Here's the story...of the dying TV theme song

Another trend, which harks back to the late‘80s-early ‘90s fave “The Wonder Years” and the more recent “Dawson’s Creek” and “Laguna Beach,” is the use of music by established and new artists as both a theme in the main title and a device within the show.

“Increasingly, it’s not music scored for the show, it’s pop songs pasted into the show,” Brooks said.

CBS’ “CSI” opens with the Who’s “Who Are You?” Gavin DeGraw’s star rose after his radio-friendly single “I Don’t Want to Be,” debuted as the theme to the CW’s “One Tree Hill.” And the Fray was, well, just a band on the fringe until “Grey’s Anatomy” and others played their songs to underscore dramatic scenes and montages.

All of this makes Jesse Frederick-Conaway, who composed the music to G-rated sitcoms such as ABC’s “Full House” and “Family Matters,” a little sad. There is, he thinks, “this desire to be super hip.”

“Now, the music director is sort of the composer,” he said. “It’s a different kind of deal.”

Burlingame, citing the great intros of award winners such as NBC’s “The West Wing” and HBO’s “Six Feet Under,” is confident the theme — lyrical, instrumental, whatever — will make a comeback. He’d rather see more original music, but he’ll take licensed material if it’s good.

“Some producers, I think, want to make a statement, in terms of imagery and music,” he said. “It depends on who you get.”

Will Smith, back in the ‘90s, made a hip-hop statement of his own while advising fans to “just sit right there/I’ll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel-Air.”

But, in this fast-forward TV world, would they still listen?

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