Quick-fire
Q&A
SCOTT BRADLEE
The 37-year-old creator of musical reinvention
collective Postmodern Jukebox, which takes
current songs and gives them a retro twist,
talks to WHO about the group’s online rise
to fame and upcoming Australian tour,
which begins in Darwin on Wed., Sep. 18.How do you select the songs you transform?
I like to pick songs that are familiar to many
people and change them in surprising ways.
When I pick a song, I like to examine it and
see if there’s anything in the original that
reminds me of a genre from eras past.
Have any songs just not worked, no matter
what you’ve tried?
Sometimes. I believe almost any song can be
“retro-fied”, but some songs just aren’t as
interesting to mess with. A song that already
has a retro element isn’t the best fit for us to do.
What’s the best feedback you’ve had from the
original artists?
We’ve received praise from everyone from
Céline Dion to Adam Levine to Nickelback. Butour very first celebrity
endorsement came from
Beyoncé, who shared one
of our early videos, ‘Drunk
in Love’. That was cool.
How did it feel when your
videos first went viral?
I honestly didn’t know
what to make of it at first.
It didn’t feel like all those
people actually watched
the videos when all you
see are anonymous
comments and stats. It
wasn’t until we started
touring that I realised just how many fans
we had. That continues to be crazy to me.
What’s been the most unexpected
consequence of being an online sensation?
Probably the whole global fan base thing. Back
in the pre-internet age, a band had to build
a following in their own city before they could
even think about touring. We hit threesurprisedwhenwehita newcityandfindout
howimportantPMJistosomanypeople.
What can people who haven’t seen
Postmodern Jukebox live expect?
A trip back in time starring a dozen of the
world’s top talent, with a soundtrack of familiar
hits. It’s a real scene – fans dress up, crazy things
happen on stage and we all party like it’s 1929.Moment Staff picks
in time THE LION KING
SOUNDTRACK
From classics like ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight’,
‘Circle of Life’ and ‘I Just Can’t Wait to Be King’ being
given a new lease of life, to a brand-new Beyoncé
track (‘Spirit’), the soundtrack to the Disney update
stands on its own merits. Also included: excerpts
fromHansZimmer’soriginalscore.APOLLO 11
There are countless TV specials dedicated to the 50th
anniversary of the Moon landing, but it is hard to go
past this big-screen documentary (out now), directed
by Emmy Award winner Todd Douglas Miller. Working
with previously unseen footage and more than
11,000 hours of audio recordings, Miller has created
a cinematic experience that puts viewers right in the
historic moment all those decades ago.AUSTRALIAN
SURVIVOR
Despite the repetition of the Champions vs
Contenders theme feeling a little uninspired –
we’re dying to see an Australian version of Blood vs
Water – the return of Survivor (starts Wed., Jul. 24;
Ten) is reason to get excited. Host Jonathan LaPaglia
is back to keep proceedings under control.Jul. 23, 2010: on a date etched into the minds
of die-hard Directioners, five British lads,
who’d auditioned separately for the seventh
season of the UK’s version of The X Factor,
were put together by the judges and became
One Direction. The moment went to air that
September during the show’s broadcast.continentsinjustover ayear.II’’malllways“Fans in Australia
are very lively, which
makes the show that
much more fun,”
Bradlee says.