Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest TV Theme Songs

[micropolitan guy]

Agree on "Secret Agent Man." Great song by a great artist.

"Party of Five" theme song is "Closer to Free" by the BoDeans. Another great song.

"Then Came Bronson:" "Long, lonesome highway," Michael Parks doing to vocals.

Can't remember if the theme from "Baretta" was in the top 100.

Rolling Stone don't know ship.

 

[MisterCreosote]

Not curious enough to spend more than a minute on the RS website, but where did The Shield land?

It only played for a few seconds, but I can't think of another song that fit its show so perfectly.

 

[ChrisLong]

I always think "Peter Gunn"

 

[Slacker]

Haven't clicked yet but boom goes the dynamite if Welcome Back Kotter isn't No. 1.

Nope. Haven't clicked, either, but this one is second to none.



And the camera work was riveting, too.

 

[WriteThinking]

It's a good list -- not a great one, but a good one. And I'm with MisterCreosote in wondering how "Cheers," if not No. 1, is No. 13? No. 13?!

There were many in there that I wouldn't have included, not based on the songs and the recognizability or quality of them, anyway.

And there were several I was actually surprised were there at all. Like, "Star Trek"? I might be among the biggest Trek fans on this site, and the Star Trek Original Series theme song isn't even the best one in the franchise. That honor actually goes to "Star Trek: Enterprise."

Star Trek Enterprise Intro - YouTube

Love it!

Another candidate for the list that, in my opinion, was glaringly missing would have been from "St. Elsewhere."

 

[JimmyHoward33]

I just bought my John Cena ugly Christmas sweater but Peacemaker on a list like this is insane, its a cool music video but the song itself is just a rock cover and this is for the song not the credits/video yeah?

Top 5 is pretty good. Archie and Edith too low. Threes company way too low

 

[BTExpress]

WBK and Cheers are essentially the same song. Cheers basically drafting off Kotter's heat.

Even Kotter's uncle the skin diver would agree.

Marcia Strashman and Jan Smithers are each others' celebrity doppelgängers.

 

[swingline]

There's a good two dozen of those shows I've never heard of and probably three score I've never watched.

Kotter would be higher on my list, and that Friends theme is a bunch of 90s claptrap of nothingness.

 

[Songbird]

Also, if we're talking the marriage of groovy music and a killer forking montage of moving stills ...

I'd love to know if this kind of cinematography had any kind of effect on Ken Burns.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Would it really have hurt Rolling Stone to be accurate and just call it the Top 101 TV Theme Songs of All Time?

 

[Baron Scicluna]

 

[Songbird]

The music for TWIB was outstanding.