Alexander McQueen Will Soundtrack Your Home Fashion Show
For those of you nearing mind-numbing agony from spending weeks at home — like we are — fashion brand Alexander McQueen’s new Spotify channel could be the soundtrack to your next DIY project. The channel, launched Monday with a collection of playlists and songs from previous McQueen runway shows, is sure to be a nice (read: nicely ironic) companion to your 24th day of sweatpants and ratty band T-shirts.
The McQueen playlists feature orchestral numbers and vogue techno pop songs featured in previous shows from the designer. Totaling about nine hours, the playlists were curated by John Gosling, who’s been in charge of the fashion shows’ soundtracks for over 20 years, according to the company. Classical compositions from Mozart and instrumental tracks from film scores including Arrival and Interstellar are both in the mix. Many of the songs are ethereal and calming — much-needed qualities for the moment. (Although, much like these days spent at home detached from the outside world, the instrumentals do just meld into one after a while.)
With large swaths of the U.S. stuck at home these days, companies are gravitating to music as a way to connect with fans, consumers, and audiences. McQueen’s new comes as streaming numbers on the whole are dropping amid the Covid-19 pandemic, but the data shows that certain types of music are spiking with specific audiences. As songs about the virus itself swirl around on viral charts, no pun intended — from Cardi B’s Instagram rant being sampled in various songs to hitmakers directly naming songs after COVID-19 — music geared toward isolation is also being welcomed into the fold.
McQueen will soon be adding more playlists to the channel with collaboration from English composer Isobel Waller Bridge and the London Contemporary Orchestra, which made a live soundtrack for the McQueen Spring/Summer 2020 show last October. According to the company, the new channel will continually be updated as McQueen produces more new music for upcoming shows.
