FriendCrib Mag
Finding New Bands on The O.C.
The O.C. aired on Fox from 2003 to 2007, and its music made indie bands famous. Seth Cohen made Death Cab for Cutie part of his whole personality.
Written by Claire Donovan · 56k: ~2 min
Finding new bands on The O.C. was how a lot of us got our favorite music in the mid-2000s. The show was a Fox teen drama set in Newport Beach, California, and it aired from August 5, 2003 to February 22, 2007. It followed rich kids, a new kid from the wrong side of town and a lot of relationship drama, and people talked about its music as much as the plot. Music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas filled episodes with indie bands most viewers had never heard, and the next day those songs were on burned CDs and profile pages. For a lot of people, The O.C. was where they found their favorite band.
The show and the theme song
The O.C. was created by Josh Schwartz. It followed Ryan Atwood, a teenager from Chino who moved in with the wealthy Cohen family in Newport Beach, plus his new friends Seth, Marissa and Summer. It ran for four seasons and 92 episodes.
Every episode opened with "California" by Phantom Planet, a song with a big chorus about coming back to California. Schwartz liked how it worked in a scene in the first episode, so it became the theme. A few of us even logged every play on Last.fm. You can probably still sing the "California, here we come" part without trying, and you're probably doing it right now.
Why was the music on The O.C. so popular?
The music on The O.C. was popular because it introduced songs people couldn't hear anywhere else on TV. Alexandra Patsavas, who had chosen music for shows like Roswell before, picked indie rock, singer-songwriters and new bands that weren't on the radio yet. The songs played during big emotional scenes, so they stuck to the moment.
The show also made music part of the characters. Seth Cohen, the nerdy, fast-talking best friend, loved Death Cab for Cutie. He had their poster on his wall, played them in his car and gave their CDs to girls he liked. Plenty of real teenagers followed his lead, and Death Cab got a big boost from it.
Before streaming, finding out what a song was took work. You typed a line of lyrics into a search box, checked fan sites the next morning or asked on a message board and hoped someone had been watching. It was a lot like finding bands before algorithms, only the tip came from a TV show instead of a friend.
Once you had a name, the next step was buying the song on iTunes, and your profile page was usually the first place it showed up.
The Bait Shop
In the second season, the show added the Bait Shop, a music club on the pier where real bands played. The Killers, Modest Mouse, The Walkmen, The Thrills, Rachael Yamagata and Death Cab for Cutie all showed up. Season three brought bands like The Subways and Tom Vek.
Seeing a band you loved play the Bait Shop felt like a win. It also meant that bands with only a small following got in front of millions of viewers in one night. You could watch a scene about a breakup and come away with a new favorite record.
The music of The O.C., from the theme song to the songs everyone looked up after. Watch on YouTube
"Hide and Seek" and the big finale
The most famous music moment came on May 19, 2005, in the second season finale. Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek" played during a dramatic scene where Marissa shoots Trey, Ryan's brother. The song played twice in the episode, and its strange, layered vocals became forever tied to that scene.
Years later the moment turned into a running joke online, with people dubbing "Hide and Seek" over clips of dramatic moments. If you saw the original, you knew exactly where the joke came from.
The show also premiered songs. Coldplay's "Fix You" was heard on The O.C. a week before that finale. Beck's album Guero got a whole episode built around five of its songs.
Music from The O.C.
The show released its own soundtrack albums, called Music from The O.C. The first, Mix 1, came out in March 2004 and reached number 52 on the Billboard 200. More followed, including a holiday album called Have a Very Merry Chrismukkah, and the last, Mix 6, came out in December 2006.
The holiday album was named after Chrismukkah, the holiday Seth invented by combining Christmas and Hanukkah, since his dad was Jewish and his mom was Protestant. The show had a Chrismukkah episode every season, and some fans still celebrate it.
After The O.C.
Alexandra Patsavas kept picking music for some of the biggest shows and movies of the next few years, including Grey's Anatomy, Gossip Girl and the Twilight movies. Lots of people who discovered bands through The O.C. kept finding new ones through her later work without realizing it was the same person.
The O.C. also changed how TV used music. More shows started treating songs as a way to reach young viewers, and record labels started thinking of a TV placement as a big break. Having a song play over the last scene of an episode could do more for a small band than months of touring.
The soundtrack albums kept the songs going between seasons. Mix 2 and the Chrismukkah album came out the same day in October 2004, Mix 4 followed in April 2005 and Mix 5 that November. Fans bought them like any other album, and some still sit on shelves next to the DVDs.
Is The O.C. worth rewatching?
The O.C. is worth rewatching, mostly. Fans still argue about the last two seasons, but the first season and its music hold up. Plenty of the bands it featured went on to bigger careers, and rewatching it is a little like scrolling through an old music collection. The songs bring back the year as much as the plot does.
What people remember
- Seth's Death Cab poster
- Yelling along with "California" at the start of every episode
- Looking up a song from the night before on a fan site
- The Bait Shop and its surprisingly famous bands
- Chrismukkah, every December
- "Hide and Seek" over the most dramatic scene of the show
From TV to your profile
The O.C. music was made for profile songs. Plenty of people put a song from the show on their page the day after it aired, often next to an emo favorite from the same year. FriendCrib still lets you pick one.
Make a crib and choose the song that plays when people visit.
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