Billboard - 28.03.2020

STILL: MERIE WEISMILLER WALLACE/FOCUS FEATURES. JACOBS: DAVID LIVINGSTON/GETTY IMAGES. FENNELL: CASEY FLANIGAN/INDIEWIRE/SHUTTERSTOCK. BASSETT: FILIP MILENKOVIC.

32 BILLBOARD • MARCH 28, 2020

L

AST YEAR, KILLING EVE

season two showrunner

Emerald Fennell approached

Sue Jacobs, a 30-year veteran

music supervisor for films

such as Little Miss Sunshine

and American Hustle, with a lofty task:

Secure a handful of massive pop hits for

Fennell’s upcoming directorial debut,

Promising Young Woman. Fennell already

had a lengthy playlist of songs she wanted

in the film — including Paris Hilton’s

“Stars Are Blind,” Charli XCX’s “Boys” and

Britney Spears’ “Toxic” — and

Jacobs helped her secure

those three. But she also knew

that the movie’s “super low”

independent budget would

create challenges.

By August, Jacobs was

sending screeners to major

labels; two months later, Capitol

Records signed on to distribute

the soundtrack, thanks to her

long-standing relationship with

Capitol Music Group executive

vp soundtracks and A&R Anton

Monsted. The film also resonat-

INSIDE LOOK

Delivering On

A Promise

Emerald Fennell wanted a pop-driven soundtrack

for her directorial debut — and a group of

powerful executives helped her get one

BY TAYLOR WEATHERBY

ed with Capitol vp creative sync licensing

Jenny Swiatowy, who says she appreci-

ated Fennell’s take on female revenge in

the #MeToo era. (The film chronicles a

woman, played by Carey Mulligan, who

tricks men into taking her home from

bars and clubs only to teach them a les-

son.) With Capitol onboard, Swiatowy

set up screenings for about 20 of the

label’s artists, from newcomers to arena

acts, all of whom were women.

Working with a three-month deadline,

about half the usual time, Swiatowy se-

cured a lineup of rising Capitol

stars, including alternative-pop

artists Cyn, Fletcher, Death-

byRomy, Carmen DeLeon

and Donna Missal. Though a

slate of up-and-comers wasn’t

Swiatowy’s initial goal, Jacobs

says it perfectly fit her mantra:

“Independent film is the place

to break artists.” Swiatowy also

tapped female producers Alex

Hope (Troye Sivan), AG (Rachel

Platten) and Jenn Decilveo

(Andra Day), as well as Gram-

my-winning engineer Emily

Lazar (Beck), to master the soundtrack.

Only one man appears on the Promis-

ing Young Woman soundtrack, composer

Anthony Willis, whom Fennell knew from

high school — his standout composition

is a chilling orchestral arrangement of

“Toxic,” which is featured in the film’s final

act. (A different version, by Italian quartet

Archimia, is heard in the trailer before Willis

came onboard.) “You’re hearing a strange

and horrific piece of music, and creating a

connection to a song that’s so fun and well-

loved,” says Willis. “My first instinct was

‘pop music turned on its head.’ ”

Now, even though the April release

of Promising Young Woman and its

soundtrack has been postponed until

further notice due to the coronavirus,

Swiatowy hopes that, no matter when it

comes out, the film “shakes some reality

in front of people.” As for Fennell, Jones

says, “I think she wakes up every day

pinching herself that all this music ended

up in her movie.”

Jacobs

Fennell

A still from the Focus

Features film Promising

Young Woman.

MONTHS BEFORE THE NOVEMBER

2019 premiere of the Disney+ show High

School Musical: The Musical: The Series,

in which emerging actor-musician

Joshua Bassett stars as Ricky Bowen, his

manager helped him land a meeting with

Nate Albert, executive vp A&R at Warner

Records. Bassett arrived with a dozen

demos ready to perform on guitar. “I was

blown away,” says Albert, who notes

CEO Aaron Bay-Schuck and COO Tom

Corson were also immediately interested

when he played them the tracks later.

“He struck me as wildly developed for

somebody his age — a triple threat pro-

ducing, writing and performing.”

Bassett, 19, first took an interest in

music at 6 years old, when his father

asked him to drum for his church; by

15, he wanted to pursue it full time after

asking a girl to homecoming with an

original song he played on a ukulele.

Since then, the Oceanside, Calif., native

has taken on a variety of roles, from

performing in a local production of The

Sound of Music to appearing on Grey’s

Anatomy last year.

At the top of 2020, he signed a

recording contract with Warner, which

will make the announcement official on

March 27 to coincide with the release of

Bassett’s debut single, “Common Sense”

— a polished version of the demo that

initially attracted the Warner co-chairs.

Since the premiere of High School

Musical: The Musical: The Series, Bas-

sett’s fan base has grown exponentially:

He has racked up over 1 million Instagram

followers, and his first TikTok post —

which arrived mid-March and teased his

original song “I’m Still in Love With You”

— has over 2 million views. An official

debut project, as well as season two of

the Disney+ show, are both in the works,

though the release dates are pending

due to the coronavirus pandemic. Albert

says Bassett is “obviously rising because

of the show, but there’s all this depth in

his work that people are yet to discover.

There’s this whole other level.”

—JOSH GLICKSMAN

SIGNED

Joshua Bassett

LABEL (^) WARNER RECORDS
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