Scratching Re-Records

Supporting a Rebrand

Music Supervision is a wide-ranging service with lots of definitions. People often think that it simply means licensing, clearing, and synchronizing tracks, but it can include many other things. Music Supervision really means assessing the musical possibilities for a project and finding the best ways to support the project musically. In the case of Angi and Milk Agency, the creative team had a vision for the music, but needed serious guidance to reach the goal.

The idea was simple: Angi (formerly Angie’s List) had recently undergone a re-brand, so the new campaign needed to build back trust and recognition, which can be difficult to salvage when a brand changes name and appearance. The other goal of the campaign was to showcase the sense of ease and accomplishment that Angi customers experience. With these targets in mind, the agency chose “The Choice Is Yours,” a popular hip hop track from the 90s as the vehicle for the brand’s message.

The Piece

The Challenge

"Angi That" had two main challenges: clearing the track and reproducing it. Publishing rights for "The Choice Is Yours" are owned in part by two different publishing companies, so Howling EP Rachael La Cava called on her extensive network of music industry professionals to get permissions and negotiate license agreements. After liaising between the advertising agency, Angi, and the two publishers, the project moved into the production phase.

The original track, like many songs (especially from that era), is built on samples. The upright bass figure, the vocal interjections, the guitar riff, and even the drum pattern are all elements found on previous records that were sampled and repurposed in the Black Sheep track. So in reproducing it, we learned quickly how important the sampled quality is to the overall feel.

The Process

In order to approximate the sample usage, producer Ryan Claus recorded single iterations of repeating elements into a sampler and re-triggered them throughout the track. In other words, the guitar and bass parts were only recorded once. They are not 30 second long tracks, they are 2 second long recordings that are played over and over, creating a sort of robotic, stuttering sound. A musician playing repeating phrases might naturally tie them together, but sampling a phrase and re-triggering it has a unique effect that is quintessential to the hip hop sound of the 90s.

"I ended up just taking my riff and putting it into the sampler, and then I started playing the same notes on the piano to get it once more removed until it sounded like a sample element. Then we worked with Samantha Powell, our vocal producer in LA. She knows great talent and she's written all sorts of hip-hop and has even written music with Black Sheep before.”

The Result

The attention to detail paid off in the final track. The instrumental foundation and vocal performance draw the audience in before delivering the lyrical changeup. In a genre like 90s hip hop, the vocal tones, mannerisms, and ad libs are paramount to the feel of the track, and our vocal team knocked it out of the park. "These guys just crushed it. Sammy was really good at making sure she got all the special little aspects of the track, all the ad-lib stuff."

By honoring every minute detail to the best of our ability, we were able to get to the core of what the ad agency was trying to harness from the original song. Milk Agency Executive Creative Director Dan Scolt-Croxford said "Obviously we've been listening to the track a lot in the edit. It really gets stuck in your head... Saying it out loud, the rhythm of the phrase instantly reminded me of the Black Sheep track, and I started whistling it. The ear-worm nature of the original track brought us here."

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