Stone Sour Score 4th No. 1 on Mainstream Rock Songs With 'Song #3'
Plus, the Foo Fighters land their 23rd top 10 on the chart, tying for fourth-most of all time.
If Stone Sour had just one less No. 1 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Songsairplay chart, the name of the band's new song would be a little more fitting.
"Song #3," the lead single from the Corey Taylor-led outfit's upcoming sixth studio album Hydrograd (due June 30), jumps 2-1 on the chart dated July 1, marking the band's fourth No. 1 on the ranking. It's also Stone Sour's second in a row, following "Tired" in early 2014.
"Song" completes the band's quickest climb to No. 1, reaching the top in its eighth week; previously, 2010's "Say You'll Haunt Me" took 11 weeks.
Prior to "Song," "Tired" and "Say," Stone Sour first reigned with "Through Glass" in 2006.
Also on Mainstream Rock Songs, Foo Fighters break into the top 10 with "Run" (11-4), the lead single from their upcoming ninth studio set. The Foos collect their 23rd top 10 with the song, tying John Mellencamp for the fourth-most since the chart began in 1981. Tom Petty (including his output with The Heartbreakers) leads with 28 top 10s, followed by Van Halen (26) and Aerosmith (24).
Notably, those acts dominated the list from its early days, while the Dave Grohl-helmed Foo Fighters have joined their top 10 ranks after first charting in 1995.
"Run" is from Concrete and Gold, announced officially earlier this week and due Sept. 15.
Tech Company Revives Century-Old Toronto Concert Hall, Where Zeppelin, Zappa & The Who Once Rocked
Toronto's famed century-old Concert Hall, where Frank Sinatra hosted parties, Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder climbed its balcony, Led Zeppelin held its first Toronto show, and The Rolling Stones rehearsed for tour, is officially back in business after Info-Tech Research Group purchased the building.
The venue enjoys its official re-launch tonight (June 23) with a concert by Randy Bachman of Bachman-Turner Overdrive and the Guess Who fame to kick off TD Toronto Jazz Festival (June 23 to July 2). Local rock station Q107 is presenting and tickets are $19.17 in honor of the venue's 100th anniversary.
The ornate building was originally a meeting place for Masons like the Knights Templar and York Rite and is filled with symbols and intricate carvings.
As a venue it was first known as The Masonic Temple (1918), then Masonic Temple Auditorium (1945), then Club 888 (Tina Turner played there in 1966), then for a significant period as The Rock Pile with shows by Blood, Sweat & Tears, Procol Harum, Iron Butterfly, Canned Heat, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, MC5, Crazy Horse (with Neil Young), The Who, Frank Zappa and more.
In 1969, it became The Masonic Temple again, and hosted concerts by Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, The Ramones, Hugh Masekela, The Animals and Toots & the Maytals. Five years later, it was added to the Toronto Heritage Property Inventory and in 1979 was again known by The Concert Hall.
It remained a top tour-stop destination for the next 20 years, reading like a who's who of popular music from rap to new wave and rock: Sugarhill Gang, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Iron Maiden, Kraftwerk, The Cure, Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, R.E.M., Metallica, Run D.M.C., Skinny Puppy, Midnight Oil, Public Enemy, The Tragically Hip, Red Hot Chili Peppers (The Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam opened), Tin Machine (with David Bowie), Phish, Pantera, Green Day, Foo Fighters, Bob Dylan, Beck and more.
In 1997, a potential new developer planned to demolish the site to build condos but the same year the provincial government acknowledged its value by protecting it under the Ontario Heritage Act which "helps to ensure the conservation of these important places for the benefit and enjoyment of present and future generations." That September, the Rolling Stones set up shop there for weeks of rehearsals for their Bridges To Babylon Tour.
The live venue now done, Bell Media purchased the properly in 1998 and used it as TV studio for CTV's national talk show, Open Mic with Mike Bullard, which did book live music performers. From 2006, it was used as MTV's studio, and the Polaris Music Prize rented it to host its annual awards gala. When Bell put it up for sale, it was expected it would be turned into condos. But Info-Tech -- headquartered in a 75,000 sq. ft. space in London, Ontario, with offices in Las Vegas -- purchased it in 2013 for $12.5 million and had other plans.
After millions in renovations, the Toronto staff of 250 moved in Easter Weekend the following year. The Concert Hall operates under a separate corporation, 888 Yonge Street (pronounced triple eight]. It has already been renting it out for private events, including a listening session with Jimmy Page for the final three Led Zeppelin albums; a charity concert headlined by former Great Big Sea frontman Alan Doyle; and a performance by Luke and the Apostles as part of a Yorkville Heritage plaque unveiling.
Jimmy Page with 888 Yonge Street executive director William RussellCourtesyPhoto
Billboard spoke with 888 Yonge Street executive director William Russell about how a tech company became involved in the live touring business and what its plans are for the space.
How did you hook up with the Toronto Jazz Festival and have Randy Bachman as first official event the public could purchase tickets for?
Jazz Festival found us. We have been working with [the City of] Toronto and had a Yorkville Heritage event plaque unveiling. We had Gordon Lightfoot in the space and Howard [Kerbel], who is the CEO of Toronto festival, I believe was there for the event and thought it would be perfect.
Info-Tech bought the building and you work for them or they brought you in to manage and book the hall?
The answer is both. It's a tech company that bought the building. We had initially thought of ways we could use The Concert Hall as office space but keep the furniture easily moveable, so that we could use it as a concert hall whenever there was opportunity. We didn't actually ever do that. We just kept it as a concert hall. So it's been our plan from the start to getting around to running an events business formally in the space again. We decided in the last six months and have been ramping that up. Toronto Jazz Fest is a soft launch, I suppose.
There is always uproar in this city when a historic venue gets taken over by a massive non-music corporation. Where does Info-Tech's desire come from to get in the music biz? Is founder Joel McLean a big music lover or are you, yourself?
Both Joel and myself are huge music lovers. I'm a live music junkie and have been my entire life. Music is what I do in my spare time and now I have the luxury of doing it in my professional time as well. We talk about being a little bit disappointed in some of the media when we purchased the building because they were painting us as being a boring technology company, which we are the furthest thing from to be completely honest.
In what way aren't you a boring technology company?
You'd have to come see the space. Let me tell you -- we moved in and we said, "This is amazing. We own the Concert Hall, which is where everyone played and such an amazing venue. What do we do to make sure we embrace that and celebrate that?' And we went all out to do that. All of our boardrooms are named after bands that played there. We have a Led Zeppelin boardroom, a Pearl Jam boardroom, a Rolling Stones boardroom, The Who boardroom, a Frank Sinatra boardroom, Grateful Dead boardroom. You name it. We even have a Slayer boardroom featuring two concert t-shirts from those shows mounted in shadow boxes so that the front and back can be seen. My mission to fill all the boardrooms with memorabilia, preferably from their Concert Hall shows.
Courtesy of Gotham Studios
How many rooms are in the building?
I don't know the exact number of rooms, but it's six floors and basement. It's deceitfully large once you get inside. There's probably about 25 to 30 boardrooms.
Did you keep that vintage scissor gate elevator?
Absolutely. They need love. What we did is hired a full-time lift operator who I think would be one of the last remaining ones in Canada, if not the last one. I don't know for sure. But Michael [Bathurst] is our lift operator and he spends his day both playing music for people -- his set up is a Bluetooth speaker and an iPad -- and he spends his day playing music for people in the elevator and shuttling them between floors. There's actually two elevators in there. One we use for moving our maintenance people around and one we use for staff.
Did you touch the grand poobah room, I call it, with its red thrones where the freemasons held their meetings over a hundred years ago and where the Polaris Music Prize held its grand jury debates?
Absolutely not. It's remained in all its splendor. We refer to it as The Red Room or our VIP boardroom, for our other business [Info-Tech]. I think we replaced the carpet because it was very worn out but other than that we put some new tables that have inlays of the Masonic logo, The Concert Hall logo, and the Info-Tech Research Group logo to embrace the history of the building. And Mick Jagger's snooker table is in the space as well.
What is the capacity of the Concert Hall now?
When all is said and done, we're going to operate with a capacity of 1200. We're looking at our desire to share the space with as many people as possible with our desire to operate as a premium vent location, so I think that means not overcrowding. I know a tight capacity has been as high as 1500 in the past, but we're going to operate at 1200.
Any upgrades to stage, light, sound?
We put in digital theatre-class projector and screen in the main Concert Hall, and the screen is hidden behind the proscenium, so it doesn't change the look of the hall at all when we use it for presentations or events, or watching movies if we feel like it. We put in a very basic PA when we first bought the space to handle talking heads. We're now in the process of upgrading the PA to something that makes more sense to run an events business with.
So after hours this space is available to be rented for concerts? Are you in touch with the promoters and booking agencies?
It's available both day and evening. I envision live performance in the evenings and in the daytime host more corporate style events. Our goal with the space is to establish it as one of Toronto's premiere event venues that would encompass both music and more corporate events and perhaps even weddings and that sort of thing. As far as Live Nation and all, a lot of the promoters have been reaching out to us now that we announced Jazz Fest and we are building those relationships with them. We're talking to everybody.
So it will be a regular venue to see live acts again.
That's specifically our goal.
Do you not have staff there in the daytime?
When we do not have events going on, our staff used it as a social space. The stage is set up as a bit of a lounge, a coffee table and couple of comfortable chairs. We have turntables and a vinyl collection, which plays through the house PA. Staff can gather there, have coffee together or a glass of wine at the end of the day, spin some vinyl or play some music on the jukebox. And when it is in use, we just keep our staff out of there.
We have a couple of venue-specific operational challenges we work around. We ask that soundcheck is either scheduled at noon when our employees are taking lunch and it won't be as disruptive as or at 5 o'oclock. Or, if we don't have event the day previously, then we ask load in the previous day and do soundcheck the night before, but so far that hasn't presented a major problem. Most people just do their soundcheck at 5 o'clock and often they invite our staff to watch soundcheck if they want, which is a nice little perk. We're had people say, ‘No, we need the space closed out which we honour.'
What are your memories of the space? Did you see a lot of shows there?
I did. The one that means the most to me was seeing the Pixies with Frank Black. I remember exactly where I was sitting in the space and I remember being absolutely blown away by the show and the venue and, of course, the walls sweating, which is what the space was famous for.
Apple reportedly wants music labels to take a smaller revenue cut from its streaming service
Apple is planning to renegotiate the terms with music labels to reduce their revenue cut from its streaming service, according to a Bloomberg report.
The deal Apple has with record labels is due to the expire at the end of the month, and it includes both Apple Music as well as iTunes, Apple's digital music store.
Bloomberg's report says that Apple is seeking to give record labels a smaller cut of its streaming service's revenue to get closer to rival Spotify.
The Swedish startup recently closed a deal that reduced the rate from 55% to 52%, Bloomberg says, while Apple Music currently sits at 58%.
If Apple wants to come closer to Spotify's rate, it will have to similarly expand its customer base. However, if the Cupertino giant won't be able to seal an agreement with music labels by the end of June, current terms will "likely be extended," Bloomberg reports.
10 magical game music tracks filled with awe and wonder
The inherent unreality of game worlds coupled with the video game industry’s massive J.R.R. Tolkien preoccupation (and through him, Richard Wagner’s The Ring Cycle and various Nordic mythologies) means that for decades now, players have been presented with many, many different interpretations of ‘fantasy’.
The pursuit of creating a thousand resplendent fictional worlds has led to some sumptuous video game music, and we’re here to celebrate some notable tracks by talented composers. It will likely come as no surprise that this post is going to be largely taken up with floaty, ethereal voices (often a solo female) and lush woodwind and strings — such are the colours that these particular artists have chosen to paint with.
“Mysteries Abound” by Masashi Hamauzu – Final Fantasy XIII (2009)
This particular title in the Final Fantasy series is an acquired taste (much like its predecessor, Final Fantasy XII), but it also sports a cracking soundtrack (YouTube), as do its direct sequels Final Fantasy XIII-2 and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. Lead composer on the Fabula Nova Crystallis series, Masashi Hamauzu, brought a different vibe to the Final Fantasy series than stalwart Nobuo Uematsu (who composed entries #1 through #9 before the two collaborated on #10). His work is more impressionistic, angular, and directly influenced by classical music and opera.
This track from Hamauzu makes you feel like you’re lying suspended in a perfectly warm pool, staring up at glittering stars. Shortly after drinking a nice mug of hot chocolate.
“Then Were Created the Gods in the Midst of Heaven” by Austin Wintory – ABZÛ (2016)
Mellow underwater exploration game ABZÛ (Spotify; iTunes/Apple Music) is basically ‘Mysterious & Magical Wonderment: The Game’, in no small part thanks to its exquisite score by Austin Wintory (I’m going to continue calling him the ‘James Horner of game music’ just to see if it sticks).
During the 2017 run of video game music shows aired on UK national radio station Classic FM, host and VGM composer Jessica Curry repeatedly highlighted the innovation of Wintory’s choral writing. Only the second game composer to have been nominated for a Grammy (for Journey in 2012/13), he takes us on yet another, erm, journey in this piece, twisting and turning through different keys — Debussy-esque — before arriving back at one of ABZÛ’s beautiful core musical themes at 3:10.
“After the Dream” by Tomoko Sasaki, arr. Naofumi Hataya – NiGHTS into Dreams (1995)
Arguably, there is a multi-faceted ‘SEGA sound’ encompassing everything from Zaxxon through to the Dreamcast’s last hurrah, Sonic Adventure 2. Somewhere amidst all those fantastic scores is the brilliantly cheesy, blended pop from the quirk-assault that is NiGHTS into Dreams (YouTube).
This dreamy ditty might not seem out of place as hold music for a dentist’s practice, but the mere fact that you could pop the Sega Saturn disc into a normal CD player and play the soundtrack endears these tracks to my heart.
“Pandora’s Box” by Winifred Phillips – God of War (2005)
Winifred Phillips literally wrote the book on composing game music (A Composer’s Guide to Game Music) and has generally been a leading light both for lady composers in media and women in games. On the God of War soundtrack (YouTube), she mixed it up with several other composers, often providing the mythological mystery in counterpoint to all the thumping percussion, brass and shouty choirs found elsewhere.
“Song For Aloy” by Joris de Man, perf. Julie Elven – Horizon Zero Dawn (2017)
Whilst his ensemble work and orchestration is generally loverly jubbly, when you strip everything out and expose Julie Elven’s voice, you access the full power of de Man’s simple main theme — the keystone of the whole score. This bare version perfectly encapsulates the emotional distance lead character Aloy has to travel from being a local outcast, ensconced in the valley of her relatively backwards tribe, to being a globe-trotting, hyper-violent, one-woman justice machine.
Julie Elven, also a vocalist on several Total War titles, Star Citizen and World of Warcraft: Legion, gets to get her Enya on:
“To the Successor of the Crystal” by Kumi Tanioka – Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (2003)
As mentioned above with Masashi Hamauzu and the Final Fantasy XIII series, Final Fantasy as a brand has become a home for many fantastic composers — beyond Nobuo Uematsu — to create wonderful soundtracks.
The sound of spin-off series Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles (YouTube) was crafted by the Hiroshima-born Kumi Tanioka, who was also one of the three composers on Final Fantasy XI (and member of FFXI tribute band, The Star Onions). A pianist at heart, she adds some delicate tinkling to this lovely, ethereal piece.
“The Ancestral Trees” by Gareth Coker – Ori and the Blind Forest (2015)
Brit-in-exile Gareth Coker has been doing more than just soaking up the L.A. sun — according to an interview he recently conducted with Kate Remington on the Music Respawn! podcast, he cut his teeth composing for trailers, learning how to tickle the listener’s eardrums across the whole audible frequency spectrum. His score for Ori and the Blind Forest (Spotify; iTunes/Apple Music) was nominated for a BAFTA in 2016 but faced stiff competition, losing out to Jessica Curry’s Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture (Ori and the Blind Forest won the award for Artistic Achievement).
In The Ancestral Trees, Coker cranks up the feels to 11 with shimmering tremolo strings, a touching piano melody in octaves from 0:21 before the whole thing erupts in a geyser of moonlit romance at 0:43.
“Wretched Weaponry:Quiet” by Keiichi Okabe – NieR:Automata (2017)
Like previous NieR games, NieR:Automata’s soundtrack (YouTube) was composed by Okabe Keiichi and his music production team, dubbed MONACA.
Like the game’s many endings, the soundtrack can be a bit complicated to get your head around. In the case of this particular track, it’s one of three variations on the soundtrack album and is sung by a double-tracked Emi Evans who wrote the lyrics in her invented, French-derived language ‘Nouveau FR’ or ‘New French’. Frankly, the whole thing puts the ‘bon’ in ‘bonkers’.
“The Ballad of the Space Babies” by Jim Guthrie – Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (2011)
Like Disasterpeace (FEZ), Darren Korb (Bastion), Terence Lee AKA Lifeformed (Dustforce) and Ben Prunty (FTL: Faster Than Light), Jim Guthrie is one of a gang of composers that helped elevate a generation of superb, trailblazing indie games in the early part of the 10’s. As well as composing for the hit iPad adventure Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (releasing the soundtrack by way of album Sword & Sworcery LP – The Ballad of the Space Babies — Spotify; iTunes/Apple Music), Guthrie in many ways soundtracked the entire indie movement through his score for the 2012 documentary, Indie Game: The Movie (Spotify; iTunes/Apple Music).
Much of his music is gentle and subtle, reminiscent of the sorts of tracks found in Sofia Coppola movies.
The Fields of Ard Skellig by Marcin Przybyłowicz – The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt(2015)
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (Spotify; iTunes/Apple Music) is a gigantic game, thus the task of music director and lead composer Marcin Przybyłowicz in soundtracking its various regions and story events was also gigantic.
To get an authentic medieval Polish sound, Przybyłowicz recruited folk musicians — various multi-instrumentalists and the group Percival — to essentially just jam out on traditional instruments including the lute, hurdy-gurdy, renaissance fiddle and bowed gusli. This behind-the-scenes video shows how he had to throw out his careful planning in favour of more free-form recording sessions.
In this atmospheric piece, we hear some of that folk playing and singing over the top of more filmic, dramatic chords and synth pads.
This Startup Will Let You Write A Song With Your Favorite Musician
First of all thanks to Hugh McIntyre for this article.
Songwriting can be one of the most personal things an artist can do in the process of creating a track, but over the years, it has become a much more collaborative experience, especially when big names are involved. Very few songs that make any impact on the charts are penned by one person, and there are plenty of instances of up to a dozen writers appearing on the same track, and sometimes none of them are even the act that ends up recording the tune and making it a hit.
Hookist is taking collaborative songwriting to the next level, and the startup is doing so in a way that helps up-and-coming artists make a few dollars in the process. An artist can partner with the company to launch a competition of sorts, and they then promote it to all of their fans. Those that love their art can submit lyrics one line at a time, which the musician running the show sorts through, choosing as many as they like to compose a final product. Hookiest is a place online where lyrics can be crowdsourced, and while that might sound somewhat impersonal for the artist collecting submissions, it is a way for the biggest fans to open up their hearts and become part of the art they’ve always loved.
Those that want to take part in the fun pay just $0.49 to submit every line, a price point which co-founder Meredith Collins felt was important to keep intact.
“It’s not going to break anybody’s bank,” Collins suggested, “but it will provide just enough friction so that people actually craft something.” If there wasn’t any money connected to the submission process, artists might be flooded with terrible suggestions, and then it’s not about choosing the best of the bunch, but sorting through the garbage. Most projects receive just under 1,000 submissions, but as the startup grows and more people learn about it, that number could easily double or even triple, and it might soon become difficult for acts to read every submission, even if fans need to pay.
Despite the extremely manageable price of sending in a line, many dedicated followers spend up to $15 per project, because the desire to share a songwriting credit with a favorite band is worth the price of admission, and they want to submit enough lines to ensure at least one will wind up chosen.
So far, Hookist has worked with acts like the Crash Test Dummies and the Spin Doctors, and the legendary Paul Williams even joined the group on a tune created to be the anthem for a charity organization called Facing Addiction.
At the end of the day, Hookist is not meant to alter how artists create full albums, or to take away the task of songwriting entirely. It’s also not a way to bring in a truly meaningful sum of money, though for many names partnering with this startup, every little bit counts.
Collins calls it “a really powerful fan engagement tool,” and she’s smart to do so. Forming strong connections with those paying to see concerts and buying new albums is incredibly important to every musician on the planet, from bands just starting out to the most famous pop stars on the planet. Hookist allows them to connect on an even deeper level than they already might have been, while at the same time “staying relevant and doing something respectful of the art,” according to the co-founder.
Spotify is letting record labels pay to promote songs in users' playlists
Spotify has launched a new ad format called sponsored songs which lets labels pay to promote songs and have them appear in users' playlists.
The songs don't appear amongst your music, but instead are featured at the top of playlists.
TechCrunch spotted the new ad format, and Spotify told the site that sponsored songs are "a product test for labels to promote singles on the free tier."
Here's what sponsored songs look like:
It's possible to opt out of seeing these kind of adverts on Spotify: Go to "display options" and turn off the option titled "show sponsored songs." It's on by default, as Chris Messina spotted on Twitter.
Messina was using Spotify Premium and saw the option to disable the ads — but the ads only show up on Spotify's free, ad-supported tier.
How Film’s Top Composers Push Past Constraints Of On-Demand Creativity
The doc “Score” explores film’s intrinsic connection to music and pulls the veil back on the creative processes of the best composers in the business.
From “SCORE: A Film Music Documentary”, featuring the film American Beauty,
There’s a scene in director Matt Schrader’s documentary, Score, where film composer Joe Kraemer lays out a frank truth: “When you’re a film composer, part of the gig is you’re giving the director and the producers the music they want. But at the end of the day, if they don’t like it, it’s not in the movie.”
Film composers navigate in a space where their creativity is on consignment–their duty is to tailor their artistry to fit a vision that isn’t their own. In addition to exploring the human body’s physiological responses to music and digging into the history of film scores, Schrader’s doc also touches on the creative process of some of film’s top composers and how they work through some of their most challenging work. Below, three of the composers featured in the film expand on their methods, dealing with writer’s block, and what they would change in their industry.
WHAT HAS BEING A COMPOSER TAUGHT YOU ABOUT THE CREATIVE PROCESS?
Marco Beltrami (Logan, The Hurt Locker, Scream): “If I’m working on a movie, I don’t try to work at a particular scene. I try to get the overall feel of what it is–the emotional heart of what it is. Sometimes it’s a sequence of notes that come to mind; sometimes it may be a harmony. Sometimes it’s even just a sound that will be a starting point for me that I can expand on. The creative process, it sounds very elusive but you have to be able to tap into it on-demand. And that is often a scary thing because I don’t fully understand the process of inspiration and developing ideas. You work at a problem and sometimes nothing happens. But then, out of the blue, when you’re not thinking about it, you solve it. But the people that hire you don’t want to hear about that–they just want the results.”
John Debney (The Jungle Book, Iron Man 2, Sin City): “For me, one of the biggest challenges is just to start the process. I’ve learned over the years to not think too much about it–I sit down and let the creativity flow through. That has served me well because the creative process gets difficult when I’m overthinking when I’m trying to intellectualize too much about some emotional piece of music I’ve got to write. So I always try to take my ego out of the process and just write. And I bet there are a lot of other artists that would agree with that, to get out of your own way.”
Composer John Debney and director Garry Marshall behind the scenes of “SCORE: A FILM MUSIC DOCUMENTARY” [Photo: courtesy of Gravitas Ventures]
HOW DO YOU GET OVER WRITER’S BLOCK?
John Debney: “It’s trial and error trial–you can’t be afraid to do a piece of music 20 times before you get it. Part of that is divorcing yourself from it and realizing that you’re servicing the movie–you’re servicing the director’s vision. But I work best when there’s the pressure of having something done at a certain time. For whatever reason, that spurs me into activity. So let’s I’m working on a film that I know I have to have done by a certain date–I break it down and I force myself to sit at my keyboard and do four minutes a day or five minutes a day, whatever the math is that would then enable me to have a completed score by a certain date. Part of it is trusting yourself and pushing through.”
Composer Harry Gregson Williams behind the scenes of “SCORE: A FILM MUSIC DOCUMENTARY” [Photo: courtesy of Gravitas Ventures]
WHAT’S MISSING FROM YOUR FIELD AS A FILM COMPOSER?
Brian Tyler (The Mummy, The Fate of the Furious, Now You See Me): “Something I’m a big proponent of is knocking down the borders of music genres–I’m someone that really loves to blur the lines. I find that people get in their lane and they’re afraid to embrace things that are unfamiliar, and my mantra is to love the unfamiliar. There are people around the world that love every type of music and there’s a reason for that: They’re all legit. But you have to really dive in and not just give it lip service but really learn about it and love it and incorporate that into your arsenal. It’s a good tool that’s often overlooked.”
John Debney: “If somebody gave me a magic wand, I would just try to get a little more time on some of these films. The longer I’m on a show or film it always seems to make my work better because I have more time to make a mistake or fail. My friend [director] Jon Favreau, what I love most about him is we’ll start working together and he’s not afraid of me failing. In fact, he wants me to fail because then we can discover something together and then get to the spot that’s right for the film.”
Marco Beltrami: “The fact that it’s so easy to edit and change both movies and music is something I think has caused some of the creative process to suffer a bit. By doing mock-ups of everything, you’re not allowing for some of the performance creativity that happens, some of the magic that used to happen when you’re out there working with the orchestra. Oftentimes you’re not even recording the whole orchestra–you’re recording just the strings and just the brass and just the woodwinds. It becomes less and less musical and more and more a technical process. And that, to me, I don’t think is a good change. On the other hand, I think technology has opened the doors for a lot of people that have ideas and they don’t have a whole orchestra at their disposal. There’s a lot of room for experimentation with virtual instruments and creating sounds and coming up with your own idea of what music is.”
Composer John Debney and director Garry Marshall behind the scenes of “SCORE: A FILM MUSIC DOCUMENTARY” [Photo: courtesy of Gravitas Ventures]
Composer Harry Gregson Williams behind the scenes of “SCORE: A FILM MUSIC DOCUMENTARY” [Photo: courtesy of Gravitas Ventures]