ANNE MARIE TO STEPHEN:

AM: What is your favorite song?

SB: Gotta go with vaere med deg by Ka2. I wanna be where they are right now.

AM: Have you heard any of these tracks before?

SB: A few solid ones, Joshua Henry, Maggie Rogers and FTP with one of my favorites…Poolside.

AM: Historically, artists sometimes use song title names that other artists in other genres have used before. What's one instance of this that you can think of, where the resulting songs are both very different but great tracks in their own way?

SB: Man, this one’s tough. I definitely think about that in the moment when I see the new song title pop up, but off the cuff it’s much harder to dig up. After doing some digging a few that I found were “It’s too late” by Foxy Shazam and Wild Belle. Both great groups. Both great, very different sounding songs. Another I’d put into the same category would be “California” by Phantom Planet and Jean Tonique. Feel like there are a lot about California…maybe I just make the next playlist all California-themed titles.

STEPHEN TO ANNE MARIE:

SB: What is your favorite song?

AM: Kenny by Nana Lourdes. I’m not even going through a breakup and this song feels like a mood. Forrest Nolan and that horn section are a close second.

SB: Have you heard any of these tracks before?

AM: Zhavia Ward.

SB: What's one of your favorite brand jingles or songs?

AM: You’re going to laugh but “Riiiiiiicola!” was the first thing that popped into my head. I guess I like that one because they knew what their product was and they made a campaign that (tone and humor-wise) fit it. Sometimes there’s a great song (I’m Lovin’ It by JT) that gets co-opted by a brand like McDonalds and it just ruins the song for people. It’s wild to me when brands try to find a cool song or jingle that really doesn’t match the coolness level of their product. Nice sunglasses and swanky hotels and high end bourbon is a small, logical leap to cool. But my office supplies are not. I know you’re coming from the other side of this brand argument and going to say that anything can be rebranded into anything (true). But, often times I see ads and think, am I back in high school? Was this brand’s objective just to have a “hip” ad? I see the ads pandering to 20 and 30-somethings in LA all around me in my daily life. Versus ads telling me a story about them and their origins, what they want to be about for the next 10 years, etc.