Posts By Jennifer Stilson

You’ve heard Elle King’s “Playing for Keeps” as the theme song to our new series, Mob Wives Chicago. This season, we’ve decided to differentiate the soundtrack from Mob Wives New York by creating a new through line for the series. We chose powerful female vocals to compliment the strong female characters.  Whether it’s quirky pop, emotional acoustic material, upbeat new wave, we’ve got ladies belting out the featured songs this season. “Playing For Keeps” meshes nicely with this soundtrack, but it is also a intended nod to the retro soul inspired theme song to Mob Wives, Rock Mafia‘s “The Big Bang”.

“Playing For Keeps” was pitched to us by Elle’s publisher back in December 2011. There wasn’t an immediate spot for it, but we held on to it knowing what a powerful track it was. The perfect opportunity came with Mob Wives Chicago. The way Elle’s soulfully unique and gritty voice speaks of anguish made this a no-brainer when it was coupled with the visuals of the women who have endured the roughest of rough being the spouses or relatives of alleged mobsters.

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Way back when, in late 2010, we were tasked with music supervising a brand new series set to premiere in January, 2011. The series was called Mob Wives, and to be honest, we were a little afraid. Ok, a lot afraid. But we knew it was going to be good, as the characters were undeniably compelling. The women’s rich histories, blended with their tough-as-nails personalities, all set against the NYC backdrop was going to produce nothing less than riveting television.

One afternoon, when we were sitting in a listening session for the new Raphael Saadiq record (and his song “Good Man” specifically), it struck us. This was the type of music that would define and help edify the story lines in this brand new series. Retro Soul/Blues were genres coming back with a vengeance and Raphael was the first of many great artists we would find to create the defining soundtrack to the series. Plan B, Charles Bradley, Fitz and the Tantrums, Mayer Hawthorne, Pauline, Eliza Doolittle, Sola Rosa, Aloe Blacc, Graffiti 6, Maverick Sabre, Lee Fields and the Expressions, Gary Clark, Jr. , and of course the theme song, “The Big Bang” by Rock Mafia, were just few of the artists we placed throughout the first two seasons of Mob Wives.
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