3/30/17

TV THURSDAY: Raising Hope - Season Two (2011-2012)


It's been a while since I first wrote about the music featured throughout season one of Raising Hope and, after watching the funny, gross and heart-warming pilot episode again during a late-night/early-morning of nightmare-plagued sleep, I'm back to feature the music as heard in the second season of the show. But first, let us review this awesome tune from the first season once again, the song Jimmy listened to when he sketched out "his first album cover" (above):

For the second season of Raising Hope, music supervisor Jonathan Leahy continues down the same eclectic path he started in Season One: a delightful concoction of well-loved songs from the Seventies and Eighties mixed with cool contemporary tunes and sprinkled with songs from as far back as the Forties and Fifties. The first song of note is the Black Crowes and their righteous cover of Otis Redding's "Hard To Handle":
Sergio Mendes, Eddie Rabbitt, Peter Frampton and Madness songs all make appearances as the season progresses, with some episodes featuring just one song while other episodes feature five or six tunes. Nearly every episode features comedic treasure Cloris Leachman; I keep hoping for her to show up on Grace and Frankie in some capacity, maybe with Betty White in tow. And speaking of the identical twins who took turns playing baby Hope on the show, they just turned seven-years-old in February 2017.
One of my favorite sections of this season's playlist (for those of you who aren't listening on the recommended Shuffle mode) kicks off with AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" then goes into Mayfield's super-bad "Superfly", a Chinese version of "Ca Plane Pour Moi" and Stevie Wonder's spooky "Superstition" before crashing headlong into Debby Boone's "You Light Up My Life" - it's like Mr. Leahy has tapped into my personal music library!

Another tasty block of the playlist features Nick Lowe's "Cruel To Be Kind", Doris Day's "I'll Never Stop Loving You", Jerry Reed's "Amos Moses" and the Vince Guaraldi Trio's lovable "Linus & Lucy" all back-to-back-to-back-to-back. Aside from Sabrina's questionable hairstyle (as seen in the publicity pic up above), it was another great season as new characters were introduced, the core characters were fleshed out and given deeper backstories as Raising Hope continued to explore the ties that bind families together.


SPOILER ALERT: The final two songs on the playlist should be very familiar to anyone with ears over the age of (let's say) 25 with halfway decent taste in music. Both songs, highly improbable candidates for the dance floor, have been given dance remixes over the past decade and you can listen to them by clicking HERE and HERE.

No comments:

Post a Comment