INTERVIEWS
Phoebe Bridgers and beabadoobee: Artist and Rookie of the Year in Conversation
Our Annual Report continues today with the announcement of Phoebe Bridgers as our Artist of the Year and beabadoobee as our Rookie of the Year. Stay tuned for more awards, lists, and articles about the best music, film, and TV of the year as 2020 winds down. If you’ve missed any part of our Annual Report, you can check out all the coverage here. There wasn’t a single person whose life wasn’t hit by the hard curve of 2020. Countless studies have been conducted and essays written about how this year impacted the music industry in particular, from delayed releases to canceled tours to financial distress. Artists planned, and the pandemic laughed. Yet, even in these darkest of times, there were those who found ways to not just keep the flame lit, but ignite a blaze. In an amazing testamen...
Stephanie LaFera, WME’s Head of Music, on Racial Injustice and Planning Concerts During a Pandemic [Q&A]
2020 will certainly go down in the annals of music history as not only one of the most difficult, but also among the most seminal. The music community—and the entertainment industry at large—have had to completely rethink their strategies in order to stay afloat. AEG, Live Nation, and a number of other music industry giants have struggled to remain in business. But deep within the roots of music, innovators like Stephanie LaFera, WME’s Head of Music, have used these unprecedented times to reshape the music industry. LaFera oversees a team of agents whose roster includes major dance music acts such as Calvin Harris, Kygo, Steve Aoki, TOKiMONSTA, Martin Garrix, Marshmello, Eric Prydz, Grimes, and many more. In the midst of the devastating COVID-19 pandemic, LaFera has succeedi...
blackbear Thrived This Year — and Probably Will Next Year
If you’re part of blackbear’s friends and family, you got a Balenciaga sweater for Christmas. “I’m like the Aunt Karen of the family,” bear — real name Matthew Musto — tells SPIN. “I get anxious because I’m like, ‘Who did I get a gift for? Who did I forget? Is so-and-so gonna fit in the sweater I got them?’” It’s a good holiday for the people in blackbear’s life. And it’s been a good year for him too, despite the obvious madness. “It’s my son’s first year on the planet,” he says. “[Midnight] has eight or nine teeth already, and they just keep growing,” he adds, laughing. “There’s never been a dull moment.” Lately, dull moments have been rare for the 30-year-old singer, songwriter and producer. With “hot girl bummer,” the lead single of his fifth studio album, everything means nothing, he h...
Paul Stanley Pledges to ‘KISS 2020 Goodbye’ With Explosive Sendoff
If music does indeed possess the healing powers so often ascribed to it, who better than four “masked” musical super-heroes to kick the dumpster fire that is 2020 to the curb? Slayer might be louder and meaner, U2 more spiritual, but for a feel-good rock ‘n’ roll all nite and party every day ethos that can help put the last 10 months in the rear-view, it’s KISS for the win. KISS guitarist/singer Paul Stanley promises that “if there’s a way we can kick 2020 in the ass with an eight-inch-heel to say goodbye to it, let’s do it!” Stanley is speaking from pre-Christmas band rehearsals in Los Angeles, conducted under “very strict COVID regulations.” The quartet is readying for a New Year’s Eve show that’s extravagant even by KISS standards. The global livestream concert is taking place at The Ro...
Pixar on How Personal Experiences Influenced Soul
Soul marks a series of firsts for Pixar. It’s the first film the studio has ever released with a Black protagonist, a music teacher voiced by Jamie Foxx; it’s the studio’s first film with a Black co-director in screenwriter Kemp Powers; and the first Pixar film to go straight to streaming. Due out on Christmas via Disney+, Soul follows Joe Gardner (Foxx), a music teacher whose aspirations of performing jazz come to fruition after he nabs a cushy performing gig with a well-respected group. That is, until he falls to his death. Now, left as a metaphysical soul, Joe endeavors to return to Earth to his body before it’s too late. It’s an imaginative journey that the Emeryville, California-based animation studio brings to life with a startling array of visuals that feel unprecedented. Edito...
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Maro Music on Producing Tracks for Cyberpunk 2077 [Q&A]
Cyberpunk 2077 is an action role-playing video game developed and published by CD Projekt. The story takes place in Night City, an open world set in the Cyberpunk universe. Players assume the first-person perspective of a customizable mercenary known as V, who can acquire skills in hacking and machinery with options for melee and ranged combat. Cyberpunk 2077 was developed using the REDengine 4 by a team of around 500, exceeding the number that worked on the studio’s previous game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015). CD Projekt launched a new division in Wrocław, Poland, and partnered with Digital Scapes, Nvidia, QLOC, and Jali Research to aid the production. Cyberpunk creator Mike Pondsmith was a consultant, and actor Keanu Reeves has a starring role. The original score was directed by ...
Showrunner of the Year Eric Kripke on The Boys: “We Should Always Be Punching Up”
Eric Kripke is anxious. It’s two days before Thanksgiving and the veteran showrunner is already hard at work on the third season of The Boys. He’s three episodes into scripting, things are moving, but something is gnawing at him from deep inside. “It’s become really fun and breezy to write again,” Kripke admits over Zoom. “That worries me. It’s feeling enjoyable. I should be in intense, deep introspection for this.” Kripke has every reason to be precarious. In less than a year, he’s given Amazon a critical and commercial smash, and they’re running with it. They gave the early green light for Season 3, and they’ve even commissioned a spinoff series. Opportunity is expanding right before Kripke’s eyes — and fast. Fortunately for him, Kripke thrives amidst this kind of aggressive expansion, s...
Andrew Watt on His Breakout Year, Producing Ozzy Osbourne and Miley Cyrus
Andrew Watt has learned to accept change. The Long Island-born, L.A.-based producer has had a monster year, even if his body yearns for its younger days. “I think my body just woke up and said you have to pee now!” Watt tells SPIN. “Before I turned 30, I’d work in the afternoon all through the night. Now, I’m up at 8:30 and laying down tracks by 10.” It’s certainly been a whirlwind year for Watt. At the top, he produced Ozzy Osbourne’s latest solo album, Ordinary Man, which featured a wide array of guests (like Watt’s pal Post Malone, Elton John, Slash and Tom Morello), along with a band that included Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith and Guns N’ Roses’ Duff McKagan. Andrew Watt at the 2019 American Music Awards playing with Ozzy Osbourne CREDIT: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for dcp...
Anya Taylor-Joy on What’s She’s Streaming, Breaking Netflix, and Why She Loves Weirder Characters
Our Annual Report continues today with the announcement of Anya Taylor-Joy as our TV Performance of the Year. Stay tuned for more awards, lists, and articles in the days and weeks to come about the best music, film, and TV of the year. If you’ve missed any part of our Annual Report, you can check out all the coverage here. Chess and Anya Taylor-Joy have had quite the year, thanks to The Queen’s Gambit. One month after its October 23rd debut on Netflix, Scott Frank and Allan Scott’s adaptation of Walter Tevis’ 1983 novel became the most-watched scripted miniseries in Netflix history. Not surprisingly, interest in chess skyrocketed with “How to play chess” peaking in Google searches and chess boards being wrapped everywhere throughout this holiday season. At the center of it all, ...
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VIVID on His New Single “Fade Away,” Working With Morgan Page, and More [Q&A]
We love a good full circle moment in a producer’s career, and that is exactly what VIVID has experienced after releasing his second collaboration with the fabled progressive house producer Morgan Page. The track is called “Fade Away,” and it’s the ultimate feel-good single that will help you remember the simpler times in life. It’s the perfect follow-up to the duo’s 2019 Armada Music smash “Fire & Gold.” “Fade Away” combines the high-energy style fans have come to know and love from VIVID and the melodic production that is signature of Page. The emotive vocal performance paired alongside the kinetic drop makes for a well-balanced single. If festivals were still thriving, this track would for sure be making its rounds...
Brody Dalle on the Distillers’ Return, New Music and ‘Baby It’s COVID Outside’
The Distillers may very well be one of the most important punk bands from the first half of the 2000s. In four years, they released three albums (each more successful than the last), captured a unique sound that molded classic, straightforward punk rock with the attitude and emotion of the decade, and turned frontwoman Brody Dalle into one of the era’s most identifiable vocalists. As part of a heavily male-dominated scene, Dalle and her bandmates showed millions of then-teenaged millennials that ladies too could pierce their lips, spike their hair, and rock just as hard as men without needing the mainstream commercial appeal of a No Doubt or Garbage. Then the band pretty much immediately fell apart and before breaking up in 2006. Dalle went on to form Spinnerette with guitarist Tony “Bradl...
Matt Cameron’s New Project Aims to Make Up for a Lost Year
Matt Cameron expected to be on the road with Pearl Jam for most of 2020. In March, the band released Gigaton, their first new album in seven years, and they planned several U.S. legs and a European run that would have kept them busy for the rest of the year. Those plans, obviously, changed. But instead of retreating after Pearl Jam’s short-circuited year, Cameron went back to work on his own material. First, he got cracking on his second solo album; then he dusted off another project that had been in the works for a few years. While recording Gigaton, Cameron had bounced a few loose ideas off of his pals, including Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins and the Melvins’ Buzz Osborne and Steven McDonald. When Hawkins threw some vocals on a few cuts and made some other suggestion...
