Extreme Music

Extreme Music
Industry Music production
Founded 1997
Founders Russell Emanuel and Dolphin Taylor
Headquarters London, England, UK
Area served
 Worldwide
Number of employees
 82
Parent Sony/ATV Music Publishing
Website extrememusic.com

Extreme Music is a production music company. The production arm of Sony/ATV Music Publishing, the company creates and licenses music for use in television, film, advertising, and online media. Their library consists of over 15,000 original copyrights, covering music in a wide variety of genres.[1] It includes music from artists and composers such as Quincy Jones, Hans Zimmer, George Martin, Snoop Dogg, Xzibit, and Junkie XL. Extreme Music is headquartered in London, with its creative operations based in a 7,500 square-foot production compound in Santa Monica, California.[1][2][3][4]

History

Extreme Music

Extreme Music was founded in London by Russell Emanuel and Dolph Taylor in 1997. Emanuel had played bass with a punk band, Class Ties, and worked a day job as a studio assistant at MCA Music Publishing and Abbey Road Studios. After leaving MCA, Emanuel worked at Bruton, a production music library which produced sound-alike music that was recorded, produced, and licensed inexpensively. He recorded one sound-alike album for Bruton, and financed his band’s touring through the royalties the album generated.[3][5]

Emanuel also managed bands, including Stiff Little Fingers. After beginning a job at a third production library, MatchMusic, Emanuel and Stiff Little Fingers drummer Dolph Taylor began to compose music for MatchMusic together. They built a MIDI suite, and when not on tour, they recorded original tracks that reflected their own musical sensibilities. "We were forever knocking our heads against old-school attitudes and being told that 'This is what the marketplace likes.' But we were seeing a new generation of editors coming into the industry and going to clubs and hearing all these thumping records, and they wanted to know why production music didn't sound like that," Taylor said in a 2003 interview. Taylor and Emanuel decided to approach commercial artists, some of whom they already knew, and ask them to record production music tracks.[5]

With a $100,000 investment from angel investor Mark Levinson, Extreme Music was founded in 1997. The company was positioned to reflect the punk rock ethos of its founders; for example, they mailed condoms to 1000 music industry executives with packaging that read "Extreme Music: The Only Safe Thing You'll Ever Get From Us." With a focus on production, they "upped the industry ante by using professional recording studios and top-notch musicians." By keeping the library's emphasis on quality over quantity, they streamlined the process of selecting music for advertising agencies and music supervisors.[3][5]

By 2005, Extreme Music had built one of the most profitable production music libraries in the UK. In August 2005 it was bought by Viacom for $45.1 million, and in 2008 it was acquired by Sony/ATV Music Publishing. The terms of the sale were not disclosed.[3][6][7][8]

In January 2013, Extreme introduced Customix, the first web application created specifically for music supervisors to quickly customize songs from its library. It offered complete control to users, allowing the manipulation of individual stems of a track, including the ability to adjust the volume of or mute individual elements, modify tempo without changing pitch, and edit the length of a song without first cutting it into segments. The Customix software was developed in conjunction with Menlo Park technology company UJAM.[2][9][10]

Extreme Music tracks have been licensed by editors, music producers and music supervisors at production companies, networks and advertising agencies, including A+E, Fox, BBC, HBO, the NFL and Apple. Among other productions, music from the Extreme library has been used in Mad Men, Ray Donovan, Dancing with the Stars, Birdman, Creed and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.[3][11][12]

In August 2013, Extreme partnered with composer Hans Zimmer and his business partner, Steve Kofsky, to found Bleeding Fingers Music. A joint venture, it creates show-specific libraries and scores for unscripted, reality, documentary and light drama television shows. In 2017, it was ranked as the leading custom music scoring company in the industry.[13][1][14]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Mitchelll, Julian (February 8, 2017). "Meet The CEO Spearheading A $2B Global Music Market". Forbes. Retrieved 28 December 2017.
  2. 1 2 Gray, Tyler (August 9, 2013). "Can Hans Zimmer Make Reality TV Music Suck Less?". Fast Company. Retrieved 5 July 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Aswad, Jem (November 19, 2012). "Russell Emmanuel: Taking It To Extremes". Billboard. Retrieved 5 July 2016.
  4. ↑ Matthews, Christopher M. (July 28, 2015). "When Things Get Real on TV, Music Pays Real Well". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 18 July 2016.
  5. 1 2 3 Inglis, Sam (June 1, 2003). "Russell Emanuel & Dolph Taylor Of Extreme Music". Sound on Sound. Archived from the original on June 6, 2015. Retrieved 18 July 2016.
  6. ↑ Butler, Susan (April 28, 2007). "Famous Price Could Hit Half a Billion". Billboard. Retrieved 5 July 2016.
  7. ↑ Mair, Bob (June 14, 2011). "Music Libraries: From Last Resort to Power Players". Film Music Magazine. Retrieved 5 July 2016.
  8. ↑ BMN staff (May 22, 2002). "Technology & facilities - EXTREME MUSIC VENTURE". Broadcast Music Now (subscription required). Retrieved 5 July 2016.
  9. ↑ Berkman, Fran (January 23, 2013). "New Web App Customizes Music for TV and Movies". Mashable. Retrieved 5 July 2016.
  10. ↑ Jarvey, Natalie (January 23, 2013). "Extreme Music Launches Music Editing Tool". LA Business Journal. Retrieved 5 July 2016.
  11. ↑ Morris, Christopher (April 21, 2011). "Timbaland and Mike "Daddy" Evans make Extreme pact". Variety. Retrieved 18 July 2016.
  12. ↑ "Extreme Music". imdb.com. IMDb. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  13. ↑ Grieving, Tim (24 August 2016). "Bleeding Fingers Stretches Its Grasp With 'Planet Earth II'". Variety. Retrieved 21 September 2016.
  14. ↑ Galo, Phil (August 12, 2013). "Sony/ATV's Extreme Music and Hans Zimmer Form Joint Venture: The Bleeding Fingers Custom Music Shop". Billboard. Retrieved 5 July 2016.
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