My two favorite subjects: Music and TV

This question was posed on TVGUIDE.COM this week. I have given this topic a bit of thought and decided to answer it as if it were posed to me. I will then paste Matt Roush's response below my own.

Question: I have loved Grey's Anatomy since the first episode, and it continues to be the show to which I most look forward every week. However, over the past two episodes I have watched entire segments with the mute button on as I read the dialogue via CC. The reason? Though some of the montages can be very effective, the music is distractingly bad. The May 7 episode featured two full-length songs with vocalists whose "instruments" were akin to fingernails on a chalkboard. Grey's is one of the few shows that can fully absorb my attention, but it's disappointing when these songs take me out of my television nirvana. I'm just wondering if you had any thoughts on the subject. Thank you, and keep up the great column! — Abby

Chris: I have to say that I too have grown tired at times of shows using long musical pieces to cover a montage or indicate the passing of time. Grey's has never annoyed me the way some shows have in the past. I quit watching Cold Case because the montages at the end of each episode were more like a music video than a television show.
Some shows effectively use music to cover and move along a story line. Two shows that come to mind are One Tree Hill and The O.C.
I would never watch a show on mute as I am big fan of getting the director's entire vision, but I would like to see less music and more dialogue. I guess in short, it doesn't bother me when it is done effectively, but it is not a tool I would be sad to see go.

Matt Roush: There is no question that Grey's is a serious case study of overdoing the underscoring. This is a complaint I hear a lot, including from people in the industry who otherwise admire the show. The music often overwhelms the action and the dialogue, but this is such a pervasive trend (especially in final-act montages of so many dramas) that I guess I've grown mostly numb to it. Grey's also tends to overdo the cutesy incidental music to lighten the tone of the more romantic scenes. But none of this gets in the way of my enjoyment, or prompts me to mute the dialogue spoken by these wonderful actors. I beg you to reconsider.