Music+Sound Awards Winner Spotlight: Joseph Bell's Music on The Midnight Club's NUFC x Adidas Spot

2024’s Music+Sound Awards Best Re-Record or Adaptation in Online, Social + Digital Advertising was won by Joseph Bell at E.A.R Studios for his adaptation of Geordie Ridley’s poem, ‘The Blaydon Races’, on the ad celebrating the renewal of the iconic relationship between Newcastle United FC and Adidas. 

Joseph tells us all about it and we see how the music was crafted to evoke emotion, authenticity, and the spirit of the North East…

Joseph> The project began in January 2024 when the agency, The Midnight Club, approached us to write the score for the mood film, as part of their campaign pitch. We were to reimagine Geordie Ridley’s poem ‘The Blaydon Races’. This poem and regular chant on the terraces of St James' Park carried such weight. The film was going to have a raw and personal theme, so the music needed to reflect this, stay true to the original, and appeal to an audience of people most likely to imbibe this ad online. 

Placing the very much upbeat original into a minor key, slowing it down by 60 bpm, using a mixture of synths, sound design, heavy percussion, layers of voices (be that our neighbour, ourselves, our wives, whoever we could get in that week), and a beautiful but haunting female vocal performance, both solo and ensemble, we managed to match the powerful mood edit put together by the agency and contribute to them winning the campaign. 

Fast forward to Spring, and it was time to do it for real. The client didn’t want to move much from the mood score so this brief was all about enhancing something that was already more or less over the line. 

Firstly, real epic drums were recorded, layers and layers of them. The rushed synth work of the first film was replaced, and also enhanced by a more careful & thoughtful approach. Crucially we were able to replace all of the vocals: the chanted accompanying vocals were sung firstly by the flag waving crowd seen in the ad - again layers upon layers, and also by the Felling Male Voice Choir - a group of singers based up in that part of the world who also feature in the film and were genuinely magical to work with. They were also able to offer more layers to the more sensitive musical elements, as well as choral backing throughout. 

Finally a Geordie up-and-coming superstar called Heidi Curtis was bought in and she lifted the sound with her beautiful but commanding performance. These three groups of singers added a layer of authenticity - integral to a re-record of ‘The Blaydon Races’. 

Once all was in place and mixed this sounded better than we had imagined it would do back in January. Unexpectedly for an online ad release the score has generated a lot of interest. Of course this is down mostly to it being a rewrite of a brilliant piece of North Eastern heritage. But through the emotion, feel, and relationship to the film, the composition has played a part too.

Well done to all involved!