Outliers in the music supervision field this Emmy season include “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” which used songs by Ariana Grande, Janet Jackson and Britney Spears performed as the queens battle it out in epic lip sync battles, and “Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical,” the viral sensation.
Season 13 of “Drag Race” helped several songs surge on streaming, including “Rumors” by Lindsay Lohan, and also saw original numbers written for the contestants chart. “U.K, Hun?” was a No. 1 in the U.K after being featured in the Brit version of the show.
Writer-composer Freddy Scott says of the process: “We always start with what is the catchiest, most broadly infectious earwormy way to deliver lyrics and melody and then work backwards on how that fits into the context of each episode.”
“Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical” marks the first time that a TikTok sensation is eligible for an Emmy. based on the Pixar film, the musical was a community-based experience that attracted Wayne Brady, Tituss Burgess and Adam Lambert.
Composer Daniel Mertzlufft and creator Emily Jacobsen inspired content creators to contribute songs and videos. Says Mertzlufft: “‘Remember My Name’ was written in reverse order of how an ‘I want’ song should ever be written. We knew we had to arrive at ‘Remy the Ratatouille,’ the song that started the Ratatouille musical movement, but we had to justify the melody and lyrics from the very beginning, so once we arrived there it felt worthwhile and magical. We drew from the classic Howard Ashman and Alan Menken Disney songs, and wrote Remy’s want: that ‘the world will remember my name.’”
