Exterior of DEVO, co-founder and vocalist Mark Mothersbaugh has carved out a profitable area of interest for himself by scoring movies and creating music for TV exhibits. Nevertheless, it’s his work on the theme for one of many most-aired exhibits of all time, MTV’s Ridiculousness, that’s been the most important earner, bringing in about $1 million per 12 months.
In a current interview with Rolling Stone, Mothersbaugh spoke in regards to the success of the reworked model of DEVO’s “Uncontrollable Urge” compared to his different themes and his group’s best-known track, “Whip It.”
“I’ve written so many different songs for movies and tv exhibits,” Mothersbaugh mentioned. “I might’ve been shocked [years ago] should you advised me that is the one that might turn out to be this prime supply of revenue.”
He continued, “MTV stopped enjoying us however we got here to the opposite aspect of the circle. It’s a pleasant ironic twist as a result of this was one of many songs we by no means even made a music video for. And now it’s perhaps the most-played track ever on MTV.”
Mothersbaugh’s spouse and supervisor Anita Greenspan added, “At first of MTV, you noticed lots of DEVO as a result of they have been early to make movies, however MTV began questioning the movies DEVO have been making. [The videos] have been subversive, they didn’t like them and wouldn’t play them anymore. Now ‘Uncontrollable Urge’ is well the most-played track on MTV, so [DEVO] wins.”
After all, there was no manner Mothersbaugh or anybody else may have anticipated that former skateboarder Rob Dyrdek’s comedy clip present would ultimately make up the majority of MTV’s programming. As reported by The Ringer, the community aired nothing however reruns of Ridiculousness for one 36-hour interval in 2020. Since then, MTV has combined in additional episodes of Catfish and RuPaul’s Drag Race, however the schedule for tomorrow, January seventeenth nonetheless options 10.5 hours of Ridiculousness.
Whereas Mothersbaugh’s different TV work hasn’t been fairly pretty much as good to his checking account, Greenspan advised Rolling Stone that his Rugrats theme paid for his or her dwelling again within the ’90s.
Again in 2023, Mothersbaugh credited the late Paul Reubens for his profession pivot. Since first composing the theme for Pee-wee’s Playhouse, he’s gone on to create music for different youngsters’s TV exhibits like Clifford the Huge Crimson Canine, Beakman’s World, and Santo Bugito. He’s additionally scored 4 Wes Anderson movies, The Lego Film, and Thor: Ragnarok.