When fans describe ‘The Wire,’ no adjective seems to surface as often as “gritty.” After five seasons, creator David Simon’s painstaking arrangement of granular bits of research and authenticity, whether the detectives’ banter or Snoop’s drawl, have added up to a tone as low key and abrasive as the real Baltimore. 

For writers, costume designers and prop masters, mimicking reality falls into the standard job description, but music supervisor Blake Leyh – who, on another show, might compose sweeping themes and clever montages – has to fight the instinct to draw sentimental connections through song choice. “I want to make the scene less emotional, less melodramatic,” he says. “We put music in there as a device to push you away from the people a little bit. It’s something you would so rarely do in a Hollywood movie; you would want to pump up the emotion. But on ‘The Wire,’ so often we’re trying to go against that.” 

[More online at HBO.com]