GOOOOOOOOAL!
EA’s Steve Schnur and Cybele Pettus are profiled in ESPN The Magazine's Music Issue (dated Feb. 2). In the piece, the two execs are described as “music tastemakers... But instead of delivering a top 40 on your FM dial, they drop their hit list on each EA Sports videogame soundtrack.” Schnur and Pettus have been choosing the tracks for the FIFA, Madden, NBA and NHL games for more than a decade, impacting artist careers at least as much as film and TV music supes.
As the story points out, Imagine Dragons were featured on FIFA 2013 just before Night Visions became Spotify's most streamed album in the U.S. that year. "What once was MTV and radio to an older generation is now FIFA and Madden," says Schnur. "We don't take that for granted. We look at 1,000 bands to get to the 40 [on each game]."
