Making the Twilight soundtrack

Creating a movie is one thing but coming up with a movie soundtrack, especially one that is most looked forward to, is another thing. The Twilight soundtrack was very well-received by the mass market that it was a surprise hit and had helped catapult Paramore to mainstream success. In an interview with Spinner magazine, music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas talked about selecting bands and songs that are going to be part of the soundtrack. Here is an excerpt:

Alexandra Patsavas, the music supervisor for the ‘Twilight‘ films, doesn’t want to pick a favorite when it comes to the 15 tracks on the ‘New Moon‘ soundtrack. “Oh gosh, that’s like asking a mother to pick her favorite child,” Patsavas tells Spinner. After a long pause, she admits, “I’m especially proud that Thom Yorke agreed to be on the soundtrack.” For his part, the Radiohead frontman submitted the unreleased, exclusive solo track, ‘Hearing Damage.’ “The track is physically transcendent, gorgeous and used at a key moment, almost in its entirety, in the movie,” Patsavas reveals.

Novelist Stephanie Meyer has sold more than 70 million copies of the ‘Twilight,’ series, her vampire-tinged, 21st century remake of the quintessential ‘Romeo and Juliet’ love story. The second film of the series is in movie theaters across the US now and its accompanying soundtrack, which also includes new music from Death Cab for Cutie, Grizzly Bear, the Killers, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Muse, Lykke Li and the Editors, has been riding strong on the Billboard Hot 200 for the last five weeks, at one point reaching No. 1.

After putting together the first film’s successful soundtrack — currently Number 81 after more than a year on the charts — Patsavas was rehired. She began making mixtapes of “sounds that would be appropriate for the movie” after reading the script and meeting with director Chris Weitz. She also went after the music community. “I knew we would be attempting to have only unreleased tracks on the album,” she says of immediately reaching out to publishers, managers and labels. “We used already recorded tracks on the first album and on the second album everything was made particularly for the project.”

Naturally, the publishers, managers and labels were interested. “There wasn’t really a learning curve for the artists. We are in a very unique position coming off a very successful first movie and first soundtrack and being part of Stephanie Meyer’s incredibly successful book series. I wasn’t pitching an idea that wasn’t talked about before,” she says of assembling the indie-rock heavy compilation. “I think the artist knew what to expect and were eager to participate.”

To read the rest of the article, click on the link above.

jediyoda