The Real MTV- Music on MTV

Click on the turntable on the left to listen to a continuous stream of music featured on Pretty Much Amazing - updated every day. For more, you can check out the Best Songs of 2012.

Here we go again, this time with music recaps of the most recent episodes of Gossip Girl and 90210, along with the second third of Chuck’s season two.

Starting with Gossip Girl’s fourteenth episode in season two, “In The Realm Of The Basses.” This annoyingly-titled episode contains one of the show’s best song selections to date- Department of Eagles’ catchy and beautiful “No One Does It Like You.” It also featured a song from the great rising band The Little Ones. Their song “Morning Tide” was stuck in my head for a while, and the song used on GG, “Like A Spoke on a Wheel,” is great as well. Another fantastic song used was “Who’s Crying” by The Temporary Thing. I’m going to check out more of their music right now.

OK, I’m back. It’s a guy named Andrew Gleason. He’s really good.

The list:

• No One Does It Like You- Department of Eagles
• Who’s Crying- The Temporary Thing
• Like A Spoke on a Wheel – The Little Ones
• Scarlet- Magic Bullets
• I’m Not Cool- Sohodolls
• Mayday- Unkle featuring The Duke Spirit
• Ricochet!- Shiny Toy Guns
• My Crown- The Sugar Migration
• E.S.T- White Lies

90210 had a good music week as well, with “Hello, Goodbye, Amen,” episode 12, featuring one of my favorite songs of 2008, “Spaceman.” By none other than Brandon Flowers and The Killers. The episode also used a Joshua Radin song, “The Fear That You Won’t Fall.” His music is always good for television shows like these.

The List:

• “Spaceman” by The Killers
• “Jungle Drum” by Emiliana Torrini
• “Astronaut Jebus” by JonO Brown & Jeff Kollman
• “Ok” by Holly Conlan
• “This Little Light Of Mine,” the choir!
• “Oh Happy Day,” the choir!
• “Keep Your Head” by Kirk Franklin
• “Amazing Grace,” Tristan Wilds (the actor), Dixon Wilson (the character).
• “Take The Blame” by Holly Conlan
• “The Fear You Won’t Fall” by Joshua Radin

Now let’s talk about episodes 5-8 of Chuck’s fantastic season two, as we catch up for the show’s return (in 3-D!) in February. Episode five’s music was not on par with Chuck’s best, but the episode as a whole revolved around one cool song in particular- Rush’s “Tom Sawyer.” The song was used to fantastic effect, helping Chuck defeat a video game, and in turn, diffuse a bomb.

Like episode five, episode six’s (“Chuck vs. the Ex) music wasn’t stunningly used, but did feature an up-and-coming band that sounds magnificent- Your Vegas. Their Christmas song, “Christmas and Me Are Through,” is used to incredible effect in “Chuck vs. Santa Claus,” but their song here is great as well (“It Makes My Heart Break”).

Episodes seven and eight feature Chuck at its best, music-wise. “Chuck vs. The Fat Lady,” episode 2.7, perfectly uses the Republic Tigers’ great song, “Buildings and Mountains.” More stunning, however, is the use of Frightened Rabbit’s “Keep Yourself Warm.” The song, one of my favorites of ’08 as well, was introduced to me by the show, which used it for a crucial, shocking twist and gave me the chills. A brilliant song and a brilliant musical selection.

Episode eight followed up just beautifully, with Sam Sparro (“Hot Mess“), and more effectively, Ra Ra Riot’s beautiful “Can You Tell.”

That about wraps up this week’s music recap. Let PMA know what your favorite songs were on GG, 90210, and Chuck this week (or this year, your call)!

by Adam Offitzer on January 9, 2009 ‡ 0 reactions