Gossip Girl rocks
Last night was the premiere of the CW's trashy teen drama "Gossip Girl," and my oh my does it look addictive. Mysterious UES girl with a shady past trying to make good, in a fight with a bitchy best friend who she wronged a year ago, slumming it with her private school's token scholarship student whose ex-musician dad has a class-informed chip on his shoulder ... and that's to say nothing of the scummy manipulator, the cheating boyfriend, or token's freshman-playing-with-the-big-kids sister. DRA-MA!
But, the music. This is a Josh Schwartz creation, so the music is already a self-consciously hip part of the show. In the pilot last night, has-been musician dad even took a dig at the music blogs saying something like: "Maybe if the musicians got off their blogs, the music industry wouldn't be in such a sorry state." I was momentarily distracted, but I think that he was defending to his son his decision to publicize his latest concert via flyer instead of posting it on his blog. This argument makes no sense, and seems like a strained effort by the writers to say, "Look! We know about blogs! We're with it! We're cool!"
That feeling is further reinforced by the way they use music in the show. Last night I recognized Peter, Bjorn and John (I think "Young Folks" is the series' theme song), Amy Winehouse, Cold War Kids, Albert Hammond Jr. and Justin Timberlake. (The folks over at this fan site are keeping better track.) This just doesn't seem like the music that these kids would be listening to (although, to be fair, the only diegetic music — in the scene at the party — was all JT and Akon, and did seem age and stylistically appropriate). And, the music just doesn't seem to be mixed at the right volume level — it's never background, always front and center. It's like they spent all this money licensing all these tracks, so they want it to be clear when they use the music.
I don't think that there's anything wrong with using cool music — in fact I think everyone in life should be doing that — it's just that there's so much effort involved here in saying, "Our music is cool!" Other than that one complaint, I really like the show. It's my new Wednesday night guilty pleasure.
eh.www.amNY.com
