Regardless of what you thought of the result (if you happened to see it), you have to admit that putting on a musical episode of Grey’s Anatomy—and doing so sincerely without a sense of parody or irony—indicates that Shonda Rhimes has some pretty major creator-balls. It certainly wasn’t Glee, and jazz hands were nowhere to be seen. It took a different tack to the trope of the musical episode, and it succeeded as much as it failed. I get what Shonda tried to do, and I loved the idea of commemorating the songs that Grey’s made famous. But here’s the rub: a show’s music supervisor usually chooses songs whose tone sets the right mood for a certain scene and does so without much regard for the actual lyrics. So while the refrains of the songs fit in with the storyline (e.g. “Breathe,” “Wait,” “How We Operate,” “How To...
