Tag: movie

Celebrity Trainer and Fitness Podcast Host Don Saladino Spills His Favorite Workout Songs, Podcasts, and Tips

January 7, 2020

If you’ve seen any of the Captain America, Avengers, or Wolverine movies, you’ve likely noticed Don Saladino’s handiwork. The celebrity trainer and entrepreneur works on strength, conditioning, and overall wellness with television and movie stars—from Ryan Reynolds to Blake Lively and Emily Blunt—to help them improve their performance physiques.

Don was a fitness trainer for more than twenty years, but since 2000 he’s been a business owner, brand strategist, and entrepreneur as well. At this point, training is the easy part. He also hosts two fitness podcasts and is a self-proclaimed music buff who tailors what’s playing to his clientele. For example, he knows to blast Pearl Jam when John Krasinski comes in for a workout, and recommends Led Zeppelin for actor Billy Crudup’s reps. For Don’s own workouts, he likes to stream Metallica albums from beginning to end. (He also says one can’t go wrong with ’90s grunge.)

We asked Don (between reps) to make a podcast playlist for us and grabbed a few music and workout tips from him as well—just in time to help you stick with your New Year’s fitness resolution.

How have you seen music help people during workouts?

I’ve educated myself in the last 20 years on fitness, anatomy, and kinesiology (the study of body movement) from the best doctors and coaches. But part of what I do, as important as that is, is play good music. Music’s a big driving force to a workout. Not everyone comes in having a good day, but music is the one thing you can throw at someone where, no matter how bad their day is, you can almost hit that reset button and get them to put a smile on their face, get into a little bit of a groove, and develop a little bit of a rhythm. Once a person starts picking up that energy and momentum, you can really accomplish something.

This year, Spotify’s data showed that health and fitness podcast listening increased 145% in the past year on our platform. Why do you think people are turning to podcasts to get information about health and fitness?

First off, I think listening to podcasts is a great way to fill time. I have an hour commute every morning on the train, and podcasts are an educational, entertaining way to be able to fill that. It’s so easy now with our phones and wireless headphones to just connect anywhere and become a smarter person. We’re also more aware of time management. If I’m on the train two hours a day, man, that’s 10 hours a week where I can listen to a different author or a different podcast or get educated on a different area. That’s really doing a lot of good self-help stuff for me.

Plus, we’re in a much more health-conscious society now. I mean, it is amazing. Twenty, 30 years ago, we weren’t paying attention to organic farming. We weren’t paying attention to how crops were being made or how important the purity of olive oil is—everyone just thought olive oil was healthy. (The other day I listened to a great podcast about olive oil, so it’s on my mind.) So the combination of downtime and connectivity, wanting to be educated, and the move towards health-consciousness all factor in.

Tell us about the podcasts you host—Reps for Muscle and Fitness and D&D Fitness Radio Podcast—what can listeners get out of these? What sort of episodes did you include on your podcast playlist?

Muscle and Fitness magazine brought me in to help elevate the educational platform for their listeners. We really wanted to go out there and not only just get fitness people talking about sets and reps, but we wanted to get the best nutritionists, the best doctors, talking about wellness as well. There are so many skeptics out there about gluten free or about intermittent fasting or about the ketogenic tide.

When you listen to the full podcast playlist, you’ll get points of view from well-educated experts like nutritionists, doctors, and trainers, as well as a level of entertainment from celebrities like Randy Couture, Zach Levi, and Liev Schreiber.

What are three wellness tips that anyone at any fitness level can incorporate into their New Year’s wellness resolution?

Sleep is number one. When we don’t fall into that realm of that seven to nine hours of good quality sleep at night, it impacts our entire body, including hormone function. If your hormone function is off, you’re not going to have a high level of energy, and you’re also not going to be able to burn an appropriate amount of fat. Your strength level is not going to be optimal and everything with your training’s going to drop.

Hydration is number two. Drink half your body weight in ounces of water. That’s going to set you up for proper digestion, better hormone function, better sleep, better energy, and a better way to metabolize foods.

Then, I think from an exercise standpoint, stop thinking that you need to spend 60 to 90 minutes a day at the gym. If you’re someone who hates the gym, but you can get in there for 15 minutes, just aim to break a sweat for 10-15 minutes a day. That is enough.

One bonus tip is to always fact-check—whether you’re listening to a fitness podcast or hiring a new coach, make sure the credentials are good and you’re getting accurate information about your health and workout.

Finally—for a question that takes us out of the gym—what is your go-to karaoke song?

“Faithfully” by Journey. I think it’s the hardest karaoke song to sing on the planet. My son’s a very good singer and I challenged him to sing it. He’s got a much better voice than I do and he’s almost nailing it right now. He’s 11. I’m trying to see if he can do a much better job than I did. We’ve been having a great time with it. I challenge anyone—if you can hit that song on all notes, you’ve got it together.

Take a listen to Don’s fitness-filled podcast playlist below for expert takes on wellness and working out.

Music Brings Elio and Oliver Together in Andre Aciman’s ‘Call Me By Your Name’ Sequel, ‘Find Me’

October 24, 2019

Classical music aficionados know to look forward to the cadenza—an often-improvised ornamental solo found in concerti performances or compositions. Often unmetered, written in a “free” rhythmic style, and completely unique, the cadenza is also at the heart of André Aciman’s new book, Find Me. The sequel to his 2007 novel, Call Me By Your Name, Find Me re-introduces two beloved characters, Elio and Oliver, and reestablishes the importance of music—cadenzas included—in their world and ours. 

To celebrate the release of Find Me on October 29, Aciman created his own Find Me Spotify playlist, which reflects the soundtrack to the 2017 Call Me By Your Name movie directed by Luca Guadagnino. 

Aciman’s Call Me By Your Name centers on a 17-year-old pianist named Elio and 24-year-old grad student named Oliver, two young men who come together unexpectedly for one romantic, bliss-filled summer in Italy. Aciman’s much-anticipated sequel, Find Me, revisits the men 10, 15, and 20 years later, when Elio has become a professional musician in Paris and Oliver is a tenured professor in New England. Aciman explains that part of the plot involves a cadenza that was performed—and supposedly lost—during the Holocaust that is passed down as a gift and expression of love from one man to another.

Both the movie soundtrack and Aciman’s playlist combine classical sonatas and Bach compositions with original songs from singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens, as well as ’80s rock. “Elio . . . is, after all, a kid, and he should be interested in rock and roll and contemporary music,” Aciman explained in an exclusive For The Record interview. “But he’s also a kid who’s grown up with traditional music. The classical, mature music of the film represents both Oliver’s older age and the family’s long classical tradition.”

This musical taste reflects Aciman’s own. “By the time I was 10 years old, I was already very interested in classical music,” he said. “I was a big fan of The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, and The Beatles when I was young. I loved that stuff, but it was always classical music that I would sort of lean to in the end.” The multilingual Aciman noted that he also listens to French, Italian, and British rock.

With ‘Black Panther’ and ‘Captain Marvel,’ Superhero Movie Concept Albums Take Flight

April 23, 2019

Cape or no cape, team player or lone ranger, most superheroes have at least one thing in common: an epic theme song. Often, there’s a movie-length soundtrack to match as well—and, these days, maybe even two.

A new trend in superhero films began in the past year with two of the biggest Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movies, Black Panther and Captain Marvel. These films changed the superhero-soundtrack landscape with the addition of a secondary, companion album or playlist. According to our US data, these new storytelling vehicles are a powerful way to broaden a film’s reach.

Black Panther Concept Album Wins with Fans

Fans embraced these albums fervently—Black Panther’s in particular. The movie broke all types of box office records, and its instrumental original movie soundtrack, composed by Ludwig Goransson, even won Best Original Score at both the Grammys and the Oscars. Yet when it came to streaming, it was the concept album—a rap and hip-hop work of art curated by Kendrick Lamar and featuring SZA, Swae Lee, Khalid, Jorja Smith, and many more—that hit home with listeners. On the day of its release, the album, which builds on the movie’s poignant exploration of “what it means to be African,” hit over 19 million plays on Spotify. Critically, it wasn’t just how many people were listening, but who.

The listeners were close to equal in gender representation, and the bulk of the plays came from 18- to 24-year-olds, followed by 25- to 29-year-olds. By contrast, listeners of the actual soundtracks for both Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War in those age groups lean far more male. In other words, a supplemental soundtrack represents a unique opportunity for the studio to attract new audiences, particularly adult women who don’t traditionally go out of their way to see superhero movies.

Captain Marvel Makes Her Mark through Music

Captain Marvel built on this paradigm with unabashed girl power. It was impossible to walk away from the film, released this past March, without music in mind—either due to Pinar Toprak’s original score or the largely female hit-driven ’90s pop-grunge sounds, like “Only Happy When It Rains” by Shirley Mason-fronted Garbage and Gwen Stefani-led No Doubt’s “Just a Girl” blasting during the final fight scene. These songs, found on Marvel’s Captain Marvel Soundtrack Official Playlist, helped build out the essence of Carol Danvers’ empowered protagonist.

And the first female superhero to get a major motion picture in the MCU struck a resounding chord with female fans: Women ages 18-44 streamed the playlist more than any men within that same age bracket. Toprak’s official soundtrack, which also featured gems of ’90s music inspiration and was the first in the MCU to be conducted by a woman, was streamed most by men ages 18-24 and 34-55, but saw 18- to 24-year-old women ranked close behind—fairly high for the genre.

Though the playlist doesn’t have the streaming volume of the orchestral Captain Marvel soundtrack, nor that of Kendrick Lamar’s Black Panther-inspired album, the trend is clear. The streaming popularity of superhero concept albums points to their power in attracting enthusiasm in a way that traditional instrumental superhero movie soundtracks do not.

Sure, surges in orchestral volume add emotion, suspense, and gravity to a monumental moment in superhero adventure movies. But the addition of lyric-driven, thematically relevant pop or rap songs leaves the audience with a memory of the film that goes far beyond the fight scenes, one that speaks to what it means to be human—or in some cases, superhuman.

Searching for something super? Stream Marvel’s official Marvel Music playlist below.