A24 music: Reinventing synergy through musical paratexts

Abstract

Since its inception in 2012, the film producer/distributor A24 has relied on building and sustaining hype across its niche fanbase of cinephiles. The 2021 launch of their subsidiary label A24 Music made official a longstanding aspect in A24’s marketing strategy: its tight-knit association with indie music culture. In the age of what Claudia Gorbman calls the mélomane (or music-loving auteur), A24 has established itself in many ways as a mélomane among production companies, fostering a synergy with music cultures that factors into what Jordan Brower calls its brand pedagogy. While Brower argues that A24’s brand pedagogy positions itself as a steward of global film culture, this article will argue that their brand pedagogy extends to music cultures as well. Building upon Sarah Thornton’s theories of subcultural capital, Jonathan Gray’s work on paratextuality, and Jeff Smith and Michael Z. Newman’s respective studies on film music synergy and indie film culture, I will position A24 within a lineage of cultural and industrial trends that have made it possible for a production company to assume the role of mélomane. Through analysis of A24’s musical paratexts both online and off (including trailers, podcasts, YouTube features, playlists, vinyl records, zines, and merch offerings), I will illustrate how the brand has reinvented synergy between cinephile audiences and musical subcultures for the 21st century. This article will end with a case study of A24’s 2023 re-release of Talking Heads’ concert film Stop Making Sense, wherein they deployed an arsenal of paratextual strategies to cultivate intergenerational synergy and double-down on a brand pedagogy that’s fully committed to educating viewers about music cultures of the past and present.