The “really special” album that blew Adam Scott away: “I mean, holy shit”
If you haven’t managed to see either of the two seasons of Severance since it debuted on Apple TV+ back in 2022, then trust us, you really should make it a priority. It’s a dazzling display of writing, acting and filmmaking that twists and turns and confuses and surprises and and its core is a career-high performance from Adam Scott.
Watching the show is to be entirely immersed in the world of Lumon Industries and the characters who inhabit the corporate nightmare within, obsessed with ‘innies’ and ‘outies’ and hidden meanings, scouring the internet for theories and discussions and explanations.
The other fantastic thing about Severance is that it features a superb soundtrack; not just the main theme that will stick in your head for weeks on end, but thanks to the use of songs in scenes throughout the show, many of which will have you wondering how they picked them and then running to Spotify to see if there’s a playlist just for Severance (there is).
One example of this prodigious music-picking comes in season two, when an episode cold open is soundtracked by the towering ‘Love Spreads’ by The Stone Roses from their ridiculously underrated album The Second Coming. It had those indie fans among us questioning which of the Americans knew their music well enough to pick it, and if there were any connotations buried in the lyrics that might shed more light on the plot.
Who was the person responsible for looking back 30 years and plucking a certified British rock classic from the archives to underpin such a scene? Could it be the show’s director, Ben Stiller, who is a self-confessed muso and has appeared in no less than eight music videos for the likes of SZA and Travis? Or perhaps it was Adam Scott himself, who is definitely a big fan of guitar music, as he revealed to Pitchfork while discussing the albums that made him who he is today.
Scott grew up in the 1980s and was given a musical education by his guitar-loving older brother, who would play the likes of REM and Led Zeppelin for his sibling. While listing some LPs by U2 and Vampire Weekend that have really blown him away over the last few decades, he somewhat surprisingly landed on a record by Waxahatchee, the Alabama musical project started by singer-songwriter Katie Crutchfield.
The band started off in 2010 and has since released six albums over the years, finishing off with the Grammy Award-nominated Tiger’s Blood, released last year. Of the album, Scott raved: “I feel like that album just dropped like a bomb. This is some of the best songwriting I’ve heard in so long and just so beautifully rendered. I mean, holy shit. There’s something about her delivery to her phrasing that you really don’t doubt her for a second.”
He recounted how this singular experience is quite rare, mentioning, “It doesn’t happen that often where an artist really kind of hits you in the solar plexus, and she did that for me. I just love it. I think it’s like Joshua Tree or Abbey Road. This is a really special album, and I think it will be one of those albums that people will be shining a light on in 25 years.”
Scott, meanwhile, will be back for Severance season three toward the end of next year, but Stiller won’t be returning to direct, although he has had a major hand in writing the show. Scott will also soon be seen with Robert De Niro in the spooky psychological drama The Whisper Man, and we only expect great surprises from the man.
