Star-Telegram | 01/18/2007 | Anatomy of a soundtrack

Meredith Grey, caught in a love triangle, stares right on through the very married Derek Shepherd.
Some sort of window to your right,
He goes left, and you stay right.
Yet another sexually fraught Grey's Anatomy elevator scene -- Derek goes left, Meredith goes right, and the audience for The Fray, the Denver quartet that performs How To Save a Life, goes through the roof.

Grey's Anatomy is hardly the first TV show to boost a musical performer's audience. It was just a few years ago that airtime on The O.C.

was goosing the careers of Death Cab for Cutie and Modest Mouse. And if you visit the soundtracks section at Barnes Noble, you'll find compilation CDs from dozens of shows, from Beverly Hills, 90210 (music by Paula Abdul, Jody Watley and Chaka Khan) to Gilmore Girls (music by the Shins, Joey Ramone and Carole King).
But the ABC medical show is unquestionably the king-maker of the moment.

Ask any woman younger than 40 what she's got on her iPod, and there's a good chance she's downloaded some selections from a Grey's Anatomy episode.
Part of the reason for the show's influence on listening habits is simply the show's popularity. Martin High School student Kelsey Hendrix, 17, of Arlington says not only is the latest episode of the romance-heavy drama sure to be dissected by her girlfriends on Friday morning, but male classmates and teachers are also likely to join in the discussion.

But the care taken by the show in selecting the music -- a mix of contemporary major label and indie tunes -- is also a significant factor.
"The producers, Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers, always intended the music to be a character as far back as the pilot," says Alexandra Patsavas, music supervisor for the show. "The producers budgeted so that we could afford quite a few tracks per episode.

"
And it's an important ongoing component of the show's marketing strategy. Go to the Grey's Web site, abc.go.

com/primetime/greysanatomy/index and click on "music guide," and you can pull up a song listing from every episode. There are also links to iTunes downloads for music from the show.
The first few episodes of the show, now in its third season, set its musical character, a wispy alt-rock sound heavy on female performers like The Ditty Bops and Tegan and Sara.

(Music from quirky groups like Get Set Go, featuring angry lyrics set to cheerful tunes, brought variety to the first season's soundtrack.) But it was the second season, when Grey's fever began to rage across the country, that music from the show caught fire.
The Fray's How To Save a Life first aired during a tense operating scene in the second season, then was replayed -- and replayed -- and replayed during promos for season 3.

Although The Fray was already on America's music radar, its prominence on the show enormously boosted the group's profile.
The slow and sweet Grace, commissioned specifically for a much-anticipated love scene between Meredith and Derek in the final episode of season 2, has brought attention to Norwegian singer/songwriter Kate Havnevik. Music director Patsavas says it's her favorite Grey's song.

But it's Northern Ireland pop/punk group Snow Patrol that has most benefited from its Grey's exposure. In the dramatic season 2 finale, beautiful Izzie desperately cradles the dead body of her heart-patient fiance in his hospital bed. As her friends look on aghast, Snow Patrol's melancholy love song Chasing Cars begins to play.

If I lay here, if I just lay here,
It's a moment that caught the hearts of viewers around the country. The single was suddenly a blisteringly hot download and the CD, Eyes Open, took off like a race car. Chasing Cars was the No.

3 download for 2006, according to billboard.com.
A compilation CD, Grey's Anatomy Original Soundtrack Vol.

2, featuring all three of the breakout songs, plus 12 others, including the amusing Kaboom! by Ursula 1000 and I Hate Everyone by Get Set Go, is nominated for a Grammy for best soundtrack, the only TV soundtrack to be selected. If the compilation CD wins, it wouldn't be the first Grammy win for a TV soundtrack -- Henry Mancini won two Grammy's for the Peter Gunn soundtrack in the late '50s, and Jan Hammer was honored for his creative soundtrack for Miami Vice in the '80s.

But the Grey's Anatomy soundtrack is different in that the majority of its music was not created for the show but rather compiled from eclectic sources.
The third season has so far included more music from Snow Patrol, Kate Havnevik and Get Set Go, as well as songs from the Jealous Girlfriends, the Chalets and the Bamboos, all no doubt hoping to become household names.
But it's not just the musicians who benefit from their TV exposure.

The music/TV synergy cuts both ways, with the contemporary songs bringing young viewers to the show, just as the producers had hoped.
For teenager Hendrix, music helped draw her into Grey's Anatomy. "The first episode I ever saw was the one where a bomb had gone off, and one of my favorite songs, Breathe (2 a.

m.) by Anna Nalick, played at the moment. It caught my attention," Hendrix says.

Alexandra Patsavas is arguably the most influential woman in music in America these days, and if you're interested in music, you should know her name.
Patsavas, who has been the music supervisor for Grey's Anatomy since the pilot, is also the woman behind the music behind the actors in The O.C.

, Shark, Without a Trace, Supernatural, Rescue Me and Numbers.
She began booking music acts when she was in college at the University of Illinois and then moved to L.A.

where she worked for BMI, licensing music for films and TV shows. Seven years ago, she started her own company, Chop Shop Music Supervision. Because she's been in the business for so long, Patsavas says, she gets about 500 music submissions a week, including music from overseas.

In addition, she hears bands live and seeks out regional bands with buzz.
With the help of three co-workers, she compiles a CD of about 20 suggestions for each episode of Grey's Anatomy. She then works with the producers and writers matching music to script and winnowing down to about five songs per episode.

Chop Shop works similarly with the other shows.
Because of dramatic changes in music media in recent years -- computer technology has made it easy for upstart bands to get their music into the ether, and download technology makes a wide variety of music available to anyone with minimal computer smarts --_ the balance in music leadership is shifting.
"I think radio has become much more limited, their play lists have become much more limited," Patsavas says.

"TV producers are very adventurous, they want to find the very best music for the scene, and it doesn't matter if they're a major label group, which allows them to be more creative."
-- Cathy Frisinger, Special to the Star-Telegram
Although television programming is playing a more significant role in setting musical taste than it ever did previously, TV influence on music is far from new.
April 10, 1957: A teenage Ricky Nelson, known to television audiences for playing himself on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, releases a cover of Fats Domino's I'm Walkin that becomes a million-seller.

Ricky Nelson's career as an Elvis-lite singer is launched, and in later years the show always concludes with Ricky singing songs like Travelin' Man as teenage girls swoon over his pretty eyes.
Sept. 12, 1966: The Monkees debuts, starring four young men recruited for their acting, not musical skills.

Songs like Last Train to Clarksville and I'm a Believer become hits. The four actors eventually learn to play their instruments and tour performing their songs.
Sept.

9, 1975: Welcome Back, Kotter premieres with a theme song written and performed by former Lovin' Spoonful vocalist John Sebastian, and the song becomes a radio hit, launching an era of TV theme songs as pop-music fodder.
November 1985: Jan Hammer hits a high note as his creative score for the it's-all-about-style police show Miami Vice gets almost as much buzz as the show's two chiseled actors. Both the Miami Vice album and the single, Miami Vice Theme, are in the No.

1 spot on Billboard's charts.
1997: Singer/songwriter Vonda Shepard's career gets a boost when she is cast as the in-house performer at the bar where lawyer Ally McBeal and her quirky colleagues congregate after work. Shepard primarily performs standards on the show.

1998: The teenage soap Dawson's Creek premieres, and lists the artists whose songs appeared on the soundtrack -- performers like Barenaked Ladies, Ben Folds Five, Sarah McLachlan and Sophie B. Hawkins -- at the end of the episode. The practice becomes commonplace among shows aimed at young viewers.

2003: "Don't dis the Death Cab" says Seth on The O.C., another teen soaper.

Washington group Death Cab for Cutie gets a huge boost from the mention. From its 2003 premiere, the producers of The O.C.

make a point of featuring indie music. Alexandra Patsavos is brought on to helm the show's soundtrack selections beginning with episode 8.