We Ranked The 10 Best Teen TV Soundtracks Of The ’90s And ’00s
Mmmmmmm whatcha say.
Back in the VHS-heavy days of the ‘90s and early ‘00s, every television show worth its salt had a spin-off soundtrack CD.
Many were complete dross, pumped out by network marketing teams with little conceptual thought or link to the program beyond whacking a picture of the cast on the cover — but a select few were brilliant extensions of the shows, turning previously unknown songs into hits, while introducing an entire generation to terms like ‘bearded barley’ and ‘D.O.A’.
With CDs now mostly living in boxes in garages, hopeful market stalls, or as cracked stacked monuments to past consumerism, we thought we would revisit the glory days of teen drama television soundtracks by highlighting the very best of these.
The rules for inclusion are: the show needs to be primarily dramatic, vaguely soap-opera-ish, and aimed at younger audiences. No Disney or Nickelodeon shows are featured, as these largely came later, and were often launchpads for pop careers rather than proper soundtracks. Sorry Miley. We’ve also bent the ‘teen drama’ definition a little in order include a couple of classics — no points for guessing which ones.
The earliest shows included in this list began their run in 1990, and the last year featured is 2003, the glorious year that saw both One Tree Hill and The OC hit TV screens.
This does, however, means no Veronica Mars, no Gossip Girl, no 90210 reboot, no shows starring Marvel characters or superheroes who wish they were Marvel characters, no vampires, no diaries written by or about vampires, and no ‘A Current Affair: The Party Mix’.
#10. Charmed
Only an Aaron Spelling show that starred Shannen Doherty, Holly Marie Combs, and Alyssa Milano as witch sisters could kick off its soundtrack with an unknown Smash Mouth song, then a Third Eye Blind song that isn’t even ‘Semi Charmed Life’ and still, somehow, be a good listen.
There’s a Goldfrapp song about lab rats (really!), a great Vanessa Carlton tune I didn’t know existed, a beautiful Rachael Yamagata number, and the transcendent ‘Do You Realize?’ by The Flaming Lips — the only song that can make you feel euphoric while reminding you that all your loved ones are going to die. It’s witchcraft, I tell you!
But the real ace is Love Spit Love’s cover of ‘How Soon Is Now’, the tremolo masterpiece that served as the show’s theme. Most Smiths fans hate it, but most Smiths fans hate a lot of good things.
#9. One Tree Hill (Season 1)
The first season of One Tree Hill was soundtracked by a seemingly haphazard blend of American emo (The Get Up Kids, Story Of The Year, Jimmy Eat World) and Coldplay-lite elbows-off-the-supper-table fare like Keane and Travis, which was a pretty weird sonic choice for a show primarily centred around basketball and frosted tips.
When you chuck in Sheryl Crow covering Cat Stevens, Gavin DeGraw doing a live version (for some reason) of the theme tune, and Chris and Haley from the show covering Ryan Adams, somehow it makes for an oddly-arresting mix.
Also, for those bemoaning the loss of Chad Michael Murray from the small screen, he is on the latest season of Riverdale, playing “a sexy cult leader.” Pass me the Kool-Aid.
#8. The X-Files
Such was the fever for all things Mulder and Scully in 1996 that two separate versions of the wordless X-Files theme — composer Mark Snow’s original and an Italian “dream-trance” remix — hit the Australian singles charts in the same week.
If that wasn’t spooky enough, Snow released three separate CD singles of his version, with an additional eight remixes spread across the discs, all of which begs the question: Did people have more disposable income in the ‘90s or were there mass alien probes around that time? The truth is out there, and can be found by checking out the soundtrack, which features nothing more than 21 musical beds from the first three seasons of the show, intercut with dialogue snippets from select episodes.
If you ever needed a crisp CD recording of Gillian Anderson saying “Mulder, in these files I found references to experiments that were conducted here in the US by Axis-power scientists who were given amnesty after the war”, you’re in luck. As a mood disc, this soundtrack works eerily well. Just don’t whack it on at a party, unless the theme happens to be Duchovny.
#7. Beverly Hills: 90210
90210 invented the teenage drama, and in turn used the show to promote a plethora of musical acts that ranged from the terrible (Color Me Badd, Jade) to the brilliant (The Flaming Lips, The Rolling Stone) through to the inexplicable, such as Brian Austin Green, who released his own hip-hop album after subjecting viewers to a series of horrific Casio-driven jams for most of the early ‘90s.
The show’s soundtrack launched Jeremy Jordan’s ‘The Right Kind Of Love’, which would be a hit for Bieber if he released it next week, and Shanice’s ‘Saving Forever For You’, which could also be a Bieber hit despite (or perhaps because of) the lyric “This love I’m feeling’s gonna be a feeling I feel forever more.”
Michael McDonald and Chaka Khan duetting on ‘Time To Be Lovers’ is a huge misfire for a soundtrack aimed at teens: so syrupy and horrible that not even Dylan McKay could seduce someone to it.
#6. Felicity
Much like the excellent (and criminally forgotten) television show itself, this soundtrack is classy and collegiate, fit for soaking in a warm bath or as background sound while you tidy your dorm-room.
The likes of Air’s ‘All I Need’, Neil Finn’s still-underrated ‘She Will Have Her Way’, and easy-listening gems from Peter Gabriel, Ivy, and Sarah McLachlan float together nicely, like a mixtape Felicity herself might have made, especially with Kate Bush’s beautiful ‘A Woman’s Work’ as the penultimate track.
Plus, Amy Jo Johnson, the pink Power Ranger, sings one of the songs, which should be mandatory!
#5. Melrose Place
Oh my! This soundtrack is much better than it has any right to be.
Mostly made up of alternative music that the characters of Melrose wouldn’t be caught dead listening to even if someone threatened to blow up their apartment complex (Spoiler alert for the 1992 season finale), it featured Dinosaur Jr., Aimee Mann, Letters To Cleo, Urge Overkill, and even Australia’s own Frente which the delightful ‘Ordinary Angels’.
Paul Westerberg pops up, too — I’m willing to bet he earned more royalties from teen soundtrack placements during the first half of the ‘90s then he has from the entire Replacements catalogue.
#4. Twin Peaks
Still one of the weirdest programs to ever appear on network television, the soundtrack to Twin Peaks is a jazzy surrealistic pillow, a haunting dream half-remembered.
It seems like cheating to include a soundtrack that is closer in tone and execution to a film score — composed by genius Angelo Badalamenti who would work with David Lynch on many later projects — but this CD spawned an actual hit single, ‘Falling’, the show’s theme music with swoony vocals by Julee Cruise, which hit #1 on the Australian singles chart.
Plus, the idea of David Lynch penning the lyrics to a chart-topping pop song is stranger than anything else the show was able to throw up — and you don’t even need to play it backwards. This soundtrack’s unique atmospheric sound continues to inspire everything from Lana Del Rey to Sky Ferreira.
#3. Friends
Okay, so it’s not exactly a drama, but considering we were dragged through ten years of Ross and Rachel arguing about commitment while having babies together, I’m giving this one a free pass.
Much like Rachel’s hair, the theme song, ‘I’ll Be There For You’ by The Rembrandts, is one of the most instantly recognisable markers of the era (clap-clap, clap-clap), plus the song’s second verse and bridge, omitted from the opening credits, are actually the best part — which makes the soundtrack worth it for this alone.
Then we lead into the most era-appropriate lineup of all time: Hootie and The Blowfish, REM, Toad The Wet Sprocket, KD Lang, Bare Naked Ladies, Grant Lee Buffalo, and two Paul Westerberg solo songs. It almost seems like a retroactive parody of the mid-90s.
I can only assume Joni Mitchell’s anachronistic appearance on the CD is a nod to Phoebe’s coffee shop folk chanteuse, while Lou Reed is there because New York City.
#2. Dawson’s Creek
Dawson’s Creek was always going to be a hit show. Despite all the characters speaking with thesauruses permanently lodged in their mouths, having an innate grasp of the complexities of teenage hormones even whilst being ruled by them, and living in a town so sleepy it needed narcolepsy meds, there was a lot of blunt sex talk on Dawson’s Creek back when blunt sex talk wasn’t really allowed on television, especially when aimed squarely at teenagers. Plus, Katie Holmes!
The soundtrack was also a massive commercial hit, spending six weeks at #1 in Australia, and becoming the fifth highest-selling CD of 1999. It spawned two monster hits — Paula Cole’s ‘I Don’t Wanna Wait’ and Sixpence None The Richer’s ‘Kiss Me’ — both sugary sweet odes to puppy love that still conjure images of Joey climbing through Dawson’s window to this day.
The rest of the soundtrack followed suit, with breezy folk pop from Sophie B Hawkins, Heather Nova, Shawn Mullins, and a 19-year-old Jessica Simpson. There’s a definite nostalgic mood running through this soundtrack — it chimes as pure and true as teenage love.
#1. The OC
The OC picked up where 90210 left off in filling the ‘rich kids with problems’ TV quota. If you never saw the show, it’s basically Beverly Hills meets The Karate Kid, with Adam Brody’s Seth Cohen the breakout character: up there with George Costanza and Tony Soprano in the pantheon of undeniable TV performances.
But to listen to the show — and the six soundtracks it spawned — was to discover a plethora of indie music, much of which was premiered on the program. Aside from the likes of The Shins and Beck, who used episodes to debut new music, big-hitters like Beastie Boys’ ‘Ch-Check It Out’, Gwen Stefani’s ‘Cool’ and even Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’ were all heard for the very first time on The OC, as was Imogen Heap’s ‘Hide and Seek’ — in an unforgettable scene that spawned dozens of parodies.
Bands forged entire careers off an OC appearance; Australia’s Youth Group scored a #1 single when their cover of ‘Forever Young’ became doomed lovers Ryan and Marissa’s special song.
Rooney, The Killers, Death Cab For Cutie and Modest Mouse all played live on the show at pier-side music venue The Bait Shop, an odd place where, as Seth Cohen once quipped, the shows are never sold out, there’s no lines at the bar, and you can always talk at a comfortable level over the rock bands. California, here we come!
Nathan Jolly is a freelance writer based in Sydney, and was formerly the Editor of The Music Network. He tweets from @NathanJolly.