MBW’s Key Songs In The Life Of… is a series in which we ask influential music industry figures about the tracks that have – so far – defined their journey and their existence. Flicking through the jukebox of his mind this time is Ole Obermann, Global Head of Music Business Development and IP at TikTok. The Key Songs In The Life Of… series is supported by Sony Music Publishing.
One of the ways to tempt/trick senior execs into the Key Songs slot is to tell them it’s easy. Fun, in fact!
Certainly compared to a grilling on strategy or a trawl through financial results, the unadorned task of picking seven (or so) tracks that have shaped their personal and professional lives is an underarm lob; a soft and fluffy one focused on music rather than the music business. Go on…
Ole Obermann, Global Head of Music Business Development and IP at TikTok is, quite rightly, having none of it. “It’s actually been more stressful than any other interview I’ve done, because you cannot narrow it down to seven songs, you just can’t!”
And when you consider how many tough questions he will have been asked about his company’s recently resolved dispute with Universal (and supporting cast), that’s a real cri de coeur.
As with many problems in the modern music industry, however, it was Taylor Swift who had the solution: “I was inspired by the Eras tour. I went chapter-by-chapter through my life, reflected on what was going on during those times, and there’s always a song that you associate with those memories and those distinct periods of your life.”
Obermann’s industry story so far includes stints as a senior exec at first Sony and then Warner, before joining TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, in 2019. His Key Songs, however, take us on a longer, deeper journey, not just through eras, but across continents, from Long Island to Nigeria via Ibiza…
1) Iron Maiden, Where Eagles Dare (1983)
I grew up on Long Island, outside of New York. My parents are German and Danish and they had moved our family over before I was born.
I think we had a very sort of European upbringing, in a way. I have vivid memories of my father playing classical music on the record player every weekend morning.
My song choice from this era is not a classical piece, although I do think that definitely shaped my interest in music and my appreciation of music – we’ll kind of come back to that later on.
Instead I’m going down a very different route with Where Eagles Dare by Iron Maiden.
I was an obsessed metalhead growing up. I was in a High School band, we were decent. I had a black Gibson Flying V guitar and a pretty amazing mullet.
We were very inspired by Dave Murray and Adrian Smith, who are the two guitarists for Iron Maiden; I was just so into it.
Bruce Dickinson’s vocals are incredible. And they’re just incredible storytellers. I also loved Eddie, the mascot, I loved everything about them.
There’s a venue on Long Island called the Nassau Coliseum, it’s still there to this day. It’s a big old beat-up stadium, but all these metal bands would come through there and I saw many Iron Maiden shows there.
I still listen to this track today, because it’s just a quintessential Iron Maiden song. I go back to metal in general quite a lot; it’s followed me through my life.
2) Beastie Boys, No Sleep Till Brooklyn (1986)
So this is the early/mid-nineties, which were my college years and just after.
Perry Farrell, with Jane’s Addiction, was establishing Lollapalooza and I got to go to some of those shows where you had Beastie Boys, Smashing Pumpkins, Luscious Jackson, Green Day, loads of great bands from that era.
I actually really struggled on this, because which band do you choose out of all that, let alone which one track? Especially if you throw in A Tribe Called Quest, Buggin’ Out, or De La Soul, Me Myself And I; they all represent that era.
But I went with No Sleep Till Brooklyn because I remember it as a fun, somewhat carefree, party time of life and this song completely represents that. Plus, I grew up in Long Island, but I was born in Brooklyn, so I think I could really relate to the song and that genre.
3) Steve Reich, Music For 18 Musicians (Original ECM Recording, 1978)
Now we shift gears in a big way, and we kind of come back to what I mentioned at the beginning, with the classical music influence
My first job out of college was at BMG – there were still five majors at the time. I worked in the jazz and classics part of the label system as a Product Manager, an entry level job. One of the labels that we distributed was ECM, founded by an incredible guy called Manfred Eicher.
We worked all of the catalog and new releases on the label, and part of that catalog was Music For 18 Musicians by Steve Reich. It is classical music in its roots, but it’s very minimalist, almost like a Philip Glass sound.
He never became massively well known, but there are some very hardcore followers of his music. And this one album I would listen to on repeat constantly.
Even to this day, especially if I want to go into a deep thought sort of trance state, this is the album that I will put on.
4) Wilco, Shot In The Arm (1999)
I left BMG in ‘98 and went to graduate school at Northwestern University in Chicago.
When I got there, I knew Wilco already, but I didn’t really know them, not like I would get to know them.
Jeff Tweedy is Chicago-based, so they were often playing smaller venues around that area. So I got to see him in a very small venue in Chicago when I was living there for the two years of graduate school.
The song that I chose is A Shot In The Arm, which is a little earlier in their discography [from 1999’s Summerteeth].
I have to also mention the project with Billy Bragg called Mermaid Avenue, where they wrote and recorded some songs using never-heard Woody Guthrie lyrics. I absolutely love those albums.
There are a lot of songs on there that I could and would have chosen, but the one that really jumps out, if I have to pick one, is Shot In The Arm.
5) Radiohead, Black Star (1995)
After graduate school I moved to San Francisco, which is where I met my wife, Stephanie.
We were actually set up by some friends, and for our first date we had a nice dinner, but that is not what we remember most.
What we remember most is that after dinner we went to an amazing record store called Amoeba Music and we spent hours just going through the vinyl racks together and talking about music.
There was a lot of stuff that we bonded over, but Radiohead was most definitely a band we both loved. Again, it was really hard to pick a single song here, but Black Star is the one I’m going with. We were talking about those days ahead of this conversation, and we both just completely associate this song with when we first met and when we were first getting to know one another; it’s an incredible memory for me.
6) Black Coffee, Stimela (2005)
We’re shifting gears quite a bit again here.
I love Ibiza. I spend a lot of my time there, as much time as I can.
Even going way back, I was drawn into electronic music. There was a series called Global Underground, with DJs like Danny Tenaglia, Deep Dish and Sasha and Digweed, in the late ‘90s/early 2000s, so I was listening to a lot of that stuff.
And then when we moved to London and I got to spend more and more time in Ibiza, I went pretty deep, getting to know the DJs who were playing the clubs there.
The one I will choose here is Black Coffee. It’s actually really hard to choose a song of his, because I think of sets that he plays, as a whole. But there’s a song called Stimela, and that was the one that broke him.
I really enjoy keeping an eye on what DJs like Dimitri Vegas and ANOTR DJ are doing in that dance music community, because they all really lean into the culture and they’re often the first to play and sample really interesting music from around the world and have been leading the way on that for quite a while – ahead of much of the rest of the industry, in fact.
And actually, I’ll link this back to the classical upbringing again. I think a lot of this electronic music, especially some of the deeper house music, it’s very sort of orchestral. The way these really talented DJs produce and engineer this music, they’re creating symphonies.
7) Bleachers featuring Bruce Springsteen, Chinatown (2020)
This is a song that I discovered pretty recently, but it’s really stuck with me.
As I mentioned, I was born in Brooklyn, grew up in Long Island, but I also lived in New Jersey for a number of years.
Bruce Springsteen, obviously, is from New Jersey, and I was lucky enough to see the Broadway show he did a few years ago, telling the story of his life through his songs, which I could really relate to.
But the song that I’m going to pick is a collaboration with Springsteen. Bleachers, Jack Antonoff’s band, have a track called Chinatown, with Bruce Springsteen, which was very critically acclaimed, but is not as well known as it should be.
It is the most amazing song. The lyrics are amazing, the harmonies are amazing, those two singing together… and of course Jack’s from New Jersey as well, so to hear two generations coming together is really special.
What’s funny is that when I saw Springsteen on Broadway, I sat next to Jack. I didn’t know him at the time. I mean, I knew who he was, I was working at Warner Music at the time, and maybe I should have introduced myself. But I didn’t, because he was so into the show, as was I.
Now, I’m lucky enough to have met him and I’ve discovered many songs by the Bleachers and I’m loving them. We’re also doing things with Bleachers on TikTok which is a real thrill.
8) Ckay, Love Nwantiti (2019)
Sorry, I need a bonus track.
I’ve been at TikTok for about five years now, so I went back and I thought about all these songs that have broken over that time.
They’re so diverse, they’re from everywhere, and it’s really hard to pick one, but there’s a track called Love Nwantiti by Ckay, a Nigerian artist.
It’s an Afrobeats song, and it’s a really beautiful, slow, melodic kind of love song. Really early on, our guy who works the Sub-Saharan Africa markets was sharing this and telling us that this is really blowing up and saying it could end up breaking out and becoming a worldwide thing.
Sure enough, weeks/months later, it’s huge in the UK chart, the US chart and the global charts, he’s playing sold out gigs in London and New York and all over the place.
I have to mention that because it represents what I love so much about the last five years at TikTok. I feel like I’ve been able to be a part of these songs, which, in most cases, people haven’t even heard of the artists. And then some crazy viral moment happens on TikTok and two weeks later you’ve got 50 million views, a million creations, it’s starting to work on Spotify and Apple, it’s in the charts…
That’s been the thing that I’ve enjoyed the most about working here and that’s why I really wanted to include this as a bonus track.
