Buy Now!

Although the film deals with the important and (potentially) depressing subjects of over consumption, planned obsolescence, and the environmental consequences of waste, the concept of the film was to approach it with playfulness and a lightness of touch. We felt that a finger-wagging, hectoring ‘call to arms’ about the issue would largely fall on deaf ears. Why not instead take many of the techniques and gimmicks that companies use in advertising to convince us to buy their products, and instead ‘trick’ viewers into watching a programme that makes all of us to think harder about the consequences of our purchases.

Visually the film is shiny, inventive and fresh feeling, with amazing work from the graphics company Compost, and the music wanted to feel the same way. In many scores I’m keen to include organic elements (live players, natural sound, sonic imperfections), but on this one I took a different approach and wanted to make music that felt like it had been through a lot of processing, or might even have been generated by a collection of discarded or defunct technology. I used quite a few early electronic synthesisers and samplers to make the score; one instrument I used a lot was a Casio SK-1, a small (and very low quality) sampling keyboard from 1985, with which you can record your own voice and then play it musically across a keyboard! I also used a worthless piece of plastic sold on Amazon as a ‘Musical Toy Gift’ in the shape of an elk (!!) which you squeeze to get notes out of! With a bit of processing and looping, I made a funky and playful soundtrack to accompany Nirav, a whistle-blower and ex-employee of Apple.

The director liked the idea of using familiar classical pieces, so after giving it some thought, I chose to include the ’Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ made famous by the scene in Fantasia where Mickey Mouse is overwhelmed by multiplying brooms (which seemed very apt). My version is all synthetic however, and doesn’t attempt to sound much like the familiar orchestral version. For my version of Danse Macabre I did record a live violinist, but then glitched it up a lot on the computer so that the human quality of the original recording is gradually mangled and distorted.

The team wanted a song on the end of the film to reinforce the message, so I wrote the music and lyrics for a finale song which summed up the key ‘lessons’.

I’m really proud of how Buy Now turned out, and while I’m often glad in documentary scores for the score to take a back seat and let the contributors do the talking, this was a case where the music had a central role not only in communicating the key messages of the film, but setting the tone, which is (I hope) inviting, playful and eclectic.

Buy Now was released just before Black Friday in November 2024. I wasn’t sure how audiences would respond to the film, but the most gratifying response I’ve seen posted hundreds of times on social media is something along the lines of, “I’m not buying any more worthless plastic crap!” or “I’m going to rethink my purchasing habits after this film!”. I can’t think of anything I could be prouder of than that.

A soundtrack album will be forthcoming soon, but in the meantime, there are some tracks from the film’s score on this page.