The Judd Apatow HBO series “Girls” started off as a comical look into the lives of mostly obnoxious 20-somethings, still living off their parents and trying to hack it doing pretty much nothing in New York. Sounds pretty blah, right? Well, for some strange reason, watching Lena Dunham’s character Hannah and her extremely narcissistic, sociopathic tendencies toward her friends who are almost as twisted as she is becomes quite the habit.
The problem is, the characters’ serious personality flaws, which at the beginning seemed quirky and endearing, evolve into full-fledged insanity. But for some reason you still believe they are cool. You are not under the impression that they are just pretending to be blasé but really know what’s going on and what to do next, you are fully convinced they are all just flailing around in a chaotic universe that is unemployed English majors and failing actors. Underneath all this dysfunction is something that works. It’s a whole mess of things: the weird, half-assed fashion, the off-putting banter and the hip music.
There are a lot of great artists that worked on the first two seasons of the show. Fleet Foxes, Fun., Santigold, Belle and Sebastian and Grouplove all leave a positive impression on the otherwise stressful and infuriating atmosphere. Season two featured Vampire Weekend, Lily Allen, Oasis and … Daniel Johnston?! Well, that last one is where the crazy comes into play, I guess.
Apatow’s television series have been notorious for failing after only a few seasons only to be “found” again after cancellation. “Freaks and Geeks” (1999), which had a young Seth Rogan, James Franco and Jason Segal cracking stoner jokes long before “Pineapple Express,” was set in the ’80s and as such had an amazing collection of music from that time. Artists like Joan Jett (who did the show’s timeless intro song “Bad Reputation”), the Who, Van Halen, Queen, David Bowie and Rush. The music was a very important aspect to the show, because music is one of the biggest defining elements of a time period.
With that sentiment in mind, “Girls” plugs us in to the music of our current timeline. Season three will feature a new songs by Beck, Lily Allen and Miguel. The magic of the show definitely comes from Dunham’s writing, directing and acting, but she is backed up by a stellar lineup of musical artists that really cements the show as a mainstay in modern hip culture.
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James Garcia is a community reporter at the Loveland Reporter-Herald and a new blogger at Reverb. Follow him on Twitter @JamesGarciaRH.
