Thinking In Sound: Keeping Things Interesting with Good Ear Music Supervision

Since its start in 2011, GEMS has provided music supervision to hundreds of ad campaigns for many of the worlds beloved brands. They include Apple, Nike, Google, Target, Southern Comfort, Spotify, Sonos, adidas, Cosmopolitan Hotel, Honda, Samsung, ESPN and many more.

The company takes a unique approach to digging deep to discover songs that a both truly special and universally appealing. Music made by artists from the heart, matched perfectly to each project. With quick deliveries and flexible budgets, GEMS can find an exciting artists to perform on camera, the perfect song for a music driven spot or a fitting instrumental track to set the mood.  

LBB> When you’re working on a new brief or project, what’s your typical starting point? How do you break it down and how do you like to generate your ideas or response?

Morgan Thoryk> I start with the emotional perspectives of a scene. What story are we telling and what are the unexpected ways to tell it? I talk through the director and creative briefs then embark on a journey of the mind/iTunes. We research and have a meticulous tagging system of course, but finding the most inspired take comes down to synapses firing. 

Danielle Toporoff> A typical starting point would assume we have typical projects! No two spots are the same, no two production teams and certainly no two budgets - so it’s always a bespoke approach. It keeps things interesting! The best approach to a short film that's still being storyboarded is different from a campaign of :15s that were supposed to ship yesterday. It's important to be solution-oriented, but you also want to be creatively inspired - so I just start with open ears and a strong cup of coffee.

LBB> Music and sound are in some ways the most collaborative and interactive forms of creativity - what are your thoughts on this? Do you prefer to work solo or with a gang - and what are some of your most memorable professional collaborations?

Andrew Kahn> While conferences, concerts, and label listening sessions are fun and all… the crux of a music supervisor’s job is done alone. It’s the late night hours, no distractions, just you and your playlists and a rough cut of the scene at hand. Maybe a sweet smelling candle and something to sip on too. That’s when the best work gets done. 

Morgan> I’m also a playlist night owl, but there’s a special magic in collaboration for me. I LOVE hearing how other supes interpret the same brief and I love being on a team. A lot. Music is personal! And I’m always inspired by the way we come to different answers to the same question. Everyone on our team is such a wonderful weirdo and I want to hear every song in their brain. 

LBB> What’s the most satisfying part of your job and why? 

Erik Sutch> Paying artists for their music is an unmatched joy! Especially since the music industry has been unfair to so many folks - it feels great to bring an offer to an artist for a special song. In this world of streaming even small budgets can make a big impact for an artist or their heirs.  

We do a lot of crate digging so we end up having to track older music industry people down and it’s fun to hear their stories and show them we really value the songs they made.  In Will Hermes's new book on Lou Reed there's a section where Lou is talking to a group of people from the ad industry, and he says "In a world of downloading, the only people who will pay you for what you do is you guys. Ad people play fair with you." We try! 

Danielle> When you're as passionate about music as we are and your job is to listen to music everyday, I mean, that's pretty satisfying. I know everyone at GEMS has a bucket list of songs we're just waiting for the perfect opportunity to synch, artists we overly stan, upcoming albums we're too impatient to wait for.. we're all music nerds at heart and we have (relatively) unlimited access to the thing we're most nerdy about. Colour me satisfied. 

LBB> As the advertising industry changes, how do you think the role of music and sound is changing with it?

Morgan> The whole role of media has shifted, imo. The accessibility of music/movies/shows/skits/obscura via streaming has obliterated the boundaries between mediums, genres, subcultures. And it means that advertising should take bigger risks, make bolder choices, license the yet-unheard-of artist with the unique song or use a cross-genre hit that makes you nervous. Be bold, y’all! 

Daciay Quenah> Most of us (ok…me) are 'watching' TV while paying attention to our smaller screens, making music and sound the smartest way to pull your audience into the ad playing out on our bigger screens. Only the best songs break through the noise, leveraging earworms that grab consumer attention even for a split second could be a game changer and solidify a taste making association for your brand. 

LBB> Who are your musical or audio heroes and why? And when it comes to your particular field, are there any particular ideas or pioneers that you go back to frequently or who really influence your thinking about the work you do? 

Andrew> David Byrne’s book 'How Music Works' helped me fully grasp how important context is when it comes to music (and life); not just in listening or selecting, but also in its creation. Finding a fitting song for different scenes/contexts is at the heart of our job - we’re naturally drawn to a certain kind of music when we’re in a mellow meadow vs at a late night party… but Byrne made me realise the scene helps shape the sound too. Symphonies were created to be heard in large concert halls; punk was born in and moulded by the dingy, low-ceilinged clubs in NYC and London; rap was shaped first by mobile systems in neighbourhood parks, then by oversized speakers and big bass tubes in cars; and so on. This same idea applies to other forms of art, food, and design too, even social situations, international relations, and beyond… but that’s a conversation for a different context. 

Erik> This is an endless and forever growing list, but one name that is coming to me right now is the German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Often he'd play out a song in its entirety to reflect the mood or to bring us further into a space. His uses of Roxy Music's 'A Song For Europe' from In a Year of 13 Moons, and Kraftwerk's 'Radioactivity' in first Chinese Roulette, and later Berlin Alexanderplatz come to me all the time while I'm working. They're the gold standard for how music can complement and elevate your work. Just total emotional resonance.

Some recent music in movies that I've really fallen in love with are Eiko Ishibashi's score for Evil Does Not Exist, and AraabMuzik's score for Aggro Dr1ft. I like directors like Hong Sang-soo who have taken composition into their own hands, and now in his sixties has just recently started scoring his own films. 

LBB> When you’re working on something that isn’t directly music (lets say going through client briefs or answering emails) - are you the sort of person who needs music and noise in the background or is that completely distracting to you? What are your thoughts on ‘background’ sound and music as you work?

Maggie Nadeau> Never! I am a very active listener, so if I'm paying attention to something else like emails, contracts, or reading through briefs I can't have any distractions. I sometimes wish I was better at passive listening, but I prefer to really pay attention to the music I'm consuming. 

I think constant background noise is an epidemic... we need to learn to appreciate silence again! Constantly having something playing in the background doesn't leave room for new thoughts or ideas to come in and I think it can be very productive to leave room for silence. 

Andie Van House> It depends! On slower days, if I'm not working on pulls or edits, I typically just turn on my most recent playlist (usually a mix of house, indie rock, and some electro-pop.) When it's really busy, I'll listen to full-on EDM to feel like I'm on a mission in a movie; it’s very chaotic 😎

LBB> On a typical day, what does your ‘listening diet’ look like?

Maggie> I get a lot of my personal listening done at the gym. I don't have a typical 'gym playlist' and instead prefer to do my deep dive listening there. This past year I've gone through Arca, Stevie Wonder, La Factoria, and Roberta Flack's entire discographies there. It's the most time I give myself to disconnect everyday, so I like to pair it with studying the artists that I'm really excited about.  

During work hours if I'm not listening for a brief, I'm listening to new stuff for our library. I keep up with blogs, playlists, and beyond. My favorites are the crate digger blogs. Oldies hit different!  After work is strictly no music hours for me (my ears need a break), so I'm listening to talk radio LAist 89.3 <3.

Andie> There is no typical day of listening to music for me. One day I'm hyper-fixated on an Olivia Rodrigo song that just released, listening to it 45 times on repeat. On other days I switch around from hits of the 2000s to Fred Again to Technotronic. So... really all over the place

Morgan> I get really locked into single songs and will listen to them ad nauseum. My favourite days are when I’ve got to research genres I’m not super familiar with, then I’ll end up playing country music and Japanese punk for my toddler till he demands “a monster truck story”.  I recently wrote the Bluey composer out of pure admiration.  

LBB> Do you have a collection of music/sounds and what shape does it take (are you a vinyl nerd, do you have hard drives full of random bird sounds, are you a hyper-organised spotify-er…)?

Maggie> I love cassettes! Andrew turned me onto getting a cassette player and I've never looked back. First of all, they're very cheap which allows me to buy and listen to a lot of music I've never heard before. I also love the tinny, distorted sound that comes out of my plastic cassette player as it feels very separate from the listening I do for work. Right now my current tape deck rotations are Vincius et Toquinho, Cabaret (the original motion picture soundtrack, duh), Linda Rondstadt's Heart Like A Wheel, George Shearing's The Shearing Spell, my dad's 1984 high school reunion tape (a real relic!), and a custom tape I made myself for my birthday.

Andie> Streaming (are we supposed to hate streaming?) was a huge game changer for someone like me, who spent all of middle school burning monthly CDs for all of my friends. I now have many, many, meticulously curated playlists for different moods, events, weather, cities, times of day, you name it. Everyone says you need to be prepared for anything in life... and the only thing I'm prepared for is an impromptu aux take-over. 

LBB> Outside of the music and sound world, what sort of art or topics really excite you and do you ever relate that back to music (e.g. history buffs who love music that can help you travel through time, gamers who love interactive sound design… I mean it really could be anything!!)

Erik> I think it's important to keep an interest in all artistic mediums, since they all overlap with one another. And because they're all still interesting and worthwhile ways for people to express themselves. I also think what you're able to say with each artform is unique, and what you get from a three-minute pop song won't be the same as what you take away from a three-hour movie. 

Art is the greatest look into figuring out who we are and how we want to spend our lives, and a good video game / book / movie that explores these themes will have something new to say that a different medium might not be able to tackle. Music is such a big part of telling these stories across so many artforms though, so I take joy in being involved on that side from the work front. I love making movies, and think being involved from the creative side rather than just as an audience helps in my work life as well.

Daciay> Food is the ultimate art form to me. So much is communicated culturally and emotionally through it and the perfect dish will have me in my feels. Music shapes the ambiance in which we chow down but it also impacts HOW we consume food - tempo affects how we chew, sound has been shown to have an impact on how good we perceive a meal to be and how much we end up devouring. Food and music create such strong associations for us (whether positive or negative) and being thoughtful about how they play together unlocks a whole new level of artistic expression.

On a recent trip to Berlin I stumbled upon a West African themed dinner at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. The food was incredible and the entire night was soundtracked by a single kora player creating the perfect tranquil atmosphere. While I would’ve enjoyed the food without the music, it reinforced the magic that’s created when food and music are paired well. 

LBB> Let’s talk travel! It’s often cited as one of the most creatively inspiring things you can do - I’d love to know what are the most exciting or inspiring experiences you’ve had when it comes to sound and music on your travels?

Maggie> I went to South America this summer! Latin music is unbeatable and the different ways in which it brings everyone together down there was really special to see. Salsa bars, strangers meeting in the park to dance together with a boombox, the live music around every corner! It was so inspiring.

I also made a point to bring a portable radio so I could discover different music in the cities I was visiting. It was so fun to check out all the stations (El Sol in Colombia was a fav), but it was really interesting to hear all the English music that they play as well. I discovered so much new hip hop, disco funk, reggae, yacht rock, etc that I've never even heard in the states. I'm always being humbled by how much music I don't know yet! 

Erik> The month I joined GEMS I had already booked a trip to London to see Kate Bush, and nearly ten years later that performance still stands out as one of the most creatively inspiring works I've ever seen. As I write this I am a day away from leaving for another Euro trip to see PJ Harvey, Brian Eno, and Autechre in Warsaw, Paris, and Dublin respectively. As it relates to our work, I think it's a matter of just staying passionate about exploring new music, and keeping curious to constantly be pitching music from all over. Luckily I work alongside six other people who are all equally excited about art, and so generous with how they share their discoveries.

Daciay> My family is Liberian but I was born in the States and finally had a chance to visit in my early 20s. I remember being surrounded by so much music during our time there. From traditional drumming during a ground breaking ceremony for a new school, to the latest afrobeat's in the clurb, to hits from the US, the blurring of these styles guided my entire trip. It was really dope to see the crossover between the new and updated interpretations of the old that work beautifully together. Very representative of the multitudes we all contain.

And of course I have to shout out my many trips to New Orleans, a city with music in every fibre of its being. The birthplace of jazz is one of the most musically inspirational places I’ve been able to visit. I remember the first time I witnessed the power of a second-line….it was as a funeral procession passing by. Experiencing the brass fuelled, high energy celebration of a life well lived left me in awe and inspired by music’s ability to provide meaning to every situation.

LBB> As we age, our ears change physically and our tastes evolve too, and life changes mean we don’t get to engage in our passions in the same intensity as in our youth - how has your relationship with music changed over the years?

Andie> Physically, I have tinnitus. (Wear your earplugs, kids!) Emotionally - I know some of you will be kicking me via-internet for being 25 and saying 'in my youth' but - in my youth (mid teens) I discovered that going to concerts made me the happiest I'd ever been. The pure emotion and connection you feel when a song resonates with you at that age is truly indescribable and personally, almost unreachable now that I’m in my mid twenties. Now as an adult, I spend way more time going to shows than blasting streams in my parents house. 

Danielle> At its core, I don't actually think my relationship with music has changed over the years. My tastes have changed, and the way I consume music has changed.. I'm not the same eight year old kid blasting Z100 out of a nickelodeon alarm clock, nor do I have the interest or stamina to hit 4x indie venues in one night.. but hearing Billie Holiday's voice still makes me feel like I'm being wrapped in a warm blanket. A funky rhythmic beat still makes me involuntarily bop. Intricate layered harmonies still give me goosebumps (the good kind). The overall effect music has on my psyche hasn't changed from the ages of 3-30+ which is pretty awesome if you think about it. 

Though I have become a much more discerning critic of lyrics... I guess years of searching for stuff like emotionally nuanced themes of togetherness that specifically use the word 'bicycle' will do that to you.

Morgan> I love music more every day. It’s the best.