The Music+Sound Awards Talks: MASA Juror and BUTTER Music and Sound's Renée Massé
Originally from Canada, Renée Massé is a music industry veteran with a decade of experience as a producer and music supervisor. Before joining BUTTER as executive producer, she held a producer role at the boutique music and licensing company Shout It Out Loud Music. Massé was the driving force behind the production of Comedy Central’s 2018 sonic rebrand and has lent her expertise to projects for companies such as Google, WAYMO, Asics, and Olay.
After receiving her Master’s degree from NYU in Music Business, Renée oversaw the music department as music supervisor at the award-winning post-production studio, Headroom where she also launched a covers division and master library focusing on the production of covers for licensing opportunities recorded by talented, unsigned artists. She brings this passion for supporting emerging talent to original music and licensing opportunities in her role at BUTTER.
Renée, the floor is yours…
MASA> Could you walk us through your career path in music production? What experiences prepared you for your role at BUTTER?
Renée> As soon as I could talk, I was singing. Growing up with my parent’s music collection, including artists such as James Taylor, Buena Vista Social Club, Gypsy Kings, and Céline Dion (per any good French Canadian family), I immediately knew in my bones that music was my passion. Although I started out thinking I was going to be a pop star, following in the footsteps of my early idols, The Spice Girls, Christina Aguilera, and Britney Spears - and even grew up competing in Canada for annual musical theatre and classical vocal competitions - when it became time to apply for university, my parents (who are both accountants), encouraged me to get my degree in Business. This would help give me the groundwork to understand contracts, negotiations, and operations. I quickly discovered that I loved the organisation and structure a role in business could provide, but wanted to ensure that if I was sitting in an office all day, I was passionate about the content of the work I was doing. Music Business was the answer to my prayers. I packed my bags to New York, enrolling in NYU’s Masters in Music Business program.
Through my internships at NYU and some incredible female mentors along the way, I found myself graduating with a job at the award-winning audio post and original music studio Headroom. Although I originally had sights on LA with a life as a TV music supervisor, I found myself immersed in NY’s advertising scene, and quickly fell in love with the fast-paced nature, creativity, and strategic problem-solving required in producing the jobs. Not to mention the relationships I was able to make with up-and-coming artists and the thrill of being able to support and guide them in their early stages through the world of production and licensing.
After three years as the resident Music Supervisor, I joined the Shout It Out Loud team as a Producer and dove into more original composition, as well as representing a roster of awesome emerging talent. I also got my first taste at Sonic Branding, overseeing the production of Comedy Central’s new mnemonic, which won an AMP Award for best Sonic Logo.
After spending five+ years in the industry, I joined the amazing team at BUTTER, and within a year and a half of joining, moved into the executive producer role of the NY studio equipped with strong relationships with composers, vocalists, and musicians, as well as many years of project management, licensing agreement negotiation, and connections to label and publishers.
MASA> What sets BUTTER apart from the competition in the fast-paced and dynamic NYC market? How do you stay ahead of current trends and ensure you deliver cutting-edge music for brands?
Renée> Where many music companies rely primarily on freelance composers, we are lucky to differentiate ourselves by having eight in-house composers across our NY and LA studios who are extremely versatile across all genres while constantly bringing new ideas to the table, and collaborating amongst themselves. Since our composers are exclusive to Butter, our in-house crew allows us to offer talent that our clients are unable to get elsewhere. Everyone on our team is deeply passionate about music and pursues creative projects outside of work through various personal projects. This keeps everyone close to trends and fulfilled in their artistic contributions both inside and outside of the studio.
MASA> Can you share an example of a recent project you're particularly proud of, and explain the creative process behind it? Why does it work so well?
Renée> We had the pleasure of working with the non-profit organisation Fan Fairness Coalition (FFC) whose goal is to protect fans' rights to a fair ticketing experience. Ticketmaster and Live Nation currently own 70% of all live music venues - leaving fans with no alternatives despite Ticketmaster's poor service and overpriced tickets.
To break up the real monopoly, we created music by a fictional band called 'The Monopoly' to protest Ticketmaster and parent company Live Nation’s 70% control of the ticketing industry. The band embodied everything wrong about Ticketmaster: selfishness, arrogance, greed, and total disregard for the fans.
BUTTER faced the unique challenge to simultaneously create five original tracks spanning various genres (R&B/Soul, Rock, Pop, Electronic, Dance) that could all feel like they were composed and performed by The Monopoly, and needed to feel authentic in its production and performance despite their tongue-in-cheek lyrics.
The band had to sound authentic. However, given a compressed timeline of a little over a week to get everything created in advance of the shoot so that the band could lip-sync, we had to spread the compositions across multiple in-house composers to produce, record, and sing on each track, and therefore were juggling the challenge of revising multiple tracks at once across the different time zones.
The finalised music videos and mockumentary video went live globally on YouTube, with subsequent TikTok and Spotify ads to inspire passionate fans to reach out to Congress. By January 2024, over 75,000 letters from music enthusiasts had been forwarded through the Fan Fairness Coalition to Members of Congress in the United States. As of May 23rd, 2024, the government had finally had enough, and the Justice Department has officially filed an antitrust suit against Live Nation.
Being able to produce a campaign that has made such a direct impact, especially within an industry that I’m deeply passionate about, is incredibly special and rewarding – we were recently Short-Listed for Best Use of Original Music at Cannes Lions. Plus, those songs are still in heavy rotation in our heads!
And view more of the campaign HERE
MASA> Wow, that’s so great. What an achievement. Next question… balancing creative vision with client needs can be challenging. Can you describe a situation where you navigated this effectively?
Renée> Music is truly its own language and brings along with it so much subjectivity. It’s infused with such unique emotion that articulating it in words can be quite challenging. Our goal at BUTTER is to help debunk and demystify the language of music when communicating with our clients and we use all the tools at our disposal - adjectives, hand gestures, colours, emotions – whatever it takes!
Recently, when tasked with a very open brief for a sonic branding project, we took a deep dive into the brand, their target audience, their core attributes, brand values, and their place within the competitive landscape before even kicking off a call with the team. From there, in our initial creative meeting, we used our specialized set of questions to get to the heart of the brand, and help narrow in on what they are looking to convey in a two-three second audio logo.
Ultimately, it’s all about feelings, and once we determined how it should emotionally feel to viewers, we were able to translate those emotions to sounds and create a logo that will hopefully live on synonymously with the brand for years to come.
MASA> Well, that pretty much sums up why you and BUTTER are top of your game! What are the key qualities you believe are essential for success in your role?
Renée> I believe that having a background as a musician or performer in addition to having a business background is very beneficial in a music production role in order to help translate direction and feedback between composers and advertising clients.
In addition, the ability to be able to think quickly on your feet and a love to problem solve is essential for ensuring smooth projects.
Lastly, but arguably just as important, organization and attention to detail are critical, as we are constantly managing dozens of clients and projects at once.
MASA> With the rise of new technologies and platforms, how do you see the future of music production for advertising evolving?
Renée> There’s a lot of talk about AI and the effect it can have in this space. As creators and music makers, we do see some benefits of AI in helping facilitate certain parts of the production process. However, we are also very wary of maintaining the integrity of the creation process, and protecting creators--and the legal landmines that AI can present.
We hope that AI will aid in an all-around artistic resurgence in composition and performance and that humans will be relied on more for bespoke, truly artistic creations that push beyond what AI will make available to everyone. Hopefully, it supports more creativity coming from music creators and performers. Although we can anticipate AI will become more of a tool used than a threat, it’s something to watch closely.
MASA> And lastly, what were you looking for when judging? What makes a piece of work worthy of a Music+Sound Award?
Renée> Of course, production quality is always extremely important when judging. However, personally, the most important questions are: “Does the music support the story? Does it evoke emotion?” I do think that as storytellers, if we can leave the viewer feeling more emotionally connected to the brand after watching a piece of work in the advertising space, it has succeeded.
MASA> Renée, this has been amazing! Thank you for sharing your insights and for being on this year’s MASA panel - your knowledge, experience and passion have been invaluable. We look forward to following BUTTER'S future work.
Visit BUTTER’s site HERE
MASA 2024 Key Info:
NOW CLOSED FOR 2024 ENTRIES
FINALISTS ANNOUNCED: Sept 26th
WINNERS ANNOUNCED: Oct 10th
