There has undoubtedly been a surge in interest over the last couple of years in songs played on TV shows, like  the new “90210”, the short-lived “Moonlight”,  “The Cleaner”, “Army Wives” etc.

Rather than the pretty awful background music that tended to be played in TV shows of the ‘80s, today’s shows play current hits, songs that could be hits and golden oldies! Sometimes the action comes second best to wondering who is singing the song playing in the background. Fans are frantically searching online for titles of songs they’ve heard on their favorite shows within minutes of the shows having aired, and often while the shows are still on, using their laptops or iPhones during the commercials!

Fan forums are soon buzzing with information on what song was featured at a particularly dramatic moment, or who sang the song playing  as the titles came up. Sometimes heated arguments rage on the forums as viewers dispute some of the titles suggested.

The producers of the shows have to pay royalties to the artists whose songs they play but budget restraints often mean the songs featured are by lesser-known artists, which is great for up-and-coming acts, like the UK’s Headway, for example, who have had many of their songs featured on various shows, and have recently been opening for Matchbox 20 in the UK and will soon be doing so for OneRepublic.

This means that the arguments over which group it was can rage for days as very few can immediately identify the singers. But once the song and artist are identified, there is a rush to download it from iTunes, or from Amazon.

A website that specializes in supplying the names of the artists and the songs that they sing in every episode of dozens of popular TV shows, past and present is www.TunesOnTheTube.tv

Next time you and your partner are arguing over who sang the song you both just heard and loved, give that it a try!

We hope you enjoy looking for the songs played on our site! Please pass the word around to all your friends and mention us on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and any other social networking site.