Atlantic Launches Podcast Initiative

• Atlantic Records has launched an in-house podcast initiative with its own dedicated podcast production team. The company is also building a podcast-specific studio at its New York City headquarters, which is scheduled to be up and running this spring.

The Atlantic Records Podcasts initiative is the brainchild of Atlantic’s Tom Mullen, Vice President, Marketing Catalog (pictured, below), who has hosted his own acclaimed podcast music series, Washed Up Emo for seven years. Atlantic Records Podcasts premieres with its first weekly series, What’d I Say, featuring intimate interviews with current Atlantic recording artists Jason Mraz, Whethan, MILCK, Lil Skies, Chappell Roan, Trivium, Sweater Beats, Josie Dunne and Molly Kate Kestner. The series takes its name from the Ray Charles classic, released by Atlantic in 1959. Other podcast series on deck include Inside the Album, Respect: Women of Atlantic, and a series devoted to the rich Atlantic Records archives.

In announcing the podcast initiative, Atlantic Chairman & CEO Craig Kallman and Chairman & COO Julie Greenwald said, “Music-making is at the heart of our company, and we already have a state-of-the-art recording studio at the center of our offices. We have a constant stream of artists coming through the building, so the next logical step for us was to create an environment where we could spontaneously capture them telling their stories and talking about their music. With our own podcast team and a dedicated podcast studio, we are able to give fans a unique, insider’s view of our artists, our label, and the creative process in action. With Tom’s deep musical knowledge and podcast expertise leading the charge, we are generating exciting audio content under our own roof, marked by unprecedented insight and immediacy.”

Mullen noted, “As I discovered doing my own podcasts, they are an incredibly powerful way of feeding fans’ hunger for intimate knowledge of the artists they love, while also connecting them to new voices. The birth of Atlantic Records Podcasts has been a labor of love for many of us at the company, and I’m looking forward to working with our incredible artists and my label teammates to create an outstanding series of shows devoted to Atlantic music past, present, and future. I want to thank Craig and Julie for their amazing support of the project and for giving me this opportunity to turn a personal passion into an actual part of my job. It doesn’t get much better than that.”