What's Bothering Me About "Mad Men"

OK, so I’m finally getting into “Mad Men,” after being called dirty names by all my friends and colleagues who watch it. (Peer pressure, I know.)

After watching the first three episodes of the first season on DVD (which has a clever container I can't stop playing with), I have to say I’m impressed by what I’m seeing. I’m now getting what everybody, from the critics to the its cult of fans, sees in the show.

But there is one thing I’m kind of surprised the media hasn’t hopped all over, since they’re consumed with everything else on the show, and that’s the theme song. It turns out it comes from one of my favorite rappers. That’s right — your favorite show about ‘60s nostalgia has a hip-hop song for a theme. It’s called “A Beautiful Mine” and performed by West Coast MC Aceyalone. It’s from one of my favorite hip-hop albums of the past couple of years, “Magnificent City,” produced by the great RJD2. Since the show uses the instrumental, I’m assuming they got it from the “Magnificent City Instrumentals” album.

The song fits quite well with the stylistic tone of the show. So, why hasn’t it been celebrated the same way A3’s “Woke Up This Morning” was when it became the theme song for “The Sopranos”? I mean, we knew who sang the song and everything! The music supervisor of the show doesn’t even talk about where the theme came from in this recent interview. I’m just gonna guess the television media isn’t that savvy on their hippity-hop to recognize where the song came from.

All I know is, if somebody let me know this was the theme, I would’ve gotten into the show a whole lot quicker. You can download the full, hip-hop version here or the instrumental version here.