TV shows follow a different beat

“Music television” used to mean MTV. Now the term could be applied to almost any prime-time dramatic series -- and some sitcoms as well.

From “The Sopranos” to “Gilmore Girls,” from “Dawson’s Creek” to “Providence,” more weekly TV shows are downplaying traditional orchestral underscoring and salting their soundtracks with rock, pop and hip-hop tunes by groups ranging from the rich and famous to the unknown and hopeful.

The playlists of most radio stations are tame and monotonous by comparison.

Tony Soprano made his fourth-season entrance waddling down his driveway to the calamitous yowl of “World Destruction” by Afrika Bambaataa and former Sex Pistol John Lydon. On “The West Wing,” President Bartlet strode rain-soaked and resolute to a pivotal news conference to Dire Straits’ “Brothers in Arms.” “Six Feet Under” artfully folds in recordings as agonized as PJ Harvey’s “One Time Too Many” and as campy as Julie London’s sultry take on bubble-gum rocker “Yummy Yummy Yummy.”

Last season’s Humanitas Prize-winning episode of “Scrubs,” in which its three young doctors each lost a patient, gained emotional impact from a montage set to John Cale’s rendition of a Leonard Cohen song called “Hallelujah.”

Classic rock tunes by the Who ignite the opening credits of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” and its new, Miami-based spinoff, but their episodic music leans heavily toward current bands such as the Wallflowers and Euphoria. “Providence” is a haven for folkies and soft rockers such as Shawn Colvin and Dar Williams.

The list could go on and on. The producers of “The Sopranos” license up to 100 “source” songs -- existing recorded material -- per 13-episode arc.

Several series have in-house tunesmiths to provide situation- and character-specific originals. “Gilmore Girls” employs Grant-Lee Phillips, late of alt-rocker Grant Lee Buffalo, and folk-pop singer-songwriter Sam Phillips.

Her husband, T-Bone Burnett, Grammy-winning mastermind of the rootsy “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” movie soundtrack, is doing similar chores for “Crossing Jordan.”

Ten years ago, such musical adventurousness was unusual. Twenty years ago, it was unthinkable. TV was still in the phase in which a series’ musical elements consisted of a catchy opening theme and orchestral underscoring that most viewers scarcely noticed.

Now, the oddities are shows like “JAG” that rely largely on orchestral scoring. Now, cover tunes are risky business. Now, production budgets reflect the necessity of “authenticity,” even though the license fee for a song can run from $2,000 to $20,000.

“If a kid is blasting music in his room and it’s a cheap rip-off of something, it’s just not going to have the same effect as if he’s really blasting Kottonmouth Kings or something,” says Ann Kline, who helps producer-writer John Wells choose source music for “ER,” “The West Wing,” “Third Watch” and his new “Presidio Med.”

The shift started gradually. “Miami Vice” (1984-89) broke the history of TV music in half, turning cop action into music videos to the beat of big-time rock hits such as Phil Collins’ “Something in the Air.” “The Wonder Years” (1988-93) shrewdly incorporated pop hits from the ‘60s. “Northern Exposure” (1990-95) set the pattern for many of today’s shows, using a quirky radio station and the jukebox at a local bar to work everything from Nat King Cole to Lynyrd Skynyrd into its soundtrack.

There are many reasons why the trend has snowballed, but it mainly comes down to who’s running the shows -- and the networks. It’s men and women who cut their teeth on rock and soul and, in some cases, were potty-trained to MTV.

“We’re incredibly, psychotically passionate about music,” says Bill Lawrence, creator/executive producer of “Scrubs,” of his show’s staff and cast.

“We generally start every day with somebody having a CD or a song they want everybody to hear.”

“It’s fun,” says Amy Sherman-Palladino, creator/executive producer of “Gilmore Girls.” “It’s fun that you’ve had this song in your head that you’ve loved for 100 years, and now you get to, like, put it on and do a great scene around it.

“The music industry is very confused right now. It’s very closed off. Young people especially don’t get exposed to a range of different kinds of music unless they have someone in their family, an older sister or brother or Mom or Dad or someone, who’ll say, ‘Hey, why don’t you listen to XTC?’ ... Maybe I can infuse a little bit of something else in my own crazy, little, tiny way and maybe have four people go, ‘Boy, that’s kind of a good sound.’ ”

Yes, they’re on a mission from God -- or at least Apollo, the god of music.

But there’s more to this sea change than kids loose in the candy factory. It’s also -- surprise, surprise -- about marketing.

“First and foremost, it’s something people see as another selling point,” Lawrence says. “We weren’t in tune with how big a deal [using pop tunes] could be until we started doing it, and the most hits on our Web site the day after a show aired were, ‘What was that song, and how can we get it?’ People are music freaks, especially the [young] demographic the networks are looking to grab.”

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Noel Holston writes about television for Newsday, a Tribune company.