TV TUESDAY S04E02: Halt And Catch Fire [2014-2015]

TV Tuesday is my way of spotlighting the soundtracks to different television shows.  It is a selfish endeavor as I only highlight shows with soundtracks I personally enjoy whether or not I like the show itself.  If you're new to the Hideaway's TV Tuesday feature be sure to check out previous installments by clicking on "TV Tuesday" in the Tags beneath this post.

Halt and Catch Fire debuted on AMC in 2014.  I stumbled across a write up online ahead of the debut, thought it sounded intriguing and set it to record.  I have not been disappointed.  Rise of personal computers + Texas + Eighties music + fully dimensional characters = a television show worth my time.  Now in the midst of the second season, the show fast forwarded a bit after having began set in 1983, it is now 1985 on the Silicon Prairie and the Nintendo Entertainment System has just come ashore.

Before the show launched last year, AMC's Digital Marketing created Spotify playlists under the secret user name AMC Halt and Catch Fire, with the help of the show's music supervisor, Thomas Golubić, who recently turned 46 making him only a few years younger than your boy HERC so we still have kinda similar musical mindsets. (I wish!)  His company is SuperMusicVision and they have worked on the shows Breaking Bad, Walking Dead and Six Feet Under among many others as well as films.  In 2013, Golubić did this video interview with Consequence Of Sound's Rock It Out Blog explaining the sweet science of music supervision and soundtrack compilation (the interview begins @ the 4:28 mark):

The playlists for Halt And Catch Fire are essentially mixtapes for characters and themes on the show.  They DO NOT represent actual music heard on the show though sometimes songs heard on the show may show up in one playlist or another.  

To no one's surprise, my favorite playlist from Season One is the Giant one, a big Eighties dance party that offers up a few deeper cuts.  It should also come as no surprise that a close runner-up was John "Boz" Bosworth's playlist packed with jukebox country music from the Seventies and Eighties. Also interesting is Donna Clark's playlist, a bisque of soft rock, smooth jazz and classical music.  For the second season of Halt And Catch Fire, Golubić and his staff at SuperMusicVision recorded brief commentary tracks to introduce each of the six new playlists they have worked up.

Joe, Cameron and Gordon's playlists are basically playlists created for Season One that have been expanded for Season Two as the characters and the storyline have evolved.  So what started out at 25-32 song playlists that last an hour and a half have grown into 70-75 song playlists that revel themselves over nearly five hours.  I like more than a few songs from each of the second season playlists but have no outright favorite though Gordo's Classic Rock did get more plays than the other five playlists and the Cameron playlist exposed me to the most "new" music I had never heard before.