Agency music producers can be called upon to do many things in the course of a workday. A morning could be spent looking for just the right classic rock hit or obscure pop song to make a spot click. Early afternoon might entail negotiating song rights with a music publisher. Later, going over horn charts with an arranger could be the task at hand.
Like the music house composers they often work with, agency music producers come from a wide variety of musical backgrounds, from rock to classical to funk. SHOOT spoke with four agency music producers about their jobs, the thorny topic of temp tracks, pre-scoring and other trends and issues in the world of commercial music.
Gregory Grene
A few years ago, Gregory Grene was often on the road—both as an actor and as a vocalist/button accordion player in an Irish rock band called the Prodigals. When he was at home, he worked as an assistant in the creative department of FCB, New York. In 1999, he became a music producer at the agency. He’s recently worked on spots for Cool Whip, Chips Ahoy! Cremewiches—including the spot "Bus," directed by Ken Lidster of Loose Moose, London—Qwest and the Jamaica Tourism Board, among others, all the while continuing to play with the Prodigals.
Describing his job, Grene says, "It’s something very akin, I think, to what an agency producer does—except my scope is specifically music, rather than a combination of picture and everything else that goes into making a commercial. The job includes everything from searching for potential titles for licensing to negotiating with labels to suggesting music houses for original music, and then seeing the process through." He adds, "I’m very hands-on. I like to be in the process to ensure that things go smoothly and everybody communicates."
Grene has been working more and more with the concept of pre-scoring—i.e. thinking about music before a spot gets to the edit phase. "It’s definitely something that works well in a bunch of different ways," he relates. "It [helps to] avoid potential legal problems, and it also works very well creatively because it opens the door to finding out what’s going to work and what’s not going to work. It stops people from placing emotional equity in tracks that may have nothing to do with what the actual spot is. There are some extraordinarily talented music houses out there, so it’s not as though you’re in a situation where people are devoid of ideas."
Grene says music producers can lighten an editor’s workload by providing a cutter with a track or idea, rather than asking an editor to find one on his own. "With all due respect to editors—they can have wonderful ideas, but they’re juggling a whole lot of balls at one time—I think it leaves everyone in a stronger position if you have somebody who is actually focused on the music rather than somebody who’s doing picture with one hand and music with the other," says Grene.
In addition to finding original music for spots, Grene works with the licensing of existing tracks, something that has become more prevalent in the ad world. He notes that one reason licensing music for commercials is such a trend these days is because there’s been a downturn in the music industry. Increasingly, record labels and their artists are recognizing the promotional value of having their songs used in a spot.
"The growth has been spurred as least as much by the labels as it has been by anybody else," Grene says. "Before, labels were in a sellers’ market where they could afford to charge what they wanted to charge. At this point, they do not have budgets for promotions anymore. We do have labels who are interested in [licensing music] in a way they’ve never been interested before [in an effort to gain exposure for their artists]."
Josh Rabinowitz
"Advertising has almost become the new radio," says Josh Rabinowitz, associate partner/ music producer at Young & Rubicam (Y&R), New York.
It’s no surprise that Rabinowitz, who worked on Sony’s "The Trip," directed by Joe Pytka of Venice, Calif.-based PYTKA, feels this way. The ad’s music blurs the difference between advertising and pop music. "The Trip," which broke in November and aired during the broadcast of Super Bowl XXXVII, employs a remake of "Carry On," a song originally performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Alternative singer Alana Davis performs the new version, which was arranged by Mary Wood and Clifford Lane of Crushing Music, New York. When the spot aired during the Super Bowl, a super at the end directed viewers to the Sony-owned Columbia Records Web site, where people could download a longer version of the song for 99 cents. "Carry On" was also released as a single, and listeners could purchase it in record stores.
Rabinowitz points out that record labels and brands are eager to hook up with each other. "[Commercials] are a great way to reach people, and I think a lot of artists are realizing that," he says. "They have become a very important outlet for music. [Conversely, advertisers] really want to attach themselves to some cool music. It really helps sell the brand."
Before entering the ad business, Rabinowitz supported himself as a musician. The veteran trombonist, who graduated from Tufts University, Boston, with a degree in music and political science, went on to play stages, streets and studios for many years before landing a job as a music producer at JSM, New York, in ’96. He eventually became an executive producer in the New York office of bicoastal tomandandy, and made the shift to the agency side of the business in ’98, becoming a music producer at Y&R. Rabinowitz continues to play in The Second Step, a funk band he’s been a member of for 15 years.
Rabinowitz says that his role at Y&R consists of supervising music and sound design for clients such as Sony, Dannon, Fisher-Price and Dr Pepper. For the latter, he recently produced three spots—"LL Cool J/Run DMC (featuring a tribute to Jam Master Jay, who was killed late last year), "Cyndi Lauper/ Anastacia" and "Paulino Rubio/Celia Cruz"—which are continuations of the soda’s "Be You" campaign featuring musicians saluting original artists. Paul Hunter of bicoastal HSI Productions directed the trio of spots.
Rabinowitz does more than oversee jobs. "Oftentimes I’ll get heavily involved [to the point] where I’m in the studio with the musicians, composers and arrangers," relates Rabinowitz, who served as producer for the "Carry On" single. "There are other times when I have relationships with specific composers where I can just say a few words and they know exactly what I think the clients and the people at the agency are looking for."
The role music plays in spots has changed dramatically, according to Rabinowitz. "The biggest trend is that music is taken so seriously now," he says. "It’s not just doing jingles and little ditties. I just produced a song for Columbia Records as an ad music guy. I think a lot more people are going to turn to the world of advertising because it’s becoming so significant."
Many of Rabinowitz’s musician peers who used to look askance at music in ads now accept the practice. "People I went to school with that play in the Philharmonic or that tour with bands or play jazz—they used to look down on it," he says. "Now they don’t."
Rani Vaz
Rani Vaz, senior VP/director of music and radio production at BBDO New York, has a background in classical music and recording engineering. Before joining the agency in ’89, she worked as an assistant engineer at Automated Recording Studios, New York, and freelanced as a violinist with the Joffrey Ballet and the Long Island Philharmonic. She currently plays in a string quartet, a piano trio and a rock group.
Vaz says her stint at Automated was great preparation for a career in advertising. "It was invaluable to have that experience because I met agency people from all over the city and from out of town," she says. "I met all of the musicians, singers, arrangers and composers. That was my first glimpse of how the business worked."
Vaz likes for her department—which includes three producers—to get involved in projects early on. "We like to bring music to the table as early as possible and not leave it to be an afterthought, which can happen since there’s so much stuff going on during the production process," she says. "Schedules are inevitably crazy, so sometimes music gets left to the end unless there’s someone to say, ‘Look, we need to talk about this now.’ " At BBDO, Vaz has supervised music for a number of high-profile campaigns, including General Electric (GE)’s latest spots, "Orville & Wilbur," "Hall of Records" and "Downtime." The ads introduce a new tagline, "Imagination At Work" for GE—the company’s first new one in 23 years. Music on the spots included an arrangement of the Johnny Cash song "Come Take A Trip In My Airship," with arranging duties handled by David Horowitz of David Horowitz Music Associates, New York.
Early involvement from the music department allows for pre-scoring, a practice that Vaz says "is incredibly important and is something we’re really trying to focus on. I’ve worked on some projects where what we pre-scored has been what we used in the final commercial, so it can really be a tremendous tool and keep us away from temp tracks."
Even if a pre-scored track is eventually abandoned, it can serve a useful purpose. "The creative process goes through so many twists and turns," relates Vaz. "Sometimes when you have an idea at the beginning, it may not actually work once the picture is shot and edited, but at least if we have a chance to start working on the music ahead of time, [it gives us a] basis for a dialogue about what the track is going to be."
Vaz says that when it comes to licensed music, her department "does not handle the licensing directly. We will look for music, but we have other sources that deal with the negotiations. We’re either here at the agency or we’re in the studio—and we’re in the studio a lot."
Karl Westman
"I love being in the studio," says Karl Westman, senior partner/executive music producer at Ogilvy & Mather (O&M), New York. "I love being involved in the making of the music, making sure that the productions are solid and artfully done, and coming up with ideas."
The veteran music producer—Westman has been involved with spot music for more than 20 years—is a classically trained vocalist with a degree from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia. After graduating, he worked as an engineer for five years at various New York recording studios. He went on to work at agencies, including McCann-Erickson, New York, and O&M, as well as at music houses like JSM and Crushing Music. Westman also spent some time freelancing. In fact, when he came aboard O&M in ’00, it was actually the third time he’d joined the agency.
"Three or four years ago, the opportunity arose to come back to Ogilvy," he notes. "I took the opportunity because this is my favorite agency to work for and with." Westman, in addition to working directly on projects, also supervises four other music producers at the agency. He’s worked on tracks for O&M clients such as AT&T Wireless, Motorola, Cotton Inc., and American Express. Last year, Westman produced the music for a package of spots for the latter, which included "Crazy Love," one of the ads that led to director Leslie Dektor’s nomination from the Directors Guild of America (DGA) for best commercial director. Other ads in the package included "Members," "Employees" and "Walden Press," also helmed by Dektor.
O&M has a strict policy regarding temp tracks. "We have an agency policy that doesn’t allow us to have temp tracks presented to the client unless there’s an intention to actually license them," Westman says. "If that’s the case, we obviously have to let the clients know what the costs are, so all the research has to be done in advance. If the client, for whatever reason, doesn’t want to license the track, we step away from that concept altogether. We do not try to emulate a temp track. It’s futile, and just not a good thing to do."
Westman has noticed that in music selection, the use of tracks from artists outside the mainstream has become more prevalent. "I think there’s a trend to use up-and-coming bands," relates Westman. "The more independent labels are coming to us and offering us their talent. It’s a wonderful way for them to get exposure."
As an example, Westman cites the music on American Express Blue’s "Lava," directed by Eric Barba of Digital Domain, Venice, Calif. Assistant music producer Stephanie Diaz-Matos suggested using "Drunken Whistler," an instrumental song by the indie pop band Luna, for the animated spot.
"[Using groups like Luna means] we get the real thing," says Westman. "We don’t mimic it. There’s an interesting way that the music translates because it did exist prior to the commercial. The synergy of that makes for what I think a lot of people are gravitating toward: music and spots coming together and being greater than the sum of the parts. It’s like a new language for us."
