How we made The Sounds Of Christmas
MATT WRITES: Merry Christmas! Ok, a bit late, but as we’ve been finding out Christmas is a 12-month-round operation…
Towards the middle of 2018, we received a message to The Modern Mann challenging contributor Ollie Peart to 'write a Christmas song'. I thought it was a fun idea, but fancied taking it a bit further. Spin forward a few months, and 'The Sounds of Christmas' has made it into the Official Download Charts' Top 40.
Written and arranged by Little Mix/One Direction maestro Philippe-Marc Anquetil (along with, yes, Mr Peart), and performed by a twelve fantastic podcasts under the banner Podcast All-Stars, the project involved a lot of ADMIN and NEGOTIATION but ultimately raised thousands of pounds for charity.
We announced the challenge at the end of October on The Modern Mann, and charted Ollie's progress as he wrote and recorded the song, found a label and launched the track into music stories.
Along the way we were helped by the voice of NOW compilations Mark Goodier, Acast donated ad space to the record, and got a huge response from our listeners.
Most striking of all was the interview we did with Samuel's Charity founder Martin Leib, which not only moved thousands to buy the 99p record, but also many to donate larger sums direct to the charity.
It was an amazing thing to be a part of, and really showed what the power of podcast audiences can achieve in changing lives - and generally doing some good in the world. In the end we raised over £7000 for Samuel’s Charity, through song sales and listeners donating directly to the cause.
The Modern Mann returns with a new series soon…