How to retain the music of "Star is Born" created an even bigger success – Variety



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With horror movies, there has always been a maxim: Hide the monster as long as possible. Now, movie musicals have the same wisdom: to mask music.

At least that was the idea behind the release of the soundtrack of "A Star is Born", which appeared in the movie Lady Gaga, directed by Bradley Cooper. Previously, it was common to release any soundtrack album before the movie, to help anticipate any movie heavily focused on music. But this wisdom has recently been reversed. In the case of "A Star is Born", the first publication of these songs would have been the most feared thing of 21stFandom century: spoilers.

The decision to refuse music certainly did not spoil soundtrack sales. The numbers will not be known until the end of the week, but from Monday night, the so-called explicit version of "Star is Born" took first place on iTunes, while the edition that contains some of the dialogue The film's slightly censored film was at No. 5. This bodes well for its exceptional prospects when the final results of the week are announced, even with the release date of October 5, with the release of some of the most anticipated albums of the year, including new Eric Church and Steve Perry of Twenty One Pilots, plus a strong second week of Lil Wayne.

The cherry pickers also arrive, as shown by the table of digital singles iTunes, which was overwhelmed Monday by the pieces of "Star is Born", which hold the first four places and six of the first eight.

"There has been a lot of talk about the commercialization of music," says Steve Berman, vice president of Interscope, who has long discussions between the label (which also hosts Lady Gaga), the studio, and the Cooper and Gaga camps. "It's a special film and the music is not just a soundtrack; all the music is part of the movie story. And so it was very important to give people a chance to take that in (theaters) and then have the soundtrack. It was a very big bet. He pauses. "I do not want to say" play ". It was a big discussion. And that boiled down to the confidence in the film, the music and the realization of that vision. "

They slightly ignored their restraint strategy while deciding to release "Shallow" a week before the movie. This decision was made at the last minute. The long-standing intention was to maintain it until October 5th.

"You really have to treat it as a living, breathing organism," says Anthony Seyler, executive vice president of film and television marketing and licensing for Interscope. "Making the music so far before people can experience it, as Bradley and Gaga wanted it, against the tide of the image, would not serve the experiment . But finally, we have very recently changed our strategy on "Shallow" for several reasons. Until recently, we were going to delay everything until October 5, to allow the public to have the same discovery that we had. But the demand for this song was incredible, after the audience had felt the emotion of this scene through the trailer. (An excerpt from the melody provided the pinnacle of the premiere … and it was the only example of the Gaga belts seen in the advertisement.) "On top of that, you're dealing with a global release – the film had already been premiered in several countries – so that seemed fair. "

If you want to know how things have changed, consider the release of the last album of the soundtrack of a movie "Star is Born" – the one with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, in 1976. In mid-December, That year, the album was already in stores for three weeks … which means that for many Streisand fans, "Evergreen" was already an evergreen tree, even before seeing it play the process of writing on the screen. (The album focused on Streisand was finally certified four times platinum.)

It may be interesting to see if more people choose to live this new soundtrack as a whole or à la carte. The album contains a significant amount of dialogue between songs, which could be a boon for movie buffs who want to relive the arc of the movie at home or a turning point for music fans who prefer the idea of ​​an album of Lady Gaga. with some occasional country-rock interruptions of Bradley Cooper's character.

"Between Gaga and Bradley," says Seyler, "they thought it was the right thing to do, to extend that experience through the soundtrack. And many of these moments of dialogue really lead to songs. "

Berman adds, "We are about to serve everyone in this field. The number of Gaga fans is impressive, but this movie is such a great piece of art that we think it will reach as many different audiences and we want to be ready to serve all of these audiences with the same consumption of music. There will be people who will see this movie and who will never buy a product that takes it because it is a souvenir of the movie. And then there are people who will gravitate around songs. We wanted to put it in place so that all fans could be served fairly. "

Consumers who buy it may know or not be aware, that is, they buy a live album … at least somehow. "The voices are live, and it was obviously a challenge," says Seyler. "Warner Bros. and the filmmakers brought together the best of the best in terms of the technical team that had to enter to capture the live voices, not just in the studio and on stage, but in very open spaces like the Greek and Coachella. For Bradley and Gaga, it was very important that the situation is not synchronous. "

Interscope is on the rise and soundtracks are back after being seen as endangered since their peak in the '80s and early' 90s. Their success not only gives back to soundtracks their relevance, but also to the very concept of albums.

"These albums we made are all so different," says Seyler. "We just did" Black Panther ", which was a huge success." The Land "was an incredible race." Slumdog Millionaire "out of nowhere was just magical." Across the universe ", some people do not even know it and others are obsessed. "Great Gatsby" has been an invaluable moment in my career, I just released a soundtrack recently with a short film, "Sorry to Bother You", which I especially attracted because we had an incredible director who had a vision … relying on a big single, that's fine when it happens, but I would prefer to have a complete and consistent body of work, and something like " A star is born "give it to you."

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