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Linkin Park pose with the GRAMMY for Best Hard Rock Performance at the 44th Annual GRAMMY Awards
Photo credit: LEE CELANO/AFP via Getty Images

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What It Meant To Me Will Eventually Be A Memory: Linkin Park's 'Hybrid Theory' Turns 20

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Two decades after its release, GRAMMY.com looks back on the nu-metal champions' debut album
Jeff Yerger
GRAMMYs
Oct 24, 2020 - 9:48 am

Back in August, nu-metal heroes Linkin Park released their first new song since the passing of lead singer Chester Bennington in 2017. The song, "She Couldn’t," is a lost B-side from their massive debut Hybrid Theory, which turns 20 this October 24. Built upon a minimalist trip-hop beat and a ghostly Mos Def sample, "She Couldn’t" sounds nothing like the album that came after. There are no crunching guitars, no screamed refrains—just a band in their infancy figuring out the depths of their sound.

Hearing Bennington's voice from out of the ether hits right in the gut. When he’s not screaming away his demons (of which he had many), he could be gentle and sincere. Hybrid Theory B-Side "My December" (not to mention its Reanimation remix "MyHybrid Theory should be better understood as being universally human. 

"There's some pretty pissed-off kids all over the world," Bennington told The Guardian back in 2001. "I think that's a good thing. Anger feeds change—more so than happiness, because I think when people become happy and comfortable they become lazy and melancholy. When there's a little bit of rage behind, you get motivated."

By the year 2000, Linkin Park had plenty to be angry about. Bennington—a troubled kid from Arizona—had just joined the band as a last-ditch attempt at a music career and a life outside of a cubicle. Meanwhile, vocalist/rapper Mike Shinoda, guitarist Brad Delson drummer Rob Bourdon, bassist Dave "Phoenix" Pharrell and DJ Joe Hahn, had spent the better part of the '90s in the L.A. suburbs trying to get their music project off the ground with little success. The band had big plans to change the world, but the world wasn’t ready for them.

Linkin Park eventually landed at Warner Bros, but the label didn’t know what to do with them. First, they wanted the band—who at the time was known as Xero—to change their name (which they did, twice). Then they wanted Shinoda to rap more like Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst. When he declined, they wanted Shinoda out of the band and Bennington to be the star (to which Bennington told the folks at Warner Bros to go… well, you can probably guess). On top of all that, their producer Don Gilmore didn’t like any of their songs, and asked the band to rewrite the whole bunch. It’s a minor miracle that these songs ever saw the light of day, but against all odds, Linkin Park released what would be one of the most successful rock records in history—perhaps the last of its kind to take over the world.

Linkin Park's 'Hybrid Theory' Celebrates 20 Years

It’s easy to forget that Hybrid Theory was a debut record. The rap-rock sound they were going for already sounded so fully realized. It wasn’t just hip-hop or grunge; there was metal in there, as well as bits of screamo and electronica. It sounded futuristic. These were carefully crafted pop songs hidden behind layers of guitars and turntable scratches—decidedly more genre-diverse than their nu-metal peers Korn, Slipknot and the aforementioned Limp Bizkit. With hooks for days, Hybrid Theory songs leaned more into Linkin Park's hip-hop influences, and reached for the heights of U2, Depeche Mode and Nine Inch Nails.

And back to that voice. No disrespect to Mike Shinoda, who was an integral part of the band’s unique indebtedness to West Coast hip-hop, but without Bennington, songs like "By Myself," "With You" or "A Place For My Head" probably wouldn’t have had the same impact. The guy didn’t just yell these refrains, he shred them, as if his voice was on the cusp of tearing into pieces. So when Bennington yelled "SHUT UP WHEN I’M TALKING TO YOU!" on “One Step Closer,” you damn well paid attention. Meanwhile, underneath the theatrics lurked the aforementioned vulnerability looking for human connection.

And boy did it ever connect. Hybrid Theory debuted at number 29 in the U.S. Billboard 200, eventually peaking at number two. It sold 50,000 copies in its first week, and it has since sold roughly 11 million copies in the U.S. alone and around 30 million copies worldwide. As recently as September 11, 2020, it has officially gone 12x platinum. The track list for Hybrid Theory read like a greatest hits collection, because that’s exactly what it was. It produced four singles – "One Step Closer," "Papercut," "Crawling" and “In The End"—each one bigger than the last, the latter of which being the band’s biggest crossover hit at number two on the Billboard 200. And although they weren’t singles, album tracks "Points Of Authority" and "Runaway" made appearances on rock radio as well. The stats almost don’t seem real, but for a good while, Linkin Park really was the biggest band in the world.

It’s not hard to understand why kids connected with the music 20 years ago. For impressionable teens who grew up in the '90s and who were perhaps too young to appreciate grunge when it erupted, too embarrassed to openly enjoy teen pop staples like 'NSYNC or Britney Spears, or too chicken to buy The Marshall Mathers LP with the big "Parental Advisory” sticker on the front, Linkin Park arrived at the right time. This record was everything for millions of kids around the world at the start of the new millennium who needed a band to scream, cry and identify with.

Despite the magnitude of their success, Linkin Park were never quite destined to be the rock revival act you’d list next to fellow early aughts titans The Strokes or The White Stripes. And yet, the massive outpouring of love and tributes upon Chester Bennington’s death in 2017 reframes the band's long-term legacy. Artists, writers and fans flooded blogs and social media to share the impact the band had on their individual lives. There were stories about people whose lives were saved by the band’s music. That same year, a woman in Orlando used a Linkin Park lyric to save a man from jumping off a bridge. There was no hint of shame in these stories. These people weren’t speaking through layers of irony, or offering sheepish condolences for a lost guilty pleasure. These were heartfelt tributes from those same 30 million kids who screamed, cried and identified with every word Bennington and Shinoda sang on Hybrid Theory. These kids knew that Linkin Park was sincere all along. Most important, perhaps, it was proof that while many of us had since moved on through the musical gateway they provided, we always had a place in our hearts for Hybrid Theory and Linkin Park. Finally, we had found a band that was speaking with us, not to us, and in the end, that’s all that ever mattered.

Beat By Beat: How "Song Exploder" Unlocks The Intimacy Of Music And Creativity

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Lin-Manuel Miranda (L) and host/creator Hrishikesh Hirway (R) in "Song Exploder"

Lin-Manuel Miranda (L) and host/creator Hrishikesh Hirway (R) in "Song Exploder"

Photo: Eric Veras/Netflix

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Beat By Beat: How "Song Exploder" Unlocks The Intimacy Of Music And Creativity

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Based on the popular podcast, the newly launched Netflix series dissects classics and current hits one layer at a time, while host and creator Hrishikesh Hirway finds the human connection behind it all
John Ochoa
GRAMMYs
Oct 20, 2020 - 4:54 pm

Most people know "Song Exploder" as the popular podcast giving die-hard music fans a deep, inside look into the sonic mechanics behind their favorite tracks. A whole new class of music-heads now knows "Song Exploder" as the new Netflix series bringing the creativity behind music to the digital screen.

Originally launched as a podcast in 2014, "Song Exploder" dissects classic and current fan-favorite songs, with guest artists breaking down each individual track and element in detail to paint an intimate audio portrait of their art. The podcast, which has accumulated more than 60 million streams and downloads over the years and has hosted guests like U2, Selena Gomez, Björk, Fleetwood Mac, Solange and many others, now breathes new life as a Netflix docuseries. 

Introduced on the streaming platform at the beginning of October, "Song Exploder" adds an even deeper layer of storytelling and personal insight to the songs being deconstructed beat by beat. The show's inaugural four-episode run features Alicia Keys ("3 Hour Drive"), Lin-Manuel Miranda ("Wait For It" from "Hamilton"), R.E.M. ("Losing My Religion") and Ty Dolla $ign ("LA"). (Last week [Oct. 15], Netflix unveiled its next slate of guests for the show's second season, set to debut Dec. 15: Dua Lipa, The Killers, Nine Inch Nails and Natalia Lafourcade.

Whether in visual or podcast format, the core of "Song Exploder" remains the same: "an intimate portrait of an artist telling the story of how their artistic mind worked through creating one of their songs," host and creator Hrishikesh Hirway tells GRAMMY.com.

GRAMMY.com chatted with Hrishikesh Hirway about the human connection behind his new "Song Exploder" Netflix series and how he hopes the show will inspire others to create their own art.

You have an endless supply of songs from which to choose for any given "Song Exploder" episode, podcast and show. What needs to stand out in a song in order for you to develop it for "Song Exploder"?

The first step in the process is really identifying the artists before even getting to the song, because, frankly, I don't know necessarily which songs might have the best stories. The most famous songs don't necessarily have the most interesting stories, and the people who know that better than anyone are the people who made the songs.

But what I can try and determine is which artists seem really interesting and thoughtful, good storytellers, and who are also beloved by a lot of people. That's kind of where I start. And once I can get an artist onboard to talk about a song in this way, then I start the process of trying to narrow down which song it's going to be with them.

I feel like I don't know what the story [of the song] is all the time. There are a lot of songs that haven't necessarily been delved into, and frankly, I'm always interested in something like that ... where the backstory [of a song] hasn't been canonized and "Song Exploder" can be a place to tell it for the first time. So I really am relying on input from the artists ... The question that I ask them, frankly, is: Which of your songs do you feel the most emotional attachment to?

Ultimately, the most interesting stories, I think, when it comes to making songs or really making any kind of art, are about people and their feelings and the things that inspire them to make something at all. Even though the show is about music, it's also a portrait of each of these artists. In order to tell you something insightful, especially for it to be something that could be interesting to people who aren't people who make music themselves and also aren't necessarily even familiar with the artist or the song, it has to be something that connects to something in the human experience that feels significant.

I always try to make "Song Exploder" a show that reflected a broad range of genres and artists and backgrounds. So there's kind of almost a guarantee that you couldn't just get people hooked on the show based on who the artists were and what the songs were; I want everybody to watch every episode and listen to every episode of the podcast because I think that it's a worthwhile conversation to have. I think the creative process is something that's really fascinating in and of itself. It's an example of how people react to their own experience, to actually decide to make something based on their ideas, what they lived through, what they love ... The thing that I'm actually most interested in is that kind of emotional experience: the emotional attachment to the act of creating a piece of music.

Michael Stipe of R.E.M. in "Song Exploder"

Michael Stipe of R.E.M. in "Song Exploder" | Photo: Courtesy of Netflix/Netflix

There's a moment in the R.E.M. episode where frontman Michael Stipe gets almost emotional listening to his own voice on the band's classic, "Losing My Religion," and hearing the song elements broken down and presented to him in such an intimate manner, even after so many years since the song's release. How do you go about getting artists to open up to you and dive into their art so deeply?

I think one thing that helps is that I'm not really approaching [the interview process] head-on, certainly not right away. The questions don't start off front and center in like an emotionally investigative way. I think I have to earn their trust first, and part of that is from talking about the mechanics of the process first. That's the entry point in all these conversations. One of the reasons why having the [song's] stems is important, not just in terms of letting the listeners know what's going on in the song, but in terms of being able to facilitate that conversation with the artist.

Of all of the questions, the hardest one to answer is probably, "Why?" "Why did you decide to make the song this way? Why did you write this lyric? Why did you choose this chord progression?" That's the hardest [question], but it's also the one that I'm most interested in. But it's a little easier to start off with, first of all, "What?" "What are we listening to?" And then to ask them, "OK, how did you make it? And when did you make it?" All those basic factual questions are a way to just let them and me submerge ourselves into the memories of making that song.

Once they're there and able to relive some of the experience of it by hearing the actual evidence of the stuff that they did on that day—hearing their voice, hearing the instrument, hearing the actual track that they recorded around that time—it's a lot easier to ask them to then dig a few layers deeper and ask what was going on in their lives and how that might've fed into some of those creative decisions.

Read: Rhyme & Punishment: How NPR's "Louder Than A Riot" Podcast Traces The Interconnected Rise Of Hip-Hop And Mass Incarceration

You're now juggling the show and the podcast. How do you decide what songs go on the podcast format and what goes in video format?

Well, the podcast is a lot of work for a podcast, but that means that I'm still able to turn around an episode in a few weeks, whereas the TV show takes a much longer time to put together. There are just so many more components to it, and it's so much more work.

Part of the pitch for doing the television show is that I was trying to ask these artists to take a leap of faith, [like,] "This is something that's going to take a while to make, so you can't tie it to your promotional calendar, necessarily. I can't guarantee that it'll come out on such and such date to coincide with your single release or something like that." It was really more like, "Would you like to participate in this thing where there'll be this really meticulously crafted mini-documentary about this work that you did, and it's sort of evergreen."

That's a different pitch than with the podcast. Although with the podcast, I say all those things, too. I say it's evergreen and it's always better when it's not necessarily tied to your release schedule and more like when people have had a chance to live with the song a little bit. But one of the advantages of the podcast is it can be a little more nimble because it's a little easier to put together.

So this is a long way of saying that a lot of times that question is answered by the artists themselves or their publicists or managers, who are looking for a very specific outcome or timing, or they have something in mind, and that could be a matter of scale. It really depends on the circumstances of the artist and what works for them.

Fans who've been following the podcast for a while will find a totally different experience when they come to the show. There are two types of storytelling when I hear "Song Exploder," the podcast, and when I watch "Song Exploder," the docuseries. The podcast is very audio-heavy: You get to really hear all of the isolated bits and pieces of the song. The show has a lot more historical and cultural context, sort of like a mini-documentary for a song, and you also hear from a lot more voices beyond just the recording artist. Beyond the visual element, what do you gain in terms of storytelling through the show?

I think one of the things that you mentioned is absolutely key to the TV show, which is that often on the podcast, it's just a single voice or maybe two voices together … But with the TV show, because the timeline was so different, there was a chance to stop and say, "OK, who do we really want? Who are all the voices that are involved in the creation of the song?" Maybe not just the artist, but also the collaborators that were essential to making the song. 

Having that kind of breadth and depth, it isn't always afforded to the shorter turnaround time and the scale of the podcast. But here, to really immerse the audience and give a really full picture of what the song was, having those other voices in there was really important. For [the] Alicia Keys episode [about the song "3 Hour Drive,"] we traveled to London to film with [the song's guest vocalist and co-writer/co-producer] Sampha and the [song's] co-writer/co-producer Jimmy Napes because we knew that they were going to only expand and flesh out the story.

I think a part of it is also a matter of craft, too. When you're working in audio, you're kind of only working in one dimension, which is time. You're just relying on one sense, hearing, and you're just basing everything on how long things take; the rhythm comes from just that one sense. But with TV, you have to also give a rhythm and complexity visually, too. You can't just transliterate the podcast into a TV format, where it's just one person talking, mixed with the isolated stems, because it wouldn't work; it would get very boring very quickly. So in order to have that kind of texture and nuance, we wanted to involve all those different people and try and give a little bit bigger of a picture than maybe what comes out in the podcast.

Do you see the podcast and the show as separate entities or related in the same family? Do you need to engage with both formats to fully appreciate or understand what "Song Exploder" is trying to do?

Oh, I don't think you have to engage with both. Of course, I would love it if people did, just because they're both things that I've put a lot of work into, and you want people to enjoy the stuff that you've worked on. This is not a great analogy, but I think it's sort of like reading a book or watching a movie that's been adapted of that book. I don't think you need to read the book to enjoy the movie, and vice versa, you don't need to have seen the movie to have full enjoyment of the book. But maybe you'll get something out of the experience of taking both in. Maybe it changes the way you feel about both.

This is, of course, a little bit different, because it's not even the same story that's being told. It's really just taking the core concept, which is an intimate portrait of an artist telling the story of how their artistic mind worked through creating one of their songs, and taking that concept and expressing it in these two different media. So it's much looser even than something like an adaptation of a book to a movie.

What artist or what song is your holy grail for the podcast or the show or both?

I don't have one holy grail—I think I probably have about a thousand. Anytime I start listening to music, I start wondering about it. That's not new since I started "Song Exploder"; it's the other way around. That's always been the way I listen to music. When I fall in love with a song, I want to hear it from the inside out. I want to hear what the individual tracks, what the individual stems sound like. I want to know what the ideas were that inspired all of these things that I'm falling in love with. "Song Exploder" was just a way of me being able to actually make that happen for myself. So anytime I'm listening to music and I hear something great, you could put it on the list.

Ty Dolla $ign in "Song Exploder"

Ty Dolla $ign in "Song Exploder" | Photo: Courtesy of Netflix/Netflix

What is your ultimate goal with "Song Exploder"?

I wish people would either watch the show or listen to the podcast and come away with a feeling that they want to make something themselves. Part of my aim with the show is to democratize the act of creation a little bit. I think it's easy to look at very successful artists or very successful songs or any kind of art in any format, where it has reached a certain level of success, and think that there's some uncrossable boundary for everyday people that keeps them from making something as great as those songs …

I think the best feeling that I always get from finishing working on an episode is something akin to that. That like, I just want to go make something, and it doesn't just have to be music. I think that anybody who is interested in making anything at all, to get something from the show, just the idea of going from nothing but an idea and following that all the way through to a finished piece of art, I hope that might be inspiring to everyone.

Glen Ballard On How His Netflix Show "The Eddy" Puts Music, Jazz And Performance First

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Chorus practices outdoors this year at Countryside High School in Pinellas County, Florida.
Photo courtesy of Christy King

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Puppy Pads And Slit Masks: How COVID Changed The Look Of Music Education

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COVID-era problems put pressure on teachers to work creatively, while fearing for the future
Emilee Lindner
GRAMMYs
Sep 21, 2020 - 9:01 am

Those living in Kingsman, Arizona, shouldn’t be surprised if they hear 30 kids yelling simultaneously from Lee Williams High School. That’s just Shannon Bascombe’s marching band letting out their COVID-19 frustrations.

"The kids were like, ‘Hey, Ms. B, can we, like, scream into the void for 10 seconds at the beginning of practice?'" Bascombe recalled. "'Yeah, sure, I’ll give you guys 10 seconds to just yell it out.' … Then they’ll start learning drill."

The coronavirus pandemic has made returning to school this fall a touchy debate. With each district whipping up its own tentative plan, students are either attending school armed with masks, learning virtually from home or doing a half-and-half schedule. They’ve pushed start dates, altered schedules and introduced new technology. Several schools GRAMMY.com contacted for this story set a date in September or October to reassess and adjust, aiming for in-person instruction by 2021. Needless to say, a little scream therapy is warranted—not just for students, but for teachers, parents and administrators as well.

So how does music education fit into the new school plans? Unlike math or history, which can rely on individual study, collaborative ensembles like band, chorus and orchestra cannot. With social distancing measures in place, getting a band of 50 students placed six feet apart in one room is, well, impossible. Not to mention the whole aerosol concern with kids blowing on their horns. Online group rehearsal doesn’t work either, due to latency issues.

With those difficulties in mind, districts across the country have already cut arts programs. And those teachers who still have their jobs are feeling the pressure to keep them by proving their worth.

"[Parents are] OK with the core teachers being at home and being able to give assignments," says Jake Olimpi, marching band and orchestra director at Marple Newtown High School in Pennsylvania. "But what is the art teacher doing, what is the music teacher doing? They’re getting paid and where’s the result?"

That pressure, atop the duty to keep students safe, healthy and engaged has become the new challenge for teachers, who are also haunted by the pandemic’s long lasting effects on music education.

Masks On Instruments And Puppy Pads

The spread of aerosols, a.k.a. air and saliva, forced the Centers for Disease Control to recommend the six-feet social distancing rule months ago. But when it came to the performing arts, there was little scientific evidence on how singing and instrument playing contributed to aerosol spread. A study from the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), published without peer review in July, gave music teachers some answers.

Conducted by the University of Colorado Boulder, the study found that instruments released fewer aerosols if they were masked at the bell. They found even fewer aerosols when the player wore a slitted mask. In order to return to in-person ensembles, authors of the study also suggested these points:

  • Musicians must stay six feet apart (nine feet for trombonists)
  • Bell covers should have a Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value (MERV) of 13 (although any covering is better than none)
  • Spit valves should empty into absorbent sheets like puppy pads
  • Rehearsal times should be limited to 30 minutes
  • Instructors should wait one HVAC air change between classes
  • HEPA filters should be in rehearsal spaces
  • Outdoor rehearsals are recommended over indoor ones

With the scientific guidance, teachers got to work crafting what fall 2020 would look like… and now that school’s back in session, music classes certainly don’t look like they did before. At Bascombe’s school in Arizona, they’re following the NFHS guidelines nearly to a T.

GRAMMYs

The students at Tarpon Springs Leadership Conservatory for the Arts stick to their cones and try out their new bell covers.
Credit: Anna Ottens

"When they come into the room, they have to wash their hands, drop their stuff off," Bascombe says. "We go through the symptom checker from the Mayo Clinic every day when they walk into the room… All of the doors are propped open so the kids have minimal touch. There's hand sanitizer everywhere. Mouthpiece cleaner everywhere."

Bascombe's woodwinds, brass, percussion and colorguard all get their own room. Every Friday, she spends an additional hour and a half disinfecting each room, including the bathroom her students use.

At the Southern Nevada Homeschool Performing Arts, program director Bonnie Buhler-Tanouye says brass players wear slitted masks, akin to "boys' underwear," and flute players wear shields. She says parents are willing to do even more in order to get their nearly shutdown Las Vegas music scene rolling again.

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The students at Southern Nevada Homeschool Performing Arts wear face shields and slitted masks on the first day of band practice. 
Courtesy: Bonnie Buhler-Tanouye

"One of the parents I was talking to the other day, because I was reminding her of masks for her trumpet player, she said, ‘You know what, put me in a hazmat suit, if you have to. Whatever we have to do to get back to playing music together,'" Buhler-Tanouye recalled.

The NFHS study deemed outdoor rehearsal better for dispersing aerosols. Summer band camps served as positive test runs for the rest of the school year, with students respectively keeping their distance. Water and sunscreen breaks are frequent and essential. In Pinellas County Schools in Florida, humidity plagues practices, but kids are happy to endure sweating for a chance to play together, says Jeanne Reynolds, performing arts specialist for the district.

"If you teach in Florida and you're a band teacher, you become a meteorologist," Jeanne said. "'Cause it’s not just hurricanes; we’ve got pretty good thunderstorms, so you have to know when to get out of harm’s way. Which we all do."

What happens when the temperature drops? When playing outside is no longer an option, bands will be forced to limit the size of their ensembles, based on dimensions of their rooms and state guidelines. Some schools have already taken band class off the schedule completely, exchanging it for smaller groups, broken up alphabetically or by instrument.

Smaller ensembles introduce two problems, though. First, smaller groups equate to more classes, meaning teachers' course loads have increased. Music programs like the one at Bergenfield High School in New Jersey rely on a large staff, which allows them to assign one teacher each to virtual and in-person classes for all of their ensembles. Bergenfield’s band director, Brian Timmons, considers his program lucky; not all schools have the resources.

Second, teachers must find music for a ragtag chamber ensemble. For example, if groups were split numerically by students' names, a director might end up with a flute, three trombones, five bass clarinets and a french horn in a class, and music for a combo like that is rare. Thankfully, publishers like Alfred, Hal Leonard and RWS Music Company have flexible arrangements that can be split into a few basic parts, and have become more available during COVID.

GRAMMYs

The supply of cleaning materials Shannon Bascombe uses to disinfect the band rooms at Lee Williams High School. 
Courtesy: Shannon Bascombe

But will the music ever get performed? State guidelines vary, but indoor maximum capacity has been limited to as few as 25 people per room. Gathering an audience would be infeasible.

Perhaps concerts aren’t even necessary. According to Timmons, it’s time to shake up the dusty format anyway.

"Music education has been so performance-driven all the time," Timmons says. "And we never take time to explore the other things like the chamber playing or the composition or just ear training in and of itself or theory."

Students taking virtual band obviously don’t have to deal with these new precautions and guidelines, but they also don’t get to play together. As Timmons says, they’re working on individual assignments, like learning music production, which allows them to sew together an ensemble, piece by piece. Timmons' students will work on a shared online workspace to record music. It gives students the power to collaborate remotely, he says.

"They can listen to each other’s part and say, ‘OK, our articulation is not punching there. We’re going to have to rerecord this section,'" Timmons says. "I have three teenagers of my own. I watch them killing it on TikTok. If you can do that, there’s no reason why I can’t teach you how to do this."

And then there’s the fact that some schools are taking little to no precaution. Music teacher Nathan Smith says he was fired from Oakdale Academy in Michigan after expressing his concern over the safety of students and staff. The private Christian high school is not requiring masks this fall, per a letter sent home to parents.

"I had so many plans for this school year," Smith said. "I certainly wasn't ready to leave without seeing any of my kids again."

The Lost Generation And Long-Term Effects

It’s a struggle to keep current music students engaged, but it’s a completely new challenge to get more kids involved. Recruitment requires getting instruments into the hands of fourth graders and presenting the allure of a polished, performing ensemble—hurdles made higher by COVID.

Lackluster recruitment will have damaging effects on the future of music education, says Robert W. Smith, a composer, arranger and professor at Troy University, who has written hundreds of works for high school-level ensembles.

"We cannot have a lost generation of musicians, and we’re about to have it," Smith says.

If too few young musicians join band, orchestra and choir programs, the ensembles will see dwindling numbers in each subsequent year, all the way up to college groups.

"This is like aftershocks of an earthquake or second and third waves of a tsunami," Smith says.

Current music students also face the loss of competition and adjudication—third-party feedback that lends itself toward improvement. Many in-person music competitions have been canceled for the fall. On the upside, some organizations have offered virtual adjudication, where students and ensembles can send in their performances for assessment.

But the long-term effects aren’t all bad. Timmons insists that it’s only shifting focus for COVID-era students to prepare for a more viable music career—one that isn’t totally based on performance (though still valuable), but digital skills.

"If you’re going to be successful in music, you have to have a basic understanding of how digital audio works, even if you’re a classical-style player," Timmons says. "You gotta have an understanding. If we can teach them how to use a digital audio workstation, even if it’s some kind of cloud-based thing, recording themselves and then as a chamber ensemble recording their own product, we’re kind of unlocking skills."

All of this means that music educators are getting even more creative than before, out of necessity.

"Music teachers by nature are problems solvers. It’s what we do," Timmons says. "Listen, troubleshoot, feedback, adjustment, listen, troubleshoot, does that sound good? This is just another problem to solve. It’s just a little more problematic than fixing the intonation of a chord."

Marching Six Feet Apart: How High School Marching Bands Are Coping With The Pandemic

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Alicia Silverstone as Cher Horowitz in 'Clueless' (1995)

Alicia Silverstone as Cher Horowitz in 'Clueless' (1995)

Courtesy Photo: CBS via Getty Images

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How 1995 Became A Blockbuster Year For Movie Soundtracks

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From 'Clueless' to 'Dangerous Minds,' soundtracks were big business in 1995, but the year's hits offered no clear formula for success
Jack Tregoning
GRAMMYs
Aug 9, 2020 - 4:00 am

Mariah Carey, Alanis Morissette, 2Pac and The Smashing Pumpkins all had No. 1 albums in 1995. Despite such hallowed competition, four movie soundtracks also topped the Billboard 200 chart that year. Two were family-friendly Disney behemoths: Pocahontas and The Lion King, the latter still powering from the previous year. The other chart-topping soundtracks, for the Michelle Pfeiffer vehicle Dangerous Minds and the stoner comedy Friday, were no one's idea of kids' entertainment. 

Beyond those No. 1 spots, 1995 marked a fascinating midpoint in a soundtrack-heavy decade. According to a New York Times report, a new release CD that year typically cost anywhere between $13-$19. At that price, a soundtrack needed major star power or an undeniable concept. 

For movie studios and musicians alike, the format was rich with opportunity. However, there was no certain formula for success. Some soundtracks were guided by a single producer, while others drew on a grab bag of then-current songs. Several featured one clear hit that eclipsed the soundtrack, or occasionally the movie itself. For all their differing approaches, the soundtracks of 1995 epitomized the energy and audacity of the decade, while also establishing tropes for the next 25 years. 

The Bodyguard: Original Soundtrack Album (1992) set the bar high for the decade. With a 20-week reign at No. 1, it remains the biggest-selling soundtrack of all time. Whitney Houston performed six songs on the album, including the titanic power ballad, "I Will Always Love You." (At the 1994 GRAMMYs, the track won the GRAMMY for Record Of The Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, while the soundtrack itself earned the Album Of The Year award.)

While The Bodyguard magnified their commercial potential, movie soundtracks like Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994) framed the medium as an artistic showpiece. Throughout the '90s, Tarantino and fellow indie auteurs Paul Thomas Anderson, Richard Linklater and Spike Lee made music a key character in their films. (The latter continues the trend on his latest movie, Da 5 Bloods, alongside six-time GRAMMY-winning composer and trumpeter Terence Blanchard.) Both instincts, for commercial returns and artistic validation, were well-represented in 1995. 

Read: 'The Bodyguard' Soundtrack: 25 Years After Whitney Houston's Masterpiece

Batman Forever (1995) epitomized the big-budget, mass-appeal mid-'90s soundtrack. Spanning PJ Harvey to Method Man, the 14-track set employed some tried-and-true tactics. First, only five songs on the track list appear in the movie itself, ushering in a rash of "Music From And Inspired By" soundtracks. Second, its featured artists largely contributed songs you couldn't find on other albums: According to Entertainment Weekly in 1995, U2 landed a reported $500,000 advance for "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me," an offcut from the band's Zooropa album sessions. 

Most significantly, Batman Forever backed a surprise smash in Seal's "Kiss From A Rose." Originally released as a single in 1994, the ballad blew up as the movie's "love theme." In its music video, Seal croons in the light of the Bat-Signal, intercut with not-very-romantic scenes from the film. Outshining U2, "Kiss From A Rose" reached No. 1 in 1995; one year later, the song won for Song Of The Year, Record Of The Year and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance at the 38th GRAMMY Awards.

Both Bad Boys and Dangerous Minds had their "Kiss From A Rose" equivalent in 1995. Diana King's reggae-fusion jam "Shy Guy" proved the breakout star of Bad Boys, transcending an R&B- and hip-hop-heavy soundtrack. Meanwhile, Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise," featuring singer L.V., the key track on Dangerous Minds, became the top-selling single of 1995; it won the rapper his first, and only, GRAMMY for Best Rap Solo Performance the next year. 

Other soundtracks from 1995 endure as perfect documents of their time and place. Clueless compiled a cast from '90s rock radio to accompany the adventures of Alicia Silverstone's Cher Horowitz and her high school clique: Counting Crows, Smoking Popes, Cracker and The Muffs. Coolio, the everywhere man of 1995, contributed "Rollin' With My Homies." 

From the same city, but a world outside Cher's Beverly Hills bubble, came the Ice Cube- and Chris Tucker-starring Friday. Its soundtrack took a whistle-stop tour of West Coast hip-hop and G-funk via Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Tha Alkaholiks and Mack 10. True to the era, the music video for Dr. Dre's "Keep Their Heads Ringin'" is half stoner comedy, half cheesy action movie. 

Waiting To Exhale, the 1995 drama directed by Forest Whitaker, boasted a soundtrack with a clear author. Babyface, the R&B superproducer with 11 GRAMMY wins for his work with the likes of Boyz II Men and Toni Braxton, produced the set in full. Following Babyface's co-producer role on The Bodyguard soundtrack three years prior, Waiting To Exhale featured two new songs from the movie's star, Whitney Houston. 

Read: 'Score': Soundtracks take us on an emotional ride

Houston's "Exhale (Shoop Shoop)" and "Why Does It Hurt So Bad" led a track list that also featured Aretha Franklin, TLC, Chaka Khan, Mary J. Blige and then-newcomer Brandy. A powerful showcase of Black women across generations, the soundtrack has prevailed as a standalone work, going on to receive multiple nominations, including Album Of The Year, at the 1997 GRAMMYs. In a crowded year for soundtracks, which also included Dinosaur Jr. founder Lou Barlow's work on Larry Clark's contentious Kids, Waiting To Exhale demonstrated the power of a singular vision. 

For the most part, the soundtracks of 1995 tried a bit of everything. The previous year, The Crow: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack went all-in on covers, including Nine Inch Nails overhauling Joy Division's "Dead Souls." That trend continued into 1995, from Tori Amos covering R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" for Higher Learning to Evan Dando's update of Big Star's "The Ballad Of El Goodo" in Empire Records to Tom Jones gamely taking on Lenny Kravitz's "Are You Gonna Go My Way"' for The Jerky Boys movie. (Is there a more '90s sentence than that?) 

Elsewhere, the Mortal Kombat soundtrack blended metal and industrial rock (Fear Factory, Gravity) with dance music (Utah Saints, Orbital). For every Dead Presidents, which zeroed in on '70s funk and soul, there was a Tank Girl, which threw together Bush, Björk, Veruca Salt and Ice-T to match the movie's manic tone. 

Continuing from their '90s winning streak, grown-up soundtracks have proven surprisingly resilient. In an echo of Babyface's role on Waiting To Exhale, Kendrick Lamar oversaw production on 2018's chart-topping, multi-GRAMMY-nominated Black Panther: The Album, uniting an A-list cast under his creative direction. On the same front, Beyonce executive-produced and curated The Lion King: The Gift, the soundtrack album for the 2019 remake of the Disney classic, which spotlighted African and Afrobeats artists. In 2016, Taylor Swift and One Direction's Zayn recorded "I Don't Wanna Live Forever (Fifty Shades Darker)," pitching for the movie tie-in bump enjoyed in 1995 by Seal and Coolio. (The millennial stars stopped short of including scenes from the movie in their music video.) 

Like Batman Forever back in the day, the DC Universe continues to put stock in soundtracks. Both Suicide Squad (2016) and its follow-up, Birds Of Prey (2020), are packed tight with to-the-minute pop, R&B and hip-hop. Each soundtrack reads like a who's who of the musical zeitgeist. In 1995, Mazzy Star, Brandy and U2 grouped up behind Batman. In 2016, Twenty One Pilots, Skrillex and Rick Ross powered the Suicide Squad. In 2020, everyone from Doja Cat to Halsey to YouTube star Maisie Peters form Team Harley Quinn. 

As 1995 taught us time and time again, nothing traps a year in amber quite like a movie soundtrack. 

How 1995 Became The Year Dance Music Albums Came Of Age

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How Girls Make Beats Is Making The Music Industry A More Welcoming Place For Girls Of All Backgrounds

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The non-profit that's making music producing and engineering more accessible to young girls hasn't waited on the industry to solve the inequity problem, and it isn't going to start now
Jennifer Velez
GRAMMYs
Jul 29, 2020 - 9:16 am

Inside a rental house-turned-makeshift studio in Los Angeles’ Studio City neighborhood, Girls Make Beats has created another world.

It’s a sunny afternoon in mid-February, and glow-in-the dark stars projected over a walk-in closet’s walls and ceiling have set the mood for a universe of infinite possibilities. The cozy room with a mic set up at the center is now a recording booth where Miss Karissa B, Mak10, C Bleu, DJ JoJo, and Bailey—all between the ages of 7 and 14— will record vocals for an album. For some of these Girls Make Beats (GMB) L.A. chapter members, this won’t be their first rodeo.

Their names may not pop up on social media feeds yet, but these girls are building an impressive list of credits as DJs, producers, songwriters, rappers, and performers; some can already boast about getting industry guidance from popular music stars Janelle Monáe and Tinashe. And if you ask them, they’re just warming up.

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L to R: Bailey, Miss Karissa B, C Bleu, DJ JoJo, and Mak10

Founded by recording artist, producer and engineer Tiffany Miranda, Girls Make Beats is the national organization giving girls between the ages of 5 and 17 the tools to become the industry’s next-generation DJs, engineers, and producers. Through mentorship, summer camps, networking events, workshops—including how to use Pro Tools, Launchpad and Ableton—and more, Miranda, along with other women professionals, are creating opportunities for girls to get real hands-on experience. 

Speaking to GRAMMY.com, Miranda says she founded the non-profit in order to fill a huge void she saw as an aspiring engineer. 

"When I took an initial interest in music production there was no sense of community for girls," Miranda recalls. "I literally had men telling me that girls don't make beats."

In 2020, going into a GMB studio session continues to be more like fantasy than reality. Walk into a professional studio and chances there won’t be several women in the room. While the digital age has made music-making more accessible than ever, breaking into—or being fully accepted by—the industry isn’t a given and women continue to be underrepresented throughout it.

According to the University of Southern California’s USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, out of all the performers credited on the 2019 Billboard Hot 100 Year-End chart, only 22.1 percent were female. Over an eight-year period, women have made up only 21.7 percent of artists credited on those charts. While the numbers show that over half of artists were women of color in 2019, it’s a different story for them behind the music.

"The music industry has virtually erased female producers, particularly women of color, from the popular charts," USC professor Stacy L. Smith said in a statement released with the study. "As producers fill a leading creative role, it’s essential to ensure that women from all backgrounds are being considered and hired throughout the industry."

Smith, who has been leading research on gender in music and film at the university, added that it is crucial for the industry to recognize the problem and make room for women in all areas of the business. A series of studies she has led reveals a slight rise in some areas for women in music, but the numbers continue to be concerning. The latest study shows 2.6 percent of women were credited as producers on the Billboard Hot 100 Year-End Charts from 2012 to 2019. Across an analysis of five years, only eight of the 29 producing credits by women analyzed belonged to women of color. Meanwhile, the ratio of men to underrepresented women in the industry is 133 to 1.

"I literally had men telling me that girls don't make beats."

When it comes to engineering, the numbers are worrisome as well. In a 2018 analysis, USC found that just 3 percent of mixing and mastering engineers were women. No information was available about how many of them were women of color.

The figures come from a greater study examining gender, race and ethnicity through 800 songs on the charts from 2012–2019. Eight years of GRAMMY Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Producer of the Year, and Best New Artist nominations were also analyzed in the report.

Looking at the GRAMMYs, there has been a rise in female nominees. In 2020, 20.5 percent of nominees were female. In 2013, that number was at 7.9 percent. The Recording Academy launched its Task Force on Diversity and Inclusions in 2018 to address disparities among nominees. When it comes to Producer Of The Year, Non-Classical, nine women have received the nomination since the award show opened its curtains, according to the Associated Press. The Recording Academy’s Women In The Mix initiative launched in 2019 seeks to give more opportunities to female producers and engineers at the root by asking artists and music professionals to work with more women. Since then, artists like Selena Gomez have taken the pledge. The pop singer said it was important for her to feature women all around on her latest album Rare, which included female producers and engineers.  

Beyond lack of presence and opportunity, a 2018 survey by the Music Industry Research Association (MIRA)  showed that women, who made up roughly one-third of musicians, reported high rates of harassment—72 percent said they were discriminated against because of their gender and 67 percent said they had experienced sexual harassment. 

As the music industry looks to address problems based on racial inequality in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, the lack of women of color across the industry is more relevant than ever.

Active since 2012, GirlsMakeBeats hasn't left the future of women of color in the industry’s hands and they aren’t going to start now. Every day the organization works towards empowering girls to become the engineers, producers, songwriters and performers the industry lacks. For any girl entering GMB’s spaces, they not only get to dream, but they get to actually create.

"I feel like when I’m working on my songs and my raps, I know what I’m doing," nine-year-old Mak10 says before her L.A. studio session begins. "This is cool. I can do this, nothing can stop me now."

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Mak10 is just one of the girls already deeply shaped by the non-profit. Other girls in the program have DJ’d events for Spotify, the Los Angeles Clippers, ASCAP, and other big-name entities. Girls from the Miami chapter officially remixed Janet Jackson’s "Made For Now" featuring Daddy Yankee. A couple of months after their recording session in Los Angeles, Mak10 and DJ JoJo led a beat-making workshop at Santa Monica, Calif.’s Apple Store using one of Victoria  Monét's songs before the singer/songwriter participated in a Q&A session. GMB has even been recognized by ESSENCE.

Professional mentorship and guidance for women of color is a tool that can mean everything for their future in the industry. For parents, the program isn’t just an opportunity for their child to get one foot in the music door, but to build confidence before they become young women.

DJ JoJo's mother, Lanesha Jones, tells GRAMMY.com how her daughter was bullied because of her mixed racial background. But thanks to GMB, JoJo has overcome it. Jones now hopes that her daughter continues to gain confidence and, if she chooses to stay in the industry as an adult, joins in the effort to make space for girls like her.

"My daughter is going to be one of those young women showing other women that if this is your passion if this is your goal, this what we’re going to do. Not what we think we can do or what we’re hoping we can do. This is what we’re going to do," Jones says.

The mom adds that it makes a huge difference that her daughter is being taught by women: "A woman can relate more with a woman, and I feel more comfortable personally as a parent with my daughter being taught by a woman."

"We definitely want this to be a global movement of confidence for girls all over the world, whether it's expressing that through their music or whatever it is they choose to do," Miranda says. "[We want them to] know that they can break those barriers and do whatever they put their mind to and not be limited."

So far, more than 300 girls have been through one of GMB’s programs and events. 

"[Our girls] are always hungry for more knowledge and more skills and opportunities in these career fields. So the fact that there haven't been women or girls in these fields for so long is really just mind-blowing and it goes to show you that a lot of that lies in if you can see it, you can be it."

GMB's programs make a point of creating opportunities for all girls, but with the awareness that girls of color face additional obstacles. Miranda wants to make the path easier for girls and works with other women through GMB to do just that.

"[I have] that common ground with other women that I see succeeding in their fields and knowing what they must have been through to get where they are and collectively working together to make a brighter future and empower this next generation of girls so that they don't have to face even half the challenges that we've gone through. If we've done that's a huge success for us," she says.

Before COVID-19, girls would host, DJ and perform at in-person studio sessions. Now, GMB, like much of the industry, has pivoted to virtual events. These include a series of MasterClass collaborations (including forthcoming classes in August) and a digital T.V. series that Janelle Monáe helped inaugurate and has also featured Tinashe as well as Chloe x Halle.

A few months after the studio session in L.A., Miranda reflects on how she’s had to change the way she builds community among the girls, who are like family to her, as she continues to lead a small team and wear several hats. To stay connected, the organization has begun to hold calls with girls around the country.

"On these calls, we have all of those girls from different parts of the U.S. [and] being that we're a small team, it was a little more challenging to do things like that when our efforts were in physical locations, working with a small group. So I think the plus side of it is, we're able to stay connected virtually in a larger capacity," she says.

As GMB continues to navigate the COVID-19 world, Miranda welcomes new collaborations for MasterClasses, their online T.V. show, podcasts and remix challenges.

"I think it's definitely more important than ever for the girls to have an outlet to be creative and inspired during these challenging times," she says. "Our girls often refer to music as being an escape and a form of expression. Our program is making a huge effort in providing the tools necessary for them to do so while also keeping our girls connected with one another."

The wave of conversations on race brought by Floyd’s death weeks into the pandemic has only cemented GMB's mission to make space for young girls of color. Miranda knows the challenges these girls are up against as a woman of color herself. "[There] is kind of a double-edged sword that we face as not just women, but as women of color, because it's not only [that] are we constantly being tested on the fact that we're girls and women and we have to prove ourselves, but on top of that, we also have the race card as well to have to go up against,” she explains during a Zoom call a few weeks after reflecting on navigating the pandemic.

"We are extremely passionate about trying to empower girls and women that have not been given the same opportunities as men, but even more so in communities that are typically underserved, which happens to deal with a lot of black and brown young girls."

GMB's programs are scholarship-based (the majority of the program is at no cost) and rely heavily on donations, grants and sponsorships, which help make it accessible to girls from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. This summer, almost 50 scholarships were awarded, thanks to composers Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow, Spotify, Airbit, and Facebook.

As the country looks inward on racial inequality and inequity, Miranda firmly validates what GMB has been doing all along: "We're actually doing the work. We're actually going there, we're actually going into underserved communities, we're actually working with girls who are underrepresented."

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