How I Met Your Mother: An Indie Music Fan’s Dream
It’s been almost seven years since the last episode of How I Met Your Mother aired. It’s been off the air for almost as long as it was on the air. That makes me feel a whole lotta ways (but mostly like this). Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been rewatching it, and BOY HOWDY! I forgot how good the music was. From Bloc Party’s “This Modern Love,” in the season one finale (my favorite song by my favorite band) to “The Funeral” by Band of Horses in the season nine premier it’s an indie rock tour de force. Let’s look back.
From the get go, the theme song sets the tone. “Hey Beautiful,” performed by The Solids (the college band formed by show creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas) is indie gold. The 12 second clip used in the opening montage is a reworked version that doesn’t do the original justice. Over HIMYM’s nine season run, over 400 pieces of music were used including an impressive number of musical numbers performed by the cast. That’s an incredible amount of music for a sitcom. The series’ musical supervisor Andy Gowan, along with a group of writers lead by Bays and Thomas, show off an incredible ear.
A few bands, including Nada Surf and Goldspot make several appearances over the years. Gowan, Bays, and Thomas show a particular affinity for The 88, featuring the band in season one’s episode “Best Prom Ever,” and pulling from their 2005 sophomore album Over and Over over and over again. Please remember, if you will, the five year window from 2003 to 2008 when The 88 was poised to be the next big thing. They were featured in free downloads from iTunes and, obviously, major network TV shows. One of the more impressive selections was a then unknown song by a then unknown band. “Beach Comber” has proven to be one of the most popular and enduring songs in Real Estate’s catalogue; it was never released as a single and at the time, the band’s debut album had only just been released. This knack of selecting the right song for the moment, and songs that would connect with their viewership, undoubtedly has contributed to the lasting place of How I Met Your Mother in American pop-culture (that and the strange choice Lifetime made to feature the show prominently in syndication).
I have gone through pain-staking efforts to whittle down these over 400 musical selections to 50 for your enjoyment, pulling out the best of the best in what is essentially a retrospective ode to 2004 through 2014. Just like The Walkmen’s work that was the last song featured in the show, you might call this “Heaven.”