The O.C.’s Music Supervisor Picks a Contemporary OC Playlist

There’s a wonderful piece up at Myspace (hello, old friend) looking back at the inimitable perfection of The O.C.’s music game:

Where Dawson’s Creek drew from palatable soft rock like Alanis Morissette and Paula Cole, The O.C. skewed LCD Soundsystem and Pixies. Seth Cohen and Dawson Leary might have both been verbose teenagers, but Seth Cohen was the one you wanted controlling your iPod.

I agree! I actually agree very, very closely:

“Dawson’s Creek” ended the same year that “The O.C.” began, but the two seem generations apart. Dawson’s was all plunky guitar and Alanis Morissette playing over soft-focus, flannel-ridden montages. The same year, “The O.C.” featured Röyksopp, LCD Soundsystem, The Pixies, and Tunng.

Anyway, the show’s former music supervisor Alex Patsavas talks about taking her job rightfully seriously (“We are creating a musical character to compliment set design and costumes and dialogue”), as well as the slew of great covers that started with Jem’s “Maybe I’m Amazed” (“We decided on the song first, and then really thought about who would be able to cover it”). Best of all, she picks 15 songs that she’d soundtrack The O.C. with today. Her list includes a couple of my favorite breakout bands of last year, and below is my favorite of the bunch.