Tag: russian doll

Looking Back on a Year of For the Record

April 2, 2019

This month, For the Record turns one year old. We couldn’t have gotten to this milestone without support from you, our readers. To mark the occasion, we’re taking a look back at some of our favorite stories—and some of yours.

Take a walk down memory lane or check out a piece you might have missed.

Rosalía’s Flamenco-Inspired Sound Is Rooted in Tradition, but Fearlessly New

Rosalía, a twenty-five-year-old Barcelona native, is combining traditional flamenco and modern beats to make a sound all her own. We sat down with the artist on the heels of her “De Mi Nombre” single drop. Since then, she’s released her second, wildly acclaimed album, El Mal Querer, and her star is only getting brighter.

EQL Resident Roundtable: Meet the Women Behind the Mixers

The EQL Residency was created to help aspiring female and non-binary engineers gain the experience and mentorship needed to take their careers to the next level. We went behind the mic—and the mixer—with the first three members of our EQL Residency to learn a little about their work. Stay tuned for applications for our next cohort.

The Top Songs, Artists, Playlists, and Podcasts of 2018

Our readers tuned in en masse to take a look at the world’s top artists, genres, songs, and playlists for 2018. Be sure to check out some surprising stats—like which age group is the most chill—and some classics, like the year’s top throwback songs. And don’t worry: December 2019, in all its Wrapped glory, will be here before you know it.

Audio First by Daniel Ek

In February our CEO, Daniel Ek, shared our goal of becoming the world’s number-one audio platform and the addition of podcasting companies Anchor and Gimlet. On the heels of those acquisitions, we announced that Spotify also acquired Parcast.

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

We noticed that the late Harry Nilsson’s “Gotta Get Up” was playing in (almost) every episode of Netflix’s Russian Doll. It turns out that fans were also streaming the song on repeat. Check out the soundtrack, or, namely, the “theme song” to see if you think it’s as catchy too.

4 Questions (and Answers) with Amarjit Batra, Managing Director, Spotify India

India is the most recent addition to the seventy-nine markets that can now enjoy Spotify, following our thirteen new market launches in the Middle East and South Africa. Opening in this region helps us bring the music of artists around the globe to over a billion people and exposes Indian artists from multiple genres to the rest of the world.

And there’s plenty more where that came from. Here’s to another year of discovery!

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.