I have been rewatching Scrubs off and on on Netflix over the last few months. Love the show but it was a show that always made such great use of music. What I am finding is, even more than DVD, much (most?) of the music selections have been replaced with generic, cheaper music. I understand this isn’t the creator’s fault; it’s the musicians pricing themselves out of the market but so many great scenes lose their power (the J.D.- Elliot hook up at the end of “My Monster” is an egregious example off the top of my head), it can make watching the show jarring and annoying.
The saddest part is by over charging, musicians are are cutting their nose to spite their face. I found so much good music after first hearing it in a TV show that people watching today will miss. They are hurting themselves in the long run.
Just wondering does it bother anyone else?
Oh yes, WKRP and Daria suffer immensely from this problem. It’s crazy because if they kept the original tunes people would buy them in a fit of nostalgia when viewing the programs.
For some of those older shows, I don’t think it even occurred to them to secure rights for home sales so it’s not even a case of musicians pricing themselves too high. WKRP specifically would have a hell of a time tracking down every artist/song used and negotiating royalties.
I get it when it is older series that use a lot of period songs (like the Wonder Years) but the shows where it is most grating are the ones that use lesser known bands who could use the exposure.
I imagine they have been getting the DVD rights written into the initial contract for a few years now; now they will have to do it for streaming as well since, going back to my original example of Scrubs, there are songs I know are on the DVD but not on the version on Netflix.
They’ve figured it out somehow. The reruns I’ve been watching lately seem to have the original music. Or at least some of it. I remember hearing Pink Floyd and James Brown.
The older shows had no provisions for DVD payments to artists; nowadays, that’s written into the contract when the song is used. It’s not so much that the artists are refusing to allow it for the shows where it’s not covered; it’s that the shows need to track down the rights, and that can be an expensive process. Some musicians might be OK with it, but a show wouldn’t want to be sued by someone who wasn’t.