Tag: netflix

The Challenges and Opportunities in Transforming the ‘Song Exploder’ Podcast Into a Netflix Show

October 13, 2020

In 2014, Hrishikesh “Hrishi” Hirway first combined music and podcasts with Song Exploder, a biweekly podcast that explores a popular song through an intimate discussion with the track’s creator. Artists ranging from The Postal Service to Dua Lipa have taken to the mic to explain their craft and process. In 2016, Hrishi started fiddling with another combination—turning the podcast into a TV show. He partnered with Morgan Neville, a film producer, director, and writer best known for some of his documentaries about musicians and songwriters, like 20 Feet From Stardom and Johnny Cash’s America. They embarked on the task of turning an audio show into a visual one, a project that would take two years—and plenty of hard questions.

This October, their hard work paid off when Song Exploder landed on Netflix. Each of the four episodes explores a singular track from creators Alicia Keys, Lin-Manuel Miranda, R.E.M., and Ty Dolla $ign in a new visual fashion that keeps the Song Exploder podcast at its core. 

‘Cheer’s’ Monica Aldama and Andy Cosferent Take Us to the Mat and Behind the Music

March 12, 2020

Audiences have flipped for the Navarro College cheerleading team in Netflix’s new hit docuseries Cheer. At the heart of the show is Head Coach Monica Aldama, who prepares the team for the national title competition in Daytona, Florida through her fierce leadership. Of course, this wouldn’t be possible without Assistant Coach Andy Cosferent. The pair’s ability to inspire excellent performances while also nurturing the team through the highs and lows of life is a sight to behold and one likely to tug at your heartstrings. 

We recently caught up with Monica and Andy for an inside look at life on Cheer. Read on to hear their take on the show, the role that music plays in cheerleading, and the team’s unique practice playlist.

Cheer has proven to be a massive success. Why do you think the show has resonated with so many viewers? 

I think there’s a few different reasons. One is the fact that some of these kids have overcome obstacles and struggles in their lives, and Cheer shows that your past doesn’t define you. You can overcome it. You can be successful if you put your mind to it and if you have a strong support system.

I think another really important reason is that Cheer illustrates that it doesn’t matter what country you come from, what color skin you have, or what your sexuality may be. As long as you come together as a team in a specific environment—as long as you have each other’s back—you become a family, and you can achieve anything. Because at the end of the day, we’re all in this together. And, like most things in this world, it’s about teamwork.

Throughout Season 1, you cheer with and without music. What role does music play in your competitions and tryouts?

We love the musical aspect of cheerleading. When we get to compete with music, it’s more entertaining.

When we do tryouts, however, we don’t use music because we look specifically for skills. I think a lot of people assume it’s like the movie Bring It On, where they press play on a song and do a little routine as their tryout. But it’s not really like that.

The phrase “mat talk” is used frequently on Cheer. For those who aren’t familiar with the term, how would you define it? Is there a song that exemplifies it? 

I’d say mat talk is giving your energy 100% to someone else in order to benefit them. Maybe someone is struggling or hurting, so I will yell and be extra happy for them. The energy they get will then get them through the routine, through life, anything that they’re struggling with on that particular day.

One song that’s been on our team playlist for quite a few years now is “Get It Ready” by DJ Jubilee, and it reminds me of mat talk. It’s so fun to listen to because it makes you have an extra little bit of energy. You just can’t help but dance when that song comes on, and it just puts everyone in a better mood.

What song would you say sums up your experience filming Cheer?

We would probably have to go with “Incredible” by Céline Dion. I think that every time we go somewhere—every time we go through an interview or an appearance—people ask, “How has your experience been?” Everybody looks at each other, and we all just pretty much say incredible.

Walk us through the process behind curating the team’s Spotify playlist.

Every year, we make a playlist that we can use to get ourselves mentally prepared, inspired, or pumped up, and that’s what we used for Spotify, too. The team members made it. Every individual picked their favorite song—some are hip-hop, some EDM, some rap. Meanwhile, others picked slower songs.

When we practice, we only listen to that playlist. We put it on shuffle, and no one is allowed to skip a song, because we want everybody to have the opportunity to listen to their favorite jam. Every individual has a different way of getting motivated, and I think each song, just like each team member, has something special.

Stream the Cheer team’s exclusive practice playlist, only on Spotify.

What Elsa from ‘Frozen 2,’ Eleven from ‘Stranger Things,’ and Lyra from ‘His Dark Materials’ Streamed on Spotify This Year

December 12, 2019

Just last week, Spotify released our annual Wrapped campaign, giving hundreds of millions of users around the globe the ability to relive their year in listening. Fans, artists, and podcasters alike flooded social media with their stats, reactions, and reflections about what they (and their listeners) streamed in 2019. It dominated headlines and social feeds, creating a lot of buzz—and a lot of feelings.

So we thought: What if our favorite fictional characters had feelings [about their favorite music and podcasts] too?

Besides revealing everyone’s top song and artist of the decade as well as the year, we’re also sharing what we think some of everyone’s favorite fictional characters would have on their Wrapped cards. Too real? Take a look below.

Disney’s Frozen 2

We couldn’t let this one go…. Disney’s global hit film, Frozen 2, which was released November 22, brought back some beloved characters like royal sisters Anna and Elsa, lovable snowman Olaf, and rugged outdoorsman Kristoff. This crew’s adventures take them far beyond Arendelle, so you can bet they’d be playing pick-me-up songs and podcasts to help them stay strong as they venture into the unknown.

Holiday Magic (And Music) Comes to Life in ‘Let It Snow’ Exclusive Spotify Playlists

November 18, 2019

If you’re looking for a movie to get you into the holiday spirit with a sprinkle of teen drama —and some festive music to go along with it—the cast of Netflix’s Let It Snow has you covered. 

The film stars Kiernan Shipka, Isabela Merced, and Mitchell Hope (among many others) and made its debut on Netflix on November 8.  

To celebrate the release of the film, Spotify partnered with Netflix to bring you eight exclusive playlists from the cast, all of which can be found on the Pop Culture Hub. 

6 Questions (and Answers) with Tony Jebara, VP of Machine Learning

October 24, 2019

Tony Jebara, Spotify’s new Vice President of Machine Learning, says he started studying the algorithm-based technology when he was in college, “before it was cool.” Now, machine learning is not only undeniably cool, but it’s also incredibly practical—it also enables fan-favorite playlists like Discover Weekly, and more recent creations like On Repeat and Repeat Rewind.

Tony and his team of engineers and research scientists, therefore, have a two-fold mission: To analyze data on what users search and stream, and use those learnings to run experiments that turn into some of your favorite personalized playlists and personalized homepages.

We recently sat down with Tony, and he explained why, after four years as the director of machine learning at Netflix, he was intrigued by Spotify, where machine learning is central to our company strategy.

As a guitarist and songwriter, it was a perfect—dare we say algorithmic—fit.

First, what is machine learning? How do you use it at Spotify?

Machine learning finds patterns in data in a statistically reliable way so that we are confident they were not flukes. Then, it studies that data to determine what actions to take for each context in order to maximize reward. We’re not just trying to find patterns in the data, but cause and effect relationships too.

At Spotify, machine learning helps us match millions of users to the content (e.g. tracks, podcasts) most relevant to them at an unparalleled speed. We’re aiming to facilitate the user journey and make it enjoyable so that it doesn’t involve as much hunting around on our app. It’s a way for us to say ‘you’re going to love these things, let me put them at the top of your page for you,’ and also accelerate that process based on what people with similar interests have discovered.

You came from Netflix, which is a really interesting player in the machine learning space. How does your work today leverage past experience?

There are lots of similarities. Both services have to algorithmically match users to the right content and both have to decide how to invest in content and creators. But one key difference is that the Spotify catalog is huge—there are over 50 million songs and hundreds of thousands of podcasts. On the flip side, the Netflix catalog only has to deal with thousands of movies and TV shows. So, machine learning and algorithms play a much more crucial role at Spotify.

What makes Spotify’s application of machine learning unique or special?

If you think about what Spotify does, we deliver really, truly personalized experiences on a global level and in localized markets. Creating one personalized playlist for one user in one market can be challenging, but it’s doable with a human curator.  We take cultural aspects into consideration, because in culture it’s about more than drawing a straight line from the past into the future. Cultural shifts are sometimes erratic or anything but linear. That’s why we increasingly invest in systems that combine human experts and algorithms. While humans are good at articulating the “new, interesting and unexpected twist”, algorithms are better at scaling that curation to a personal experience for millions of people.

If you have a catalog of millions of songs and a global market of, you know, 200 million plus, you need to be able to scale your efforts thoughtfully. Machine learning allows and enables us to do that at the speed and quality consistency that Spotify is known for.

Our algorithms allow us to scale out very personalized, hand-selected experiences that help members feel were made just for them. The goal is to deliver an amazing listening experience.

What will machine learning mean for our creators—artists and podcasters—on platform?

With machine learning, we can expand our audience analytics capabilities in a way that helps creators get new fans. It’s no longer just about knowing if your song has been downloaded or streamed 8 million times, it’s about creating a connection between artists, creators and their fans. With machine learning, we can actually start to inform them about what types of people are consuming their work, at what time, and what it gets consumed with. You know—like pairing wine with food. What songs are this podcast dining well with? Things like that help unclog creative potential because people can understand their audiences better. Then they get valuable feedback, something that so many creators crave.

Machine learning is a fast-moving field, to say the least. What do you think the future of machine learning will look like? Let’s say three years from now?  

Over the next three years, machine learning will become more causal and long-term. Right now, machine learning mostly uncovers superficial input-output relationships. For example, given what you played today, here’s what you’ll play tomorrow. This leads to short-term engagement but might not yield long-term satisfaction. My hope is that three years from now, machine learning becomes less myopic. It should figure out the best sequence of actions to lead you on a journey where you discover new great audio content, become more engaged, and stay satisfied as a listener for years to come.

Now before we go, are there any podcasts you’re especially into right now? When do you listen to them?

I’m kind of nerdy, so I like Stuff You Should Know. It’s not a story, it’s just interesting things around nutrition or technology or political facts. I like to listen to it and learn about some random new things popping up.

I usually listen to podcasts while I’m lying in bed, when I don’t want to hold my screen or have the blue light keep me up but still want to learn something new.

Behind the Scenes on Roma’s Double Soundtrack

March 7, 2019

If you were to create a movie based on your past, what music would you choose to accompany it? That’s the question Alfonso Cuarón faced with Roma, his recent Oscar-winning film that pays homage to his childhood in the titular upper-middle-class neighborhood in Mexico City.

The autobiographical film was more personal than any of Cuarón’s more recent big-budget Hollywood productions, like Gravity and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. It primarily focuses on the relationship between Cuarón’s family and their nanny Cleo, played in the movie by Yalitza Aparicio, who cares for the household as the parents navigate a painful separation. “I wanted to open some family wounds,” he told Variety.

To solve the challenge of scoring his cinematic vision, Cuarón worked with music supervisor Lynn Fainchtein to create the perfect musical backdrop to his memory of Mexico City in the ’70s. Fainchtein, who spoke to us recently over the phone and grew up in the neighborhood of La Condesa, which is right next to Roma and similar in many ways, said of the experience: “[Alfonso and I] share the same memories, and we share the same TV shows, so it was something close to me. It was part of my memory as well.”

Unlike most movies, where the music that sets the mood often happens outside the film’s universe, in Roma the music is a part of what’s actually happening within the film. This means the whole soundtrack had to be true to the music people in Mexico in the ’70s had access to, what was popular at the time, and what would make sense for their characters to enjoy.

To create this level of detail, Fainchtein and Cuarón divided the film into scenes and created playlists for each one. The bulk of the movie’s action takes place around the family home—there are scenes of the parents and kids eating dinner or watching TV with Cleo; there’s even a sequence focused on the father trying to park his car in the garage. And so, each room was given its own distinct musical flavor. “We created playlists for the kitchen, for the playroom, for Cleo’s room…” said Fainchtein.

This specificity allowed the pair to create smaller universes within the film’s larger one, adding to Roma’s authenticity. In the kitchen, for example, while Cleo and another nanny prepare food and wash the dishes, Latin Grammy Award-winning pop and ranchera singer Rocío Dúrcal sings “Más Bonita Que Ninguna” in the background. Fainchtein admitted it’s not the music she would have listened to when she was ten years old, but she knows it’s similar to the music her nanny might have had on in the background. Elsewhere, the soundtrack features other Mexican pop anthems of the era, including Leo Dan’s “Te He Prometido” and Juan Gabriel’s “No Tengo Dinero”—songs that Fainchtein confirmed were on the radio in 1970 and 1971, the years when the movie takes place.

And while Fainchtein had a rich memorial archive to draw on, she also dove into the various music archives available in Mexico City, including those of Televisa and the Filmoteca at the National Autonomous University. She looked at old magazines that held television show listings and researched radio programs, advertisements, and even the DJs of the era. Each song was chosen “because Alfonso liked it and because it pertains to the memories, and to the period,” she said. Her goal was to evoke a vision as close to Cuarón’s recollection as possible.

To accompany the Roma soundtrack, Cuarón and Fainchtein also commissioned the album Music Inspired by the Film Roma. They compiled the album with Randall Poster, another storied music supervisor who is best known for his work on Boardwalk Empire and collaborations with Wes Anderson. Poster and Fainchtein approached artists “close to Alfonso’s heart,” Fainchtein said, and offered them free rein to create a song inspired by the music or the sounds from the film. The results capture a variety of elements and atmospheres. T Bone Burnett, for example, built the off-tune steam whistle of the camote (sweet potato) vendors and the shrill flute of the knife sharpeners offering their services on the city’s streets—captured vividly in the movie—into the rhythmic “Roma.” Laura Marling, on the other hand, created a choir-backed, lush and folksy cover of The Ray Conniff Singers’ “Those Were the Days,” one of the songs Fainchtein included in the film.

Since the film was announced at the end of 2016, Fainchtein and Cuarón have worked very closely to evoke the world of Roma. When asked what it was like to be tasked with the music for such an intensely personal project, Fainchtein said she relished the opportunity. “It was like a chance to put a soundtrack to my family’s story.” And despite having over 100 film and TV credits to her name—she is credited on all of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s films, including Birdman and The Revenant—Fainchtein described working on Roma as one of the most unique experiences of her career and likened the process of building out the movie’s world to the construction of a building. “Luckily,” she said, “I didn’t have to build the building; I only put in the lights on each of the rooms and the floors.”

Relive the movie with Roma (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) or hear the songs it inspired on the album Music Inspired by the Film Roma.

Nadia Dies. Nadia Lives. ‘Gotta Get Up’ Plays. Users Repeat.

February 21, 2019

Is Harry Nilsson’s “Gotta Get Up” looping in your head, as well as on your playlist? Let us guess: You’ve watched an episode of Netflix’s new series, Russian Doll. “Gotta Get Up”—which previously wasn’t even in the singer-songwriter’s top five most-streamed tracks on Spotify—saw an astounding 3,300 percent increase in streams in the U.S. from the previous Wednesday, after the first week of the hit show’s February 1 release.

The repeat worthiness of the song is, in fact, by design. Russian Doll opens as Nadia, a rough-edged software engineer played by Natasha Lyonne, is looking in the bathroom mirror. It’s the night of her thirty-sixth birthday, and her best friend Maxine has thrown a party in her hipster-chic NYC apartment. Partygoers bang on the door, and Nilsson’s upbeat piano chords begin playing. Then, the timely, appropriate—and, as it proves, ironic—lyrics start.

“Gotta get up, gotta get out, gotta get home before the morning comes…”

A few minutes into the show, Nadia leaves the party. Then, she’s hit by a car.

“Gotta get up, gotta get out, gotta get home before the morning comes…”

Once again, Nadia finds herself staring at her reflection on the night of her birthday party, guests knocking on the door. She trudges, confused with déjà vu, through the party—and winds up back outside. She then falls into the East River and drowns.

“Gotta get up, gotta get out, gotta get home before the morning comes…”

And so it goes in every episode: Death, bathroom, song, repeat. In some episodes, Nadia dies multiple times and, thus, the song plays several times. And it isn’t just that “Gotta Get Up” is played ad nauseam, it’s that it’s used well in terms of the plot—including a haunting instance late in the season in which the song is conspicuously absent.

But even with numerous plays throughout the eight-episode run, viewers still couldn’t get enough of Harry Nillson’s 1971 track. Nadia wasn’t the only one doing the same thing over and over: On Spotify, not only were users listening to “Gotta Get Up,” but they also repeated it on average four times per day throughout that first week of the show’s debut.

There is ample precedent, however, of the television medium’s power to push a song to new heights—though Russian Doll is unique in the song’s being essential to its plot. Another Netflix/Lyonne show, Orange is the New Black, generated huge spikes in plays of its theme song, Regina Spektor’s “You’ve Got Time,” which popped 492 percent in the U.S. from the previous Tuesday after the show debuted in 2013. Over the course of the 2017 season of Big Little Lies, Michael Kiwanuka’s “Cold Little Heart,” also the show’s theme song, increased 182 percent in the U.S. from the previous Sunday.

But it seems no show has done for a song what Russian Doll has for “Gotta Get Up.” It gave a mostly overlooked tune, dare we say, a new life.

Need a new song to stream after “Gotta Get Up?” Take a listen to some classic songs from Film and TV Favorites.