Eater caution: If you haven’t seen “The Dropout” in Hulu, don’t read it.
While creating the soundtrack for Hulu’s “The Dropout”, music supervisor Maggie Phillips and show creator Elizabeth Meriweather searched, as Phillips put it, “2010 songs scream.”
Set between 2003 and 2018, “The Dropout” chronicles the rise and fall of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes (Amanda Sefrid) as she has been accused of fraud since founding a প্রযুক্ত 9 billion medical technology company. Based on the ABC News podcast of the same name, the limited series has been critically acclaimed for its writing, acting and music, covering everything from Katy Perry’s “Firework” to Lil Wayne’s “How to Love”.
Phillips, who co-directed the show with coordinators Kristen Higuera and Andrew Brady, was attracted to it because he had never worked on a project with music released in his adult years.
“[It’s] A period that I knew very well, so it was tempting, ”Phillips said. “The lease was very clear, and I agree with him 100%, that we really wanted it to be about scheduling and picking big ticket songs. . “
Below, Phillips discusses the show’s best needle drops, almost a song from Kanye West, and clears up the story behind Tyler’s (Dylan Minette) awkward serenade on Elizabeth’s birthday.
The show is a time capsule of 2000 and 2010 hits, and of course, based on a real life story. How to inform something like that?
Alabama songs in episode 1 [“I’m in a Hurry (And Don’t Know Why)”], We knew it was one of his favorite songs. It is also documented that he listened to a lot of hip-hop and rap, so we leaned in for a lot of music.
We first see that Elizabeth Holmes loves to dance awkwardly. In Episode 2, she dances to Miss Elliott’s “We Run This”. How come that song comes to be liked?
This is one of the first things we do to choose a lease and clean up before an epidemic. This has changed several times. I saw it for her, she pumped herself up. It’s almost like pre-party music or workout music or the song you sang to boost your confidence. But then it kind of unravels the episode. So we start with her dancing, and even though it’s awkward and weird, you’re feeling her and you’re excited for her. And then it became her idea to pitch to all these men and no one was buying it, but she was still playing music.
In episode 4, Katy Perry’s “Firework” is skillfully used because Walgreens hears it in her car before meeting VP J. Rosen (Alan Rock) Theranos and quotes her song at the end of the episode. How did it come about, and was it on the radio or was he listening to the CD?
We thought it could be. We wanted a song that my mom would know and a 20 year old would know because it’s a song you still hear on the radio – a song that has stood the test of time since then, something that screams 2010 but feels a bit relevant, And something that is believable that this guy would listen to it on the radio and play it, or he would actually pick it up himself. We were in the Obama era – music was more promising, music was to build us up, to give us hope, to make us ambitious and to make us feel good. [Theranos] Many were blind led by the blind, and all their musical choices were helpful, ambitious tunes. With the exception of a few, most music choices are more fun, optimistic and speak to that part of the story and not to the hidden underbelly that scores the original.
Was there a problem licensing the song?
It’s a song that has been licensed a ton before, so it wasn’t a huge challenge. That [type of] Music tickets cost more, so there it is, but it wasn’t a hard clearance. I mean, most people were excited to be a part of this show. We tried to clear a Kanye West song, and there was interest from his people, but we couldn’t clear it in time. There were other times when we didn’t hear from the ear, so we were, “Wow.”
I need to ask about the Walgreens’ parody “What I like about you” – was it scripted or did it happen in real life?
It was its brainchild [director] Michael Schulter, with whom I would love to work. We knew it was going to be a tough clear, we knew we were going to do these parody songs, so I actually asked my acquaintances what kind of songs from this time period would be okay with having fun. So we sent Liz and Michael a few songs and they chose “what I like about you”. Actor, he started performing it and I think he added a verse of his own and stuff and he did so well সম্পর্কে that’s what I liked about Liz’s work on this show – it can be so dry, so boring, so frustrating. It’s still hard to see, but he interacts it with some fun and some humanity.
Then in Episode 5, we find another awkward dance scene when Elizabeth tries to seduce Sunny in Lil Wayne’s “How to Love”, which has gone viral ever since. Why was the song perfect for that scene?
We sent some ideas to Liz for that spot from that time and Liz talked to Amanda and they chose it together. I don’t know if it was Liz or Amanda or the director, but it was the perfect song. Gabe Hilfer, another music supervisor, told me a few years ago, “I call myself an alternative provider.” And I like it, because that’s what we do. We are constantly providing options. A lot of factors work when you do this, such as previous usage, price tag, what the lyrics are, whether he will choose this song, whether it has got enough radio play. “Dropout”, more than any event, was actually quite easy to put together a playlist because we only had a range of dates for a few years.
Dylan Minette’s character, Tyler, performed an original song for Elizabeth at her 30th birthday party. He’s obviously musically talented because his own band, Wallace-Dylan, wrote the song and how did the idea come about?
In fact, the guy who wrote the song is my friend from the Guster band, Ryan Miller. Liz was like, “I want something sincere and sincere and harmonious,” and I was like, “Oh, Ryan would be perfect!” And Ryan wrote that, like, one day. This is a sweet song. He was like, “It’s almost like she’s in love with Elizabeth, and it’s almost crunchy but really sweet.” The moment he sings it, he realizes that his idol is lying to them all – he performed it so well.
In addition to the songs on the top 40 radios, the show has a lot of indie music from 2000-2010, such as the LCD sound system and Yeah Yeah Yeah. Why was that important to include?
In the early 2000’s, for me, when I was in my 20’s and lived in Williamsburg and I knew all the indie bands and didn’t listen to the radio because I was too quiet to listen to the radio. So to put together a playlist from indie music since 2002, I can do it in my sleep. And then for [Liz] Pick some of them – it was a lot of fun. We were very careful whenever we put those songs, it was definitely not something that one of the characters chose. It was, we are using it as a score and to give some range to the music. These are the time stamps I think a lot of people who are my age and older, scream it for a certain amount of time. For me, it sounds more like a Missy Elliott song in the early 2000s. But in that Sparklehorse and even yes yes yes, when I introduced them they were playing small shows in New York City – it was a lot of fun.
