In 2021, production came back in full swing for music supervisors, who delivered a wealth of tunes to the worlds of TV and film. Further expanding the reach of these soundtracks, day-and-date releases in theaters and streaming services meant some songs experienced double the consumption.
What qualities made the ideal synch last year? A gamut of tunes bounced around genres and included many classics of decades past, updated covers and offerings by new artists, as nominees for the Guild of Music Supervisors Awards, scheduled for March 20, demonstrate. Variety assessed today’s top talents in the field, including several GMS contenders. Keep your eyes and ears out for these names.
-
Tiffany Anders
Image Credit: Courtesy of Tiffany Anders “Reservation Dogs,” “Pen15,” “The Chair,” “Firefly Lane”
Anders credits years of working in record stores for schooling her on a wide swath of music across all genres — a key qualification for a music supervisor. From the raw momentum of the Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog” in the first episode of FX’s “Reservation Dogs” to obscure Japanese tunes from the ’60s in the “Yuki” episode of Hulu’s “Pen15,” Anders confesses that she sometimes finds herself getting lost in the process of combing for music.
“Being a fan of a specific type of music doesn’t really work for this job,” she says. “You have to be able to bounce all genres of music out as ideas, and really know the specific taste and sound of the show, which can be many different things.”
-
Matt Biffa
Image Credit: Mark Von Holden/Invision/AP “Sex Education,” “Hacks”
Guild of Music Supervisors Awards nominee
The final sound of the third season of “Sex Educa- tion,” Big Star’s “The Ballad of El Goodo,” hit the mark for Biffa. The song accompanies a major change for the main character Maeve, and serves as a recap for the entire season. Biffa, who won the music super- vision Emmy in 2021 for “I May Destroy You,” is nom- inated for two GMS Awards for his work on “Sex Education,” music supervision — television comedy or musical, and song written and/or recorded for television for “Fuck the Pain Away.” Says Biffa of the song: “Our composer Oli Julian’s key change made me involuntarily punch the air when I first heard it. Then it stayed in my brain for days so I knew we were on to something.”
As for HBO’s “Hacks” Biffa says it offered the ideal situation for a music supe: “You could make an off- the-cuff suggestion and they would go with it — which never happens. I’m used to agonizing for months over tiny nuances of multiple songs. It was refreshing.”
-
Jason Alexander and Justin T. Feldman
Image Credit: Courtesy of Jason Alexander/Justin Feldman “Dave,” “Countdown,” “Bitchin’: The Sound and Fury of Rick James,” “Hip Hop Uncovered”
Guild of Music Supervisors Awards nominees
After falling in love with music supervision while watching “Entourage” in college, Feldman landed an internship with industry vet Alexander — who suped “Entourage,” “CSI,” “Silicon Valley” and more — at his company, Hit the Ground Running. More than five years later, the two have worked on a slew of projects together, including FX hit “Dave,” which just earned them a nomination for music supervision in a TV comedy. Besides “every music moment” on “Dave,” Alexander is most proud of placing Rick James’ “Mary Jane” as the opening song in the Showtime documentary, while Feldman’s highlight was coordinating “Dave’s” many live performances.
“Whether [it’s] digging for lesser-known gems or clearing a song that was thought to be unlicensable, bringing our collaborators’ visions to life and seeing the positive reactions from the audience is unmatched,” Feldman says.
-
Stephanie Diaz-Matos
Image Credit: Courtesy of Stephanie Diaz-Matos “And Just Like That…,” “Queens,” “Sweet Life: Los Angeles,”
Guild of Music Supervisors Awards nominee
Diaz-Matos’ responsibilities as head of music supervision and library at Issa Rae’s Raedio are keeping her busy, and helped her garner a GMS Award nomination for music supervision — reality television for “Sweet Life: Los Angeles.” Elsewhere on her resume, Diaz-Matos’ spot-on picks for HBO Max’s “And Just Like That…” included Jungle’s “Keep Movin’” and the Paradise’s “In Love With You,” the latter’s uplifting French house amplifying the message of love after loss. Diaz-Matos also namechecks Jazmine Sullivan’s reimagining of the iconic theme song for HBO Max’s “Eyes on the Prize: Hallowed Ground” and Hailey Kilgore’s cover of Whitney Houston’s “I Have Nothing” on Starz’s “Power Book III: Raising Kanan” as highlights of 2021.
Says Diaz-Matos of her team at Raedio: “Everyone is working on such incredible projects. I am excited for the world to see what we have been up to.”
-
Aamina Gant
Image Credit: Courtesy of Aamina Gant “Naomi,” “Queen Sugar,” “Colin in Black & White,” “Black Monday,” “Genius: Aretha”
After working in management, booking, publishing and at a label, Gant transitioned into music super- vision in 2013 as a coordinator on Fox’s “Star” with Queen Latifah. It’s been full speed ahead ever since, and Gant’s 2021 was particularly fruitful with “Genius: Aretha,” “Black Monday,” “Queen Sugar” and “Naomi.” But the highlight of the year was placing a song from her late father’s group, the Invisible Man’s Band, into an episode of Ava DuVernay’s “Colin in Black & White.” “I didn’t present it as by [my] dad and his band, I just pitched as normal,” Gant says. “Ava knew the song and started singing along. I almost cried.”
Next, she’ll be working on Chris Redd’s “Bust Down” and the Latifah-led Netflix film “End of the Road.”
-
Matthew Hearon-Smith
Image Credit: Courtesy of Ashley Hearon-Smith “Red Rocket,” “Electric Easy”
Guild of Music Supervisors Awards nominee
The members of *NSYNC must have been tickled to hear their song “Bye Bye Bye” over and over again in Sean Baker’s “Red Rocket.” Hearon-Smith went into creative overdrive featuring the hit in the main title, as a climactic background vocal, an on-screen cover performance and with a zany backward use in the final scenes. Hearon-Smith, who is nomi- nated for a GMS Award for music supervision for film budgeted under $5 million for “Red Rocket,” brings his out-of-the-box approach to a variety of projects, including original music with Kesha and Chloe Bailey for the podcast “Electric Easy.” Says Hearon-Smith of becoming a music supervisor: “It takes longer than you think. The struggle to make contacts, get credits — let alone getting paid an appropriate rate, is very real when you start. But every project is a step forward and every stressful scenario is a learning opportunity.”
-
Rob Lowry
Image Credit: Courtesy of Philip Cosores “Gossip Girl,” “Love Life,” “Archive 81,” “Cha Cha Real Smooth”
Guild of Music Supervisors Awards nominee
For Lowry, the most rewarding part of music super- vision is discovery. “A synch can be life-changing for a lot of artists,” says Lowry, who is GMS nominated for music supervision for film budgeted under $10 mil- lion for “The Ultimate Playlist of Noise.” “But it helps them pay their bills or go on tour or record their new record.” His favorite project this year has been HBO’s “Gossip Girl” revival, in which he and coordinators Emily Bender and Mia Riggins placed songs from the likes of Frank Ocean and Ariana Grande.
Most recently, Lowry soundtracked Sundance darling “Cha Cha Real Smooth” from Cooper Raiff. It sold to Apple for $15 million. His secret to success in a competitive field? “You have to be adaptable, you have to love researching and there’s no room for ego.”
-
Christa Miller and Tony Von Pervieux
Image Credit: Courtesy of Christa Miller/Tony Von Pervieux “Ted Lasso”
The music supervision duo behind Apple’s hit series “Ted Lasso” met when Von Pervieux was ABC Studios’ creative director of TV music and Miller was supervising — and acting — on “Scrubs.” Once Miller’s husband, Bill Lawrence, co-created “Ted Lasso,” there was no question as to who would oversee the show’s music. It’s resulted in some powerful placements, including songs by the Sex Pistols, Lizzo, Blur and the Rolling Stones. But topping Von Pervieux’s list is Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” in the Season 2 finale, that Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) sings at her father’s funeral. “Rick Astley told me after seeing [it] that he had never seen the song used like this before, which was such a compliment,” Von Pervieux says. Miller is proudest of placing Australian songwriter RY X’s “Only,” helping to popularize the track. “The right placement can really change an artist’s life and having a part in that trajectory is thrilling,” Miller says. Next, the two will take on Jason Segel’s series “Shrinking,” which Miller also acts in.
-
Chris Mollere
Image Credit: Courtesy of Chris Mollere “Stargirl,” “Legacies,” “Roswell, New Mexico”
Mollere likes to make big statements with his music placements. To wit: using Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” on the CW’s “Stargirl,” whose impact only gets stronger when the song cuts out at a pivotal moment in the second episode of Sea- son 2. Similarly, Unsecret & Møønwater’s “Only the Beginning” amplifies the cliffhanger in episode four, Season 3 of “Roswell, New Mexico,” also on the CW. Mollere moves in tandem with today’s storytelling, placing songs in a variety of musical styles to fit the narratives that are becoming more representative of the real world.
“Music is so powerful when it’s featured correctly,” he says. “[But] it also has the power to make a scene or a story worse if it isn’t utilized correctly.”
-
Brienne Rose
Image Credit: Courtesy of Brienne Rose “Never Have I Ever,” “Russian Doll,” “Search Party,” “Emily in Paris,” “Sex Lives of College Girls”
With love being a central theme of the shows she works on, it’s only fitting that Rose views music supervision as finding a scene’s “musical soulmate.” Her placement of Glass Animals’ “Heat Waves” in Season 2 of “Never Have I Ever” is a prime example. “The song had a major resurgence in the Billboard charts after that use, and it was the perfect song for a very intense make-out scene,” Rose says. Her next projects will require some crate-digging, with HBO’s “Minx” taking place in the ’70s and Tegan and Sara’s “High School” TV adaptation throwing it back to the ’90s. “[I’ll] probably start wearing a lot more flannel shirts and carrying a Discman around town,” Rose cracks of “High School.” “Is that considered method music supervising? If so, I’m in.”