PULP MUSIC: Wes Anderson had Pulp's ex-frontman Jarvis Cocker pen 'Petey's Song' for 'Fantastic Mr. Fox.'
For years it was common for studios to cross-market a film with a well known performer, but today niche artists are landing more tracks in films and reaping the spoils, especially around award season.
Glancing at recent best song nominees, offbeat names like "Bird" York ("In the Deep" from "Crash"), A.R. Rahman ("Jai Ho" from "Slumdog Millionaire") and Marketa Irglova and Glen Hansard ("Falling Slowly") have slipped into the category, elbowing out bigger artists’ contributions and often winning.
Most studio music execs share the same agenda: Serve the film. Don't crowbar Bob Dylan into a soundtrack.
However, the studios' embrace of cult acts points to an abandonment of the hit single as movie-marketing tie-in. When it comes to profiting off a song, purism prevails.
"What looks like an agenda to program alternative music in film is more often a combination of dumb luck and reduced budgets," says Fox film music topper Robert Kraft. "Necessity is the mother of invention when you don't have $750,000 for a Velvet Revolver song."
Lofty costs for a major recording artist aren't worth the gamble for most producers, especially if the film flops. The reasoning is: Hit singles don't spur admissions; rather, the pic's emotional moments trigger music sales.
Case in point: "Juno." Jason Reitman used tunes by underground singer-songwriter Kimya Dawson and her Moldy Peaches band in pivotal scenes, resulting in "Juno" becoming one of 2008's top soundtracks with more than 1 million units sold.
Dealing with artists who aren't signed to a major label also spells more control. When a studio hires a Paul Simon or No Doubt, the music label owns the master in the end.
"I've lived through the era of paying $1 million for a song, now it's more like, 'Will you take $25,000?'" Kraft says. "If a genuine superstar flinches and wants more money, there's a line of singer-songwriters from Century City to Santa Monica who want to write music for motion pictures."
But songwriting at bargain-basement prices only accounts for part of the trend.
"There's a new wave of filmmakers who are from the indie music world," says Warner Bros. senior music veep Darren Higman, who oversaw the album for Spike Jonze's "Where the Wild Things Are."
"Wild Things" features songs by "Yeah Yeah Yeahs" frontwoman Karen O, whom Jonze hired for his Adidas commercial. With a hippie-folk bent backed by acoustic guitars, drums and piano, "Wild Things" marks a departure from O's garage-rock sensibilities while addressing the childlike nature of the film. Warner Bros. is pushing O's tracks "All Is Love" and "Hideaway" in the song category. (The film's trailer, which used a rerecorded version of alt rock fave Arcade Fire's "Wake Up" from the band's "Funeral" album, managed to generate major buzz on several social networking sites.)
Meanwhile Wes Anderson's adoration of Britpop U.K. group Pulp led him to tap its former frontman Jarvis Cocker to pen the hoedown ditty "Petey's Song" for "Fantastic Mr. Fox."
Musicphiles know these artists; now the multiplex crowd and the Acad's music branch, which has a recent history of lauding eclectic music, also are finding them.
"The Twilight Saga: New Moon," which already has sold a remarkable 390,000 units following the 2.3 million sales of the first "Twilight" album, highlights this success of indie crooners. Produced by Paul Katz and Chop House Music's Alexandra Patsavas, the "New Moon" compilation underscores pic's themes of love with somber acoustic vocals.
While the "Twilight" albums are anomalies in terms of tie-ins, Patsavas attributes their success to "author Stephenie Meyer's support of independent bands" on Twilight.com.
"The songs you push should be significant to the movie," says Sony worldwide music prexy Lia Vollack, who found tween fave Miranda Cosgrove to be the right match for the title song on "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs." "One shouldn't make an artist fit (on a soundtrack) only because they're a name. The music has to speak to the audience."
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