes

1. freshdj1210, comment posted to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04mRvBaEku4 , 23 September 2011.

2. Tagg (2011) coined the term “non-muso” (5) to represent those who do not have musical training.

3. Jason Alexander has worked as music supervisor for 36 television series and films, contributing to programmes like CBS’s CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: NY, and Without a Trace. In 2014, Alexander supervised music for six television series including Starz’s Power and The CW’s The Tomorrow People.

4. Beyond his work with House, M.D., which was the focus of my interview, Gary Calamar has worked on a number of films and television shows including HBO’s True Blood, Showtime’s Dexter, and HBO’s Entourage. Calamar was nominated for Grammy awards for his work on True Blood and Six Feet Under.

5. Thomas Golubić has contributed to television shows like AMC’s The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad. His work has been in particularly high demand in recent years, including five popular television series in 2014 alone.

6. As the music supervisor for over 50 films and hundreds of television episodes, P. J. Bloom is a leading voice in contemporary music supervision and a founding member of the Guild of Music Supervisors. Bloom’s work includes Fox’s Glee and American Horror Story as well as NBC’s The New Normal and CBS’s CSI: Miami. Bloom was named “Music Supervisor of the Year” in 2012 by the American Association of Independent Music.

7. Shazam is a mobile app used to identify a song through sound.