

This is the big moment that fans have been waiting for – where our main will they/won’t they couple finally decide to get it together. This is typical really of Sex Education’s habit of building up expectations and subverting them. Ep 7: Sixpence None the Richer – ‘Breathe Your Name’: Maeve and Otis kiss in the rain This song does nothing to clarify anything, as all these supposed 18-year-olds seem to know by heart this Second Summer Of Love 1989 house classic.

Characters wear varsity jackets, but have English accents they use smartphones, yet their bedrooms look like they’re in the ’80s.
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When and where the hell is Sex Education set? This has been a question bothering the minds of many TV writers since it first appeared on our screens. Ep 5: Technotronic – ‘Pump Up the Jam’: The kids and teachers rave on the coach This is a damaged break-up song from a damaged break-up album and, from the moment Graham Coxon’s delicate acoustic riff kicks in, anyone with this knowledge will know that Otis and Ruby are doomed. Ruby, the chief mean girl at Moordale Secondary, opens herself up to Otis, introduces him to her dad, and then… Season three is very good at making us feel sympathy for, and even like, characters who have formerly been wholly unlikable. Ep 3: Blur – ‘Tender’: Ruby tells Otis she loves him, and he says ‘that’s nice’

A meeting of the innocent and knowing, and setting out the stall for season three perfectly. Season three gets underway with a lengthy – and very racy – montage of a number of our beloved characters doing the no-pants dance, soundtracked by this fantastic version from 1977. Well here’s a thing I never knew – what I thought was the original, bubblegum-pop version of this song by ’80s one-hit wonder/mallrat Tiffany, was in fact a cover version after many other cover versions. Ep 1: The Rubinoos – ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’: The opening montage But let that last sentence be a very blatant clue: here be SPOILERS. What better way, then, to illustrate some of the sublime musical choices than to show you some of the symphonic selections from the latest season. The first two seasons were Ezra Furman-heavy, and this fitted perfectly, but as the show has progressed, the more eclectic and pleasantly surprising the music choices have become – from Britpop, via ’80s plastic pop cover versions, and arriving right back at good ol’ Ezra Furman again. It must be a fine balancing act, then, to choose the songs that will propel and enhance the narrative in such an idiosyncratic world. The show is not a period piece, nor is it really of this world – more a primary coloured fantasyland that somehow mashes together mid-century Americana and modern sensibilities. Big-hitters like Peggy Lee’s ‘Fever’ and The Monkees ‘Steppin’ Stone’ painted the show’s world as perfectly as the set designers.īut the way in which Sex Education is soundtracked is somehow different. Some favourite moments from TV shows past include – Pete gazing out of his new apartment to the sound of Ella Fitzgerald’s ‘Manhattan’ in Mad Men Don sitting lonely and forlorn on the staircase to Bob Dylan’s ‘Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright’ on the same show Sam leaping off the building to Bowie in Life On Mars John Cooper Clarke’s ‘Evidently Chickentown’ ringing out as Tony Soprano becomes godfather to Chris’s daughter.Īnother strong showing this year came in the shape of The Queen’s Gambit, the period choices playing beautifully alongside the luscious stylised mid-century setting.

Those sonic selections are important – I spoke at the start of the year about the brilliant Deutschland ’89, and how the music used was integral – not only to the atmosphere, but in enhancing the narrative. But beyond the characterisation, the trailblazing and taboo-busting storylines, and the career accelerating quality of the acting, the main thing that’s left bouncing around my cavernous skull well after the credits roll are the music choices. There are very few elements of Sex Education which the creators haven’t got very, very right.
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This was me roughly ten times during the latest series of Sex Education. If the scene lasts long enough, the song either grows on you, or a niggling voice starts to pipe up – ‘you’ve heard this somewhere before… but where?’ Finally, maybe thirty seconds down the line, you get it together enough to pick up your phone – just in time for the track to finish. A tune starts to play in the background of a TV show you’re watching you half-register the song, maybe think ‘oh that’s quite good’. If you have Shazam downloaded onto your phone, you’ll know the drill.
