If you’ve ever found yourself inexplicably crying in the middle of a movie or at the end of your favorite TV show, then “*IN SYNC” is a podcast that will hit you right in the feels.
Launching on April 11 from Gotham West Studios, the show breaks down your favorite music moments and explains what makes them so powerful.
Hosts Rachel Brodsky and Aviv Rubinstien tackle one song per episode and explore the origins of both the track as well as the film or television show where it appears, analyzing how the intersection of music and movies and television impacted the zeitgeist and how that needle drop continues to reverberate today.
“Music has such an impact on sense memory,” Rubinstien explained, “and when you’re watching a film or TV show, your brain is stimulated by the story and understanding what’s going on. An amazing song can tie that intellectual understanding to a deeper emotional understanding and make tangible emotions that might not be so easily accessible.”
Brodsky and Rubinstien are uniquely suited to the task. Brodsky is an acclaimed journalist with a passion for pop culture who has worked for the Independent, Grammy.com, Spin and MTV and is currently a writer and editor for Stereogum. Her work has appeared all over the entertainment landscape, including InStyle, the Guardian, Vulture, Nylon, GQ, Uproxx, Paste, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly and the Los Angeles Times.
Rubinstien is a filmmaker and musician — he sings in the band Jacob the Horse — with technical proficiency in bringing creative projects to life. He also teaches screenwriting and filmmaking at Emerson College and Hussian College Los Angeles.
Together they provide listeners with their expertise as well as access to those who work behind the scenes to create the dream of the movie or TV show: namely the music supervisors and music editors who find the perfect song and then make sure it syncs up with the scene. They’re the ones who make you tear up in the middle of “John Wick 4” or at the end of your favorite episode of “Monk” — enterprises not typically associated with dramatic pathos.
For Brodsky, much of what‘s moving about the right song at the right moment is tied to memory — both individual and cultural: “I’m very interested in the 20-year nostalgia cycle,” Brodsky said. “It’s something I’ve written about and have conversations with artists about it.” When Brodsky interviews a subject, she’s not just interested in what they’re doing now, but how the art they’re making draws from previous eras.
“*IN SYNC” is more than about what’s trending. “We’re talking about old songs,” Rubinstien said, “songs that are older than the target demographics of these shows.” Brodsky and Rubinstien are fascinated with the “layers of nostalgia” that evolve when music from a previous generation goes viral today, like the goth dance sequence in Netflix’s “Wednesday.”
The origins of “*IN SYNC” began when Brodsky and Rubinstien bumped into each other outside the Silver Lake apartment building where they both live.
Brodsky had the initial idea for the project after writing about the use of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” in “Stranger Things” last summer but had limited experience producing podcasts. So she buttonholed Rubinstien while he was out walking his dog, a pit bull mix named Chubbs.
“I tried to play it cool,” Rubinstien said, “because I was very interested by this idea, but I didn’t want to immediately take over and be like, ‘Yes, make me your co-host and I’ll help you!’”
A quick 10-minute meeting turned into a two-hour brainstorming session where they mapped out the first 10 episodes of the show.
The first episode explores the moment when Sia’s “Breathe Me” played during the last scenes of the final episode of “Six Feet Under” on Aug. 21, 2005.
Sia is a pop megastar today, but when the finale aired she wasn’t nearly as well known. Brodsky and Rubinstien assert it was this moment that catapulted her into mainstream success that culminated with “Chandelier” in 2014. Six of the show’s many Emmy nominations came from the last episode of “Six Feet Under.” The duo also meticulously debunks some of the false assertions and revisionist history that have sprung up around the show after it became a critical and commercial hit.
In future episodes, Brodsky and Rubinstien will be dissecting songs from “That Thing You Do,” “Fight the Power” and even “Shrek.” With more than a half-dozen episodes in the can, “*IN SYNC” is seeking suggestions from listeners. “Everyone has a favorite music moment,” Brodsky said, and they want to hear yours.
It’s a fascinating time for a podcast like “*IN SYNC” because the marriage of music and moving images has never felt more fraught. Music moments call to mind a specific time and place. For instance, the soundtrack to Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” is so evocative because of the ubiquity of the soundtrack in the fall of 1994 and the stylized violence of the film. Those factors make it instantly identifiable and emblematic of the era.
Today media is consumed via streaming services where viewers can watch whenever they want and listeners curate their own playlists. Songs like “Breathe Me” and “Jungle Boogie” can live together on the same playlist and acquire relevance for an audience of one. In a way, we are our own music supervisors, putting together songs for the soundtrack of our lives.
“*IN SYNC” celebrates those moments when we were all watching and listening together.
Jim Ruland’s new novel, ”Make It Stop,” will be out later this month.
