My Ears Through the Years with Rich Adkins

Welcome back to My Ears Through the Years! The series where we delve into your personal musical history, finding out which tunes and tracks have soundtracked your life. 

Next up in the hot seat is the brilliant Rich Adkins, head of production at W+K with over 16 years’ experience producing commercials and integrated projects. But what we really want to know is… what is Rich’s go to song for karaoke?

Q> Hi Rich! Tell us, what was your first musical memory… 

Rich> The most prominent early memories of music for me were travelling in the car to school with my Mum in the early ‘90s. She’d have a rotation of cassette tapes in her car ranging from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, anything by Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Gloria Estefan, George Michael, and Barbra Streisand. My parents also share a love of musical theatre and to this day still perform in shows in their local area, so there would be a LOT of musical soundtracks. On reflection, it was a wildly camp introduction to music. 

Q> What was the first music you bought yourself… 

Rich> The first album I bought was Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad’ on cassette. I’m a 1986 baby so I must have bought it years after the initial release.  

Q> Your first gig… 

Rich> We didn’t really go to gigs when I was a kid. I think the first gig I went to was Amy Winehouse’s ‘Frank’ tour when I was 17. I bought my Mum a ticket as she was a fan too. It was the only time I saw her live apart from when she was staying at the same resort as me when I was on a family holiday in 2010. My sister and I went into the piano bar before dinner one night and saw her and her goddaughter playing the piano and singing together. She let us sit by the piano and listen in. These were two incredibly different experiences of the same singer performing, and I feel privileged to have seen her and interacted with such an icon. 

Q> Your dancefloor anthem… 

Rich> ‘Inspector Norse’ by Todd Terje – lots of hazy Ibiza memories. 

Q> Your go-to karaoke number… 

Rich> It’s got to be George Michael’s ‘Faith’. People trying to do a good job of singing ballads at karaoke gets my cringe-metre going so something a bit more fun and playful is best. Though there’s a direct correlation between how many drinks I’ve had any my inability to hit the high notes (“Baaaabyyyy”)… my performances have received mixed reviews. 

Q> Your musical guilty pleasure… 

Rich> Anything by Lana Del Rey.  

Q> A song you wish you wrote… 

Rich> Probably ‘Changes’ by Bowie or ‘Sara’ from Fleetwood Mac. Or anything from Roxy Music.  

Q> Your desert island disc… 

Rich> I’ve had Lava La Rue ‘Angel’ on repeat the last couple of years so perhaps that. Or ‘Feels Right’ by Biig Piig, that never fails to brighten the most miserable of days.

Q> Best sync moment… 

Rich> Probably the Blondie x Philip Glass ‘Heart of Glass’ remix in Handmaid’s Tale. The strings are stunning and it’s a really mournful take on a normally upbeat song.  

Q> Music that made an ad campaign… 

Rich> The Handel piece on Glazer’s Odyssey for Levi’s still does it for me. I started my career at BBH and it’s one of the ads that made me love my job and where I worked.  

Q> Best theme song… 

Rich> Recently I loved the theme to BBC’s Vigil. I already loved Agnes Obel – she’s haunting and brilliant. 

Q> Favourite film soundtrack or score… 

Rich> This would have to be Requiem for a Dream. The repetition of a particular melody became nightmarish and really stayed with me for a while after watching.