I am midway through S04. Been watching from S01, on and off, for about ten years.
Only plan to go to S05, then bail.
My take is when songs are dropped, it is a rights thing.
This happened with Lost In Austen when US versions of the DVD missed the “Downtown” sequence, as well as the ringtone in-joke.
I am aware of the music rights issues with the series and know that certain songs have been replaced/changed, sometimes with cover versions of those songs of replaced with different songs altogether (why they couldn’t have used cover songs for every song they replaced (ie Beatles covers) instead of using different songs (which sometimes don’t suit the scene at all compared to the original song used), but I’m guessing this is either down to the studio not having a cover song for that song, or that the artist who covered that song wants an arm and a leg for them to use it.
My issue with the songs is that appear to have been badly dubbed over the audio in some episodes, but not everyone. It appears that some episodes they weren’t using the actual raw episode which would’ve been without the music added prior to the episode being aired; this would allow them to add the songs where it was needed in for the scene, but it looks like they were only given a “finalised” version with the original (ie Beatles) songs already added, and of course this wouldn’t have been possible to remove and replace, so it appears that they muted the audio and added another song over the top. This is apparent in series 2 episode 2 “End of the Line” where the opening scene seems to have no background noise, ie no coughing, you don’t hear the vicar, the steam train etc apart from the music they used as a replacement, and this is maybe the reason why the scene with the taxi driver was cut out. In series 4 episode 9 “Red Herring” just before it cuts to Ivanov walking around the village looking for help, the shot on the boat where they are looking for him you can faintly hear the opening of Back in the USSR (again this would’ve been added in the edit), but when it cuts to the next scene we now have a cover of “You Can’t Do That” (In the original broadcast Back in the USSR transitioned into the next scene). My question is, why was the opening to Back in the USSR left intact in the previous scene?. My answer is, like with S2 EP2, was that they couldn’t remove the song, so when the scene cuts to the next scene they probably removed the entire audio track of the scene up until Ivanov stops Nick on his bike (which the song ended at that point too - luckily too otherwise the dialogue would’ve been too) and simply added another song on top and added a few background sounds. Again, if this is the reason then why didn’t they have the raw edit without the songs?.
Hope that makes sense.