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Welcome back to Hit Parade, a podcast of Pop Chart History from Slate magazine, about the hits from coast to coast. I'm Chris Malanfi,

chart analyst, pop critic, and writer of Slate's Why Is This Song Number One series? On our last

episode, we ran down more than three decades of hits spawned by television, from theme songs

to montage soundtracks to reinvented oldies. We are now up to the

1980s when, in the wake of Miami Vices' success, TV music supervisors were curating songs

for maximum exposure and turning underappreciated gems into hits.

Certain mid-80s TV shows did try to replicate the Miami Vice model.

The ABC Screwball comedy Moonlighting, for example, starring Sybil Shepard and Bruce Willis,

capitalized with a full soundtrack and a radio push for its theme song

by jazzy R&B singer Al Jureau.

Moonlighting The Song reached number 23 in 1987.

Or prolific TV theme composer Mike Post.

He'd scored some actual hits in the prior decade with his themes for The Rockford Files and Hill Street Blues, both of which cracked the top ten.

Music the top 10. Post tried putting together a 1988 album containing several of his TV themes, and he centered it

around his theme for the late 80s NBC hit LA Law.

The album failed to chart.

These glossy TV soundtracks were hit and miss, but one single fluky song used on NBC's smash sitcom Family Ties was very much a hit.

What did you think I would do at this moment

At this moment was a soulful saloon ballad penned by veteran L.A. singer Billy Vera in the 70s

and first issued as a single in 1981 when when it actually charted briefly, peaking at number 79 on the Hot 100.

Five years later, an NBC producer happened to catch Vera and his band The Beaters in an L.A. nightclub,

...