Editorial Reviews

While The O.C.'s ratings dropped with each successive season, the show maintained its ability to introduce new, hip bands to a unique audience. Artists like Alexi Murdoch, the Dandy Warhols, and Rooney evoked the West Coast to melodic effect, and The O.C.'s producers ultimately released six soundtracks that mixed Pacific appeal with stylish, teenaged attitude. It's no surprise, then, that the Gossip Girl series takes a similar approach, given the show's thematic similarities and shared creative team. Alexandra Patsavas, the same music supervisor who helped soundtrack The O.C. and Grey's Anatomy, is at the helm once again, picking songs that evoke the show's urban setting while ensuring that the artists included -- the Kills, Crystal Castles, the Tings Tings, etc. -- are as fashionable as the characters' wardrobes. Gossip Girl is set in New York City, nearly 3,000 miles from California's Orange County, and the music is appropriately less sunny, emphasizing synthesizers and drum machines instead of The O.C.'s summery songcraft. There's a vague sense of icy-chic '80s nostalgia here -- a retro mood that, given the median age of the show's characters, doesn't seem altogether fitting -- but it still contributes to the soundtrack's hipster atmospherics, evoking a time in which the city was dirtier, more dangerous, and perhaps more illustrative of this show's overall appeal. Gossip Girl is purposely gaudy and controversial, and while this album doesn't flaunt "Parental Advisory" stickers or any truly questionable material, it still serves as a fitting companion to the show's introductory season. Andrew Leahey, All Music Guide

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