I have this thing about music that’s used in movies and TV. I think that’s the one sad thing about books, you don’t get that awesome background music with cool scenes which is why I have to have something to write to. Looking at my music collection, the majority is soundtracks.  I just love music that goes with stories. In this iTunes era we live in, I find myself buying and downloading many more individual songs by numerous artists saving the full albums for particular favorites.

Tonight I downloaded the music by Florence + the Machine used in the Beautiful Creatures trailer (just read the book and loved it). It’s an amazing song and I know it will get added to one or more of my writing playlists. It wouldn’t be the first song I heard on some sort of tv/movie promo or in a show itself that caused me to do a desperate Google search to uncover and claim. The following is a list of some of my favorites. For the record, I will always encourage you to listen to things through free radio that pays the artists or to buy from legitimate sources like iTunes.

Some of my favorites include:

• Jessy Green’s “Time Bomb” as heard in in the season 2 finale of Burn Notice when Michael jumps from the helicopter
• Phantom Planet’s “Dropped” and the Thermal’s “Returning to the Fold” as heard in the season 2 premiere episode of Chuck
• Anberlin’s cover of “Enjoy the Silence” as heard in the famous Damon dancing scene in The Vampire Diaries
• Nine Inch Nails’s “We’re in This Together” as heard in the trailer for The Avengers
• Cage the Elephant’s “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” as heard on a tv promo for Leverage
• Stereophonics’s “Trouble” as heard on a tv promo for White Collar
• Kasabian’s “Club Foot” as heard on the movie trailer for Serenity
• Garbage’s “#1 Crush” as heard on the TV series Hex
• Nonpoint’s cover of “In the Air Tonight” as used in the tv promos for Dark Blue
• Track and Field’s version of “Running Up That Hill” as featured on Warehouse 13

Who else discovered awesome music from storytelling media?