Aloe Blacc's 'I Need a Dollar' Is the Best Theme Song on TV

What's this season's best television theme song? It'd be hard to argue with Aloe Blacc's 'I Need a Dollar,' which jumpstarts HBO's acclaimed 'How to Make It in America.'

Given the show's opening montage of archetypal New York images -- subways, street scenes, contrasts between rich and poor, and, of course, hot chicks -- powerful music is a must to set it apart from every other clichéd jumble of New York images of the past 50 years.

'I Need A Dollar' chimes in with a hip-hop-invoking quarter note piano figure, then horns, then Blacc's soulful vocals. The vintage rhythm and blues groove brings the Big Apple's Daptone darling Sharon Jones to mind, but the lyrics perfectly reflect the hustle that is the foundation for the series.



Considering the song was released four years ago on Blacc's debut album, he's pretty pleased about this twist of fate, which he credits to his record label.

"Stones Throw has a really good licensing department and the relationship that they have with music supervisors led to this stroke of luck," Blacc tells Spinner. "The music supervisor from the show asked for Stones Throw to submit some music potentially for the theme song of the show and 'I Need A Dollar' was part of the submission. It was selected mainly because it fits the theme of show and it fits the visuals in the introduction."

There's a bit of an irony that Blacc and Stones Throw Records are based in California, not New York, which Blacc says works to his advantage.

"There is some geographical element to [how this came about], with the label being in Los Angeles and the film and TV industry being largely out here as well," he admits.

Blacc's long-awaited follow-up to his debut album is called 'Good Things,' and drops on Sept. 14. Not surprisingly, the eclecticism of 'Shine Through' has been focused to a sound that Blacc dubs "brand new old soul" and makes the most of 'Dollar's popularity -- but it is a coincidence that it worked out that way.

"Actually, the music [for 'Good Things'] was done nine months before [the album] came out," Blacc explains. "It was already planned to be a soul album, that's what I went in to the studio to record. With 'Shine Through' I took on pretty much every style I could, from hip-hop to salsa to folk and soul. So the new album is taking one colour out of the spectrum that 'Shine Through' was. On 'Good Things,' the music is all pretty much soul with a hint of funk."