What lessons have you learned from 2021 that you will apply to 2022 and/or what processes and practices necessitated by the pandemic will continue even when the pandemic is (hopefully) over? (Remote work, use of Zoom enabling more people to be involved in the creative approval process, etc.)
I was in the rare position of working remotely pre-pandemic, so ironically these days I get to see colleagues a lot more! I wouldn’t say I’ve learned new lessons as much as I’ve had old beliefs confirmed: IRL is better, make sure your work is rooted in compassion, and close your computer on the weekend.
How do new technologies, markets and platforms figure in your creative/business plans in 2022? For example, with NFTs gaining momentum, do you foresee related sound and music work resulting? Same for VR/AR? Will increased content spurred on by the emergence of additional streaming platforms open up music and sound opportunities for you? Any growth prospects in the advertising and/or entertainment industry?
I dunno, are musicians making more money? To me, that’s the only important part. It seems nine out of ten times I hear about a new market or platform, it winds up being another way to further separate artists from their IP. Decades of big tech’s extractionist business models has decimated musicians’ ability to make a living off their art and it’s like the polar ice caps – we don’t get that back. We need to realize that music is an ecosystem. You can’t continue to strip music for profit and expect it to be there for future generations. Music comes from people, and people need to get paid. If they can’t get paid, they can’t devote their lives to music. If they can’t do that, the world gets less musicians and worse music.
How has your role–or that of your business or company–evolved in recent years? What do you like most about that evolution? What do you like least?
I wouldn’t say my role has evolved so much as I’ve evolved in it. I’m more comfortable with the ambiguities that come with it. What kind of music do we want? and How do we get it? are huge, eternal questions. When I started out I thought I was supposed to have all the answers, but now I see my role as helping people feel comfortable spending time in that uncertain space.
What was the biggest creative challenge posed to you by a recent project? Tell us about that project, why the challenge was particularly noteworthy or gratifying to overcome, or what valuable lesson you learned from it.
This year our Lexus client offered us the opportunity to go big with a music-centered campaign, and our creatives really stepped up with an ambitious concept. We’d never done anything like it before, so naturally, there were challenges on every level. It required not only me, but our whole team to operate out of our comfort zone. Through this opportunity, I learned that I work with some extremely hard-working, creative, and devoted people with a good sense of humor. Their work inspired me to do better.
What recent work are you most proud of and why? Or what recent work (advertising or entertainment)–your own or that of others–has struck a responsive chord with you?
I loved Mark Ronson’s Apple Plus series "Watch The Sound." Similar to Wired’s “5 Levels” series, it did an amazing job of being both sophisticated and simple. I would say it demystified music-making, but there’s still so much fabulous mystery. If anything it made the mystery accessible and relatable.
A growing number of superstar artists and songwriters have been selling their music rights/catalogs in megabuck deals. What will be the ripple effect of this on music creatively and from a business standpoint relative to the advertising, film, TV and streaming platform markets?
You can’t buy a cool thing without destroying it. What you should do instead is become a part of it, which is probably what you wanted in the first place. I’ve watched it happen with every neighborhood I’ve lived in – people think they can buy their way in, and before long the very character that made it attractive becomes a detail which is eventually discarded. Treating someone’s life’s work like an asset will eventually leach away everything that made it powerful in the first place. Decisions become about money and not about music. If you become a part of it though, you make very different decisions. It’s a life-changing mission and means being entrusted with a huge cultural responsibility. I don’t think that’s a kind of responsibility that corporations and holding companies are set up to manage responsibly.
