‘O.C.’ sounds them out

Citizens Here and Abroad, a 3-year-old alt-rock group from San Francisco, spent Thursday night mesmerized by the latest episode of “The O.C.” They’re not just ordinary fans. The band, whose “Appearances” was one of the featured songs, is hoping it’ll be able to catch the wave of success that airplay on the hit Fox show had brought to so many groups before them.

“It’s kind of known among a lot of indie bands that being on there could mean great exposure,” said Adrienne Robillard, 30, one of Citizens’ singers. It’s worth noting that the band is so far under the radar that she was calling from the supply closet of the trade magazine where she still works. “That’s why we sent a CD earlier this year,” added Robillard, who shipped off a copy of Citizens’ debut record to an address she found online.

In the 2 1/2 seasons “The O.C.” has been on the air, it’s developed into a sort of musical alchemist, transforming relatively unknown bands into critics’ darlings and sparking online chatter and sales.

Call it “The O.C.” effect. Jem. Imogen Heap. Death Cab for Cutie. Dios Malos. The list of independent artists whose profiles have been boosted by the show’s careful meshing of music and emotionally charged moments is constantly growing.

And then there is the “O.C.” ripple effect: Thus far Warner Bros. Records has released five soundtrack albums -- “The O.C.: Mix 1” in March 2004 was the first. The fifth in the series, “Mix 5,” hit record stores Tuesday.

As for Citizens, singer Chris Groves, 32, says that since “Appearances” surfaced last week, “there aren’t any stalkers following me around. Not yet. But at least looking at our website, the number of people visiting has gone up a lot.” Whether that will translate into album sales, Groves said, is too early to tell.

When it comes to major indie-rock tastemakers, Alexandra Patsavas doesn’t exactly look the part. Her mane of wavy dark hair isn’t spiked blond or streaked fuchsia. Her jeans aren’t low-rise and ripped. She doesn’t exude “cool” as much as confidence. But as “The O.C.’s” music supervisor, Patsavas has been instrumental in defining the show’s sound.

Ringing her small office are half a dozen bookshelves jammed full of CDs. Behind her desk are older albums -- Richard Ashcroft, Jeff Buckley, Blind Boys of Alabama.

Across the room, new stuff from Tom Vek, Kasabian and LCD Soundsystem. In the bin at her feet -- hundreds of CDs she receives each week from record labels, band managers and artists.

“We try to go through almost everything,” said Patsavas, whom music fans, record labels, artists and band managers alike respect for her keen ear and her open mind -- to say nothing of her willingness to slog through the slush pile of unknowns.

What’s she listening for?

“An amazing emotional moment,” she said. “When I’m listening to music, I definitely save things, like, ‘That would be a great breakup song.’ That’s how I hear music.”

In the case of Citizens Here and Abroad, Patsavas needed to find the right music to bridge two moments: When Ryan is considering leaving town, and when his girlfriend Marissa discusses her new friend Johnny’s part in that decision.

Patsavas chose “Appearances” for “the wistful dreamy quality of the vocals ... coupled with the pensive instrumentation and California lyric.” And Louis XIV’s “God Killed the Queen” set the tone for last season’s controversial kissing scene between two female characters.

For Groves, at least, watching how it played in the show was a bit surreal. “When you write a song, you have certain ideas, a certain emotion or certain thoughts that go into a song,” he said. “It’s interesting to see someone take that song and use it to move along different sentiments or emotions in this other format.”

Scrolling through her iTunes, Patsavas runs her cursor over some of the tracks she’s considering for upcoming episodes: underground bands such as Her Space Holiday, Great Northern, Durango Park, Jason Collett, Clue to Kalo. Some of those songs will make their way on to the weekly compilation CDs Patsavas sends to the show’s executive producers, Josh Schwartz and McG.

From there, the music selection becomes a highly collaborative process.

“Sometimes we have a scene where we can’t find a song, and [Patsavas] will come back with five pitches. You never know where it’s going to come from,” said Schwartz, “which makes it really exciting. Everybody pitches in.”

“I always say to [Patsavas], I’ve got to get the next, new, great epic anthem song of all time.”

A prime-time soap opera embraced by teens and twentysomethings -- a demographic that dovetails with the music industry’s hungriest consumers -- “The O.C.” debuted in 2003. It takes place in Newport Beach and chronicles a group of hip, well-heeled teens as they negotiate the turbulent waters of friendship, romance, family and school. In its 8 p.m. Thursday slot, still one of the most competitive on prime time, the show is averaging 6.5 million viewers, a drop of 7% compared to last year, according to Nielsen Media Research. Likewise, sales of “Music From the O.C.” mix CDs have been declining. The four volumes have sold a total of just under 600,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, the most, not surprisingly, for the first edition (270,000), the least for the third (40,000), a compilation of alt-rock holiday music.

And while the show’s viewership has slipped 3% this year in its key adults 18 to 49 audience, given the increased competition “The O.C.” is still doing a good job hanging on to its young audience.

Schwartz said he always listens to music when he writes, and while writing the show’s pilot, he was listening to the Joseph Arthur track “Honey and the Moon.”

“All of a sudden, I just got a sense of the emotional end of the story and got the end of the show from that,” said Schwartz, 29. “[I] was able to work backward and have music laced through that told the story.”

“In the beginning, the bands we used -- the Doves, South, Jeff Buckley -- weren’t hugely popular artists,” said Schwartz, who scored most of the music for the first six episodes from his iPod. “We weren’t trying necessarily to start a new trend. It was just the music I really responded to and all the people who worked on the show responded to, and all of a sudden we realized it was connecting with people.”

When Schwartz realized he’d run out of music, he hired Patsavas: “She took what I was trying to do and elevated it, and it kind of became this other component of the show.”

It wasn’t long before they started commissioning bands to update older songs they liked for the sentiment -- songs like OMD’s “If You Leave” from Nada Surf, Paul McCartney’s “Maybe I’m Amazed” by Jem, and the Youth Group cover of Alphaville’s “Forever Young.”

They also began incorporating live music, beginning with an in-show performance by the band Rooney. A week after that appearance, Rooney’s album sales tripled. The experience prompted Schwartz to make live performances a standard feature. Conceived as a sort of “Troubadour by the sea,” the Bait Shop became a regular.

“I found out about the Killers when they went on the Bait Shop,” said Shannon Gulickson, 20, a Cal State Fullerton student who posts on TheOCFans.com music message board. “Also, I think it was Episode 8, when Seth Cohen mentioned Death Cab when they were driving down to Mexico. Ever since that episode, everybody listens to Death Cab.”

Certainly, “The O.C.” is not the first show to link teen drama with new music, but it gets more attention than most because so much music is used. Each episode contains from four to 14 songs. More than a decade ago, Fox’s “Beverly Hills, 90210” owned the teen audience and had the pick of the hot bands of its day including Color Me Badd, the Goo Goo Dolls and the Flaming Lips. In more recent times, the WB has been aggressive in its effort to find and use indie music on shows such as “Dawson’s Creek,” which aired from 1998 to 2003; “Roswell” (Patsavas supervised music for the series), which aired from 1999 to 2002); and current series such as “Everwood” and “Gilmore Girls.” Back then, “not all bands were open to television opportunities,” said Patsavas, who also supervises music for “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Without a Trace” and “Rescue Me.” “It was yes movies, perhaps TV and never advertising.”

That shifted in the late ‘90s. Suddenly, even major commercial artists like Coldplay and Radiohead were game to place their music on TV.

While licensed music is now so commonplace that many shows offer soundtracks, few have had the impact of “The O.C.,” according to Marisa Porter, co-founder of Zync Music, a music-placement firm in Santa Monica.

“ ‘The O.C.’ is totally unique in its power for music marketing because there just hasn’t been as consistent a level of success with any other show generating the kind of excitement that they tend to do,” Porter said. “It just has become a resource more than anything for the kids out there who are looking for some other avenue, some other way of finding out about cool new acts. I don’t think any other show has established itself as that kind of oracle.”

Times staff writer Scott Collins contributed to this report.

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The soundtrack of their careers

“The O.C.” has zeroed in on the music of indie and alt-rock bands on the show and for its stream of “Music From the O.C.” mix CDs. These are among the acts and songs that have received exposure from the series.

Death Cab for Cutie: Singer-songwriter Ben Gibbard formed this indie-pop band in Bellingham, Wash., releasing a handful of albums before “A Lack of Color” showed up in “The O.C.” (“Music From the O.C.: Mix 2”)

The Killers: The Las Vegas quartet mixes elements of such British faves as the Smiths, Oasis, New Order and the Cure into its sound, which got a boost through the use of “Smile Like You Mean It” (Mix 2).

Alexi Murdoch: The Greek-born, L.A.-based singer-songwriter’s website got a huge increase of hits after his song “Orange Sky” (Mix 1) turned up on the first season.

Dios Malos: The quintet hails from the home of the Beach Boys and Black Flag -- Hawthorne. Its song “You Got Me All Wrong” (Mix 2) was chosen for the show about the time the group was named one of 50 bands to watch in 2004 by England’s NME magazine.

Jem: Welsh singer-songwriter Jem Griffiths is one of several musicians with repeat performances on “The O.C.” Her “Just a Ride” was on Mix 1, then producers commissioned her for a new version of Paul McCartney’s “Maybe I’m Amazed,” included on the Mix 2 CD.

Youth Group: The Sydney, Australia, quartet’s version of Alphaville’s 1984 dance hit “Forever Young” is on Mix 5.

Louis XIV: “God Killed the Queen,” from this raucous San Diego rock quartet, was the musical backdrop during last season’s controversial kissing scene between two girls.