Remember When: ‘Miami Vice’ Debuted and Revolutionized Music on Television

The marriage between network television and pop music hasn’t always been a happy one. A turning point occurred in 1984 when an NBC show called Miami Vice appeared and changed the way that music was used on television forever.

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The show not only utilized the hits and obscurities of the day to push along the narrative, but it also invited many top musicians to take acting roles. Miami Vice remains as influential as any show of that era for those reasons.

MTV Cops Hit the Streets

When you’re watching one of your favorite streaming or network shows and a classic song by a major artist, or perhaps a hip track by a newcomer, plays to accentuate the plot or the action, don’t take it for granted. It wasn’t always that way. So-called “needle drops” on television only came to the fore after Miami Vice made them fashionable.

There’s some debate about how the whole thing got started. The common story is that Brandon Tartikoff, who was calling the shots at NBC at the time, jotted down the phrase “MTV cops.” Series co-creator Anthony Yerkovich claimed that he was already interested in doing a show addressing vice cops futilely trying to stem the tide of illegal drugs. However it may have happened, those ideas coalesced into Miami Vice.

Michael Mann, who was already making his mark as a hot film director, came aboard as an executive producer. He helped define the look of the show, including everything from the pastel colors worn by the cops to the stylized shootouts that punctuated episodes. But what set Miami Vice apart from the start was the music.

Music Replaces Dialogue

Keep in mind that Miami Vice entered the NBC schedule in the fall of 1984 without any big stars to promote it. Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas, who played the leads, didn’t have much name recognition at the time. Something would have to distinguish the show from the oodles of other cop dramas on TV. In the pilot episode, it was a three-year-old pop song.

For a scene towards the end of the episode, the two cops are zipping through the Miami streets on their way to a climactic confrontation. “In The Air Tonight”, a 1981 hit from Phil Collins, plays as they drive. No dialogue takes place. Instead, the music evokes all the simmering tension in the scene.

That set the tone for how the show would use music going forward. Each week, you could count on several songs to appear. Miami Vice took off as a surprising success in the 1984-85 season. It wasn’t long before stars from the music world were lining up to associate with the show.

The ‘Vice’ Squad

Miami Vice quickly became a go-to spot for musicians wanting to dip their toes into the acting waters. Far-flung artists, including Miles Davis, Frank Zappa, Gene Simmons, and Leonard Cohen, popped up in the show. Producers used Glenn Frey’s song “Smuggler’s Blues” as the basis for an episode, and Frey starred in the episode.

A soundtrack album proved a ringing success. In conjunction with that, Jan Hammer, whose moody score also helped define the show’s overall vibe, scored a rare no. 1 instrumental hit with the theme song.

Miami Vice ran for five seasons before Detectives Crockett and Tubbs went out in a blaze of glory in 1989. While the quality of individual episodes rose and fell, Miami Vice’s influence as a whole can’t be denied. Music on television was never the same after those two cops felt it coming in the air that 1984 night.

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