Apple cider vinegar Is Pilates for you? 'Ambient gaslighting' 'Main character energy'
TV
Vinyl (tv show)

How 'Vinyl' mixes its '70s music

Gary Levin
USA TODAY
Bobby Cannavale as Richie Finestra in the HBO television series 'Vinyl.'

HBO’s Vinyl spins tales of the record business in 1973. Or at least the business of the fictional American Century Records, headed by Richie Finestra (Bobby Cannavale) with an eclectic roster that runs the gamut from Donny Osmond to Led Zeppelin to Robert Goulet.

But a major ingredient in the show’s appeal is its soundtrack, curated by co-creator Mick Jagger and music supervisor Randall Poster.

And for every dose of David Bowie or Lou Reed, there are lesser lights such as soft-rock duo England Dan and John Ford Coley to keep it real.

Review: Tune in as 'Vinyl,' and a stellar Cannavale, rock '70s music

“We were going through those years around that era and picking out really good songs, but then taking into account there were a lot of hit records that perhaps you wouldn’t think was good music now,” Jagger says of the show, which has been renewed for a second season. “We had a lot of discussion about how much of that stuff we’re going to use. ...  Some good music from the period still stands up today, say like a Marvin Gaye track, but if you just do that, you’re not giving the feel of the period, in a way. It’s a bit of a balance; I would come back and say, ‘There’s too much schlock this week!’ ”

But “without that balance, it gets to be unrealistically cool,” says executive producer Terence Winter, adding the expense of using so many songs in every episode, even for an HBO series, proved difficult.

A soundtrack from HBO's 'Vinyl' will be released each Friday.

“Walk into any record-company offices and there’s always music playing,” Winter says. “Everything (Richie) does is informed by music. To be able to continue to produce a show like that and still stay on a responsible budget (is) one of our biggest challenges every week.”

The mix (some included on full-length CDs or digital EPs, released each Friday by Atlantic Records) includes background music; covers, lip-synced by actors playing real rock stars but voiced by other singers; and original songs composed for fictional artists such as R&B star Hannibal (Daniel J. Watts), whose repertoire is sung by The Gap Band’s Charlie Wilson.  Look carefully and you’ll even see Elvis Costello in the background of one episode, singing Back Stabbers in a bar mitzvah scene.

1970s throwback: 'Vinyl' is sex, drugs and rock and roll

“The whole time I’m working, there’s a whole other world going on behind me,” says Cannavale, whose personal tastes run to Bruce Springsteen and Wilco, though (like Richie) he cringes at ’70s-era bands Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Yes. “It’s extraordinary. Randy Poster is doing his thing in recording studio … guys are writing songs, re-recording old songs by an all-star band.”

Says Winter:  “Including real artists was really important to me, because how do you expect people to believe this is supposed to be really happening if it’s 1973 and you’re not referencing Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones, or any other number of people who were topping charts at that time?"

For the Nasty Bits, a fictional proto-punk band fronted by Kip Stevens (played by Jagger’s son, James), a bit of nastiness was in order. In their first scene in last week’s premiere, “when he’s onstage and they boo at him and throw things at them,” Jagger says, he made his lone contribution to the show’s original music.

“They want to shock the audience and get them angry, and I said, ‘How about a lyric that says, "We hate New York?" ’ That was bound to get New Yorkers really mad, so that’s what we did.”

Featured Weekly Ad