MBW’s Key Songs In The Life Of… is a series in which we ask influential music industry figures about the tracks that have — so far — defined their journey and their existence. Taking on mission impossible this time round is Reservoir founder Golnar Khosrowshahi . The Key Songs… series is supported by Sony Music Publishing.
Reflecting on the challenge of choosing just a handful of tracks to represent her love of (and career in) music, Reservoir founder Golnar Khosrowshahihits upon a simple formula: “It’s equal parts easy and impossible”.
She explains: “It’s really easy to come up with the music that, decade after decade, has played a part in your life – and continues to do so. What’s impossible is to whittle it down and make choices.”
Born in Iran and now resident in Canada (via a childhood in London), Golnar, after stints in the advertising and telecoms industries, founded Reservoir in 2007.
The still-independent company now controls a steadily expanding portfolio of copyrights and has relationships with writers including Joni Mitchell, Ali Tamposi, De La Soul and many others.
Her selections, of course, represent the rise of Reservoir, and the brilliance of those artists, but also her childhood, her background as a classically trained musician – and some of the most important moments in her personal life…
1) Glen Gould, Bach’s Invention No. 4 in D Minor (1963)
I’m a classically trained pianist, and my training was very focused on a lot of Bach. That is, for lack of a better word, the syllabus of any pianist who wants to have a path in classical performance.
I think the reasoning behind that is that the compositions are, at the same time, some of the most simple, as well as the most complicated music ever written.
I remember looking at the music when I was younger, and you judge difficulty based on the number of notes that you see on the page. And with a lot of those pieces, there aren’t that many! So you think, OK, this is easy, and yet… it’s simple, complicated and ultimately beautiful.
I performed a lot as part of examinations, recitals and competitions, quite basic at first – Minuets and Inventions – and I still have the muscle memory from when I was playing those pieces, which is interesting.
They got more complicated at the later levels, and one of my favorite collections of music is Glenn Gould’s recordings of Inventions and Sinfonias, from 1963, from where this first selection comes.
Classical music has stayed in my life. I chaired the board at Silkroad [a musical collective founded by cellist Yo-Yo Ma in 2000] for 12 years, where many of the musicians were classically trained.
And then, because of Silkroad, I was working with Yo-Yo, who has released three versions of Bach’s Cello Suites, the most recent of which was in 2018. Part of the premiere of that was a performance at YouTube in Los Angeles, where he talks about what this music has meant to him. That opportunity came through our relationship with Lindsay Rothschild at YouTube who was a big champion of the project. She is now at Apple Music and we continue to work with her to promote the Reservoir roster.
So there are lot of full circle moments in there, and classical music, and Bach in particular, continues to be in my life today.
2) The Buggles, Video Killed the Radio Star (1979)
I grew up in London. I moved there [from Iran] in November 1978, in the middle of the school year amidst headlines about a fundamentalist bringing revolution.
At the time, as a family, we didn’t really know what was happening. It was Guy Fawkes night when we arrived in London and we had some infrastructure there already so we were very lucky.
This is on a Friday, maybe a Thursday – and we were in school by the following week. I don’t really know how that worked.
My mother, who was in her late 20s, had to do basic things, like get a car so she could pick me up from school. Which she did, in a VW Golf, between Hampstead and Belsize Park. We’d listen to Capital Radio 194, and we’d often hear Video Killed The Radio Star.
She would sing along, and so this was the song made it seem, for me, a seven-year-old at the time, that everything’s going to be OK. My mother’s still singing and dancing in the car, we’re going to be fine.
3) De La Soul, Me Myself And I (1989)
Obviously I’m biased here, but predating our professional relationship with them, pre-dating our bringing the music to streaming platforms, I remember this song as one of my first forays into hip-hop and that Daisy Age sound, which was really meaningful back then.
The professional part of the relationship came about in 2021, when we bought Tommy Boy. And then, subsequent to that, we had the pleasure of working with Pos and Dave and Mase for 18 months, clearing samples [the group’s music had not been released on streaming services at this point due to copyright disputes].
Unfortunately, Dave passed away a month before the music was going to be released, which made it a really bittersweet project, but ultimately incredible to actually bring the music out.
The number of people who responded to that to say thank you is unbelievable. I don’t feel like we should be thanked, of course, we’re not the creators; they deserve all the thanks and all the praise. We were a facilitator, but the number of people who do say thank you, it’s very touching, and it shows what this music means.
Going back to this particular song, I remember the impact it had on my life. It wasn’t just the sound, it was the graphics, the liners, the vocals, the subject matter, the tone… They created another dimension to the hip-hop universe.
4) Mary J Blige, Family Affair (2001)
In 2001 I was very shocked to find out that I was pregnant with twins!
That was also the year that Mary J Blige released Family Affair – and it’s still on my playlists.
All of a sudden I had this instant family, and the song took on a whole new meaning for me after my girls were born. Those early days of no sleep, constant bottles, and figuring out a new rhythm of life were intense. But this song made me smile, dance around the living room with my newborns, and feel like I could still bring joy into the chaos.
I think she has an incredible voice and, especially as a woman in the business, she has achieved so much over a long career.
Family Affair was all over the radio that year, and I feel like I heard it everywhere I went – in the supermarket, stores, and on TV. But when I listen to the song now, I am transported to that moment in time – those crazy days and nights of being a new mother.
5) Alicia Keys, Underdog (2020)
I am a big fan of Alicia Keys, and I’m particularly a fan of this song; it’s an anthem for so many people, myself included.
During Reservoir’s early days, I remember the feeling of stepping into a competitive landscape during some of the darkest days of the business. The music industry was witnessing instability and future forecasts for improvement looked bleak.
There were many moments of doubt. Not only was the industry volatile, but we were the new kids on the block. There were meetings we couldn’t get and tables we couldn’t get seats at, but the belief in what we were doing kept us going.
In 2020, when this song came out and I heard it for the first time, it took me right back to 2007 and where it all started. It reminded me that just because you’re underestimated, doesn’t mean you’re incapable.
Now that Reservoir has grown and found real success, Underdog still resonates. It keeps me grounded and reminds me of the humility and resilience it took to get here.
6) Shawn Mendes and Camilla Cabello, Señorita (2019)
Havana and Señorita were two of the early successes of [songwriter] Ali Tamposi after we got into business with her in 2017.
She had already written big songs, like It Ain’t Me for Kygo and Selena Gomez, but this was really the start of us working in earnest together, and the beginning of what I consider to be one of the longest, but also one of the most meaningful professional relationships of my life. And one that is now a personal relationship; Ali will always be in my life one way or another.
Ali knows how to collaborate. She listens. She knows how to evolve and shift herself in the studio. Ali understands how to understand an artist, how to listen to the story that the artist wants to tell and then deliver – sonically, melodically, lyrically, emotionally.
Those songs [Havana and Señorita] moved her career to another level. Ali has staying power. She is in it for the long haul, she’s shown that already.
Hand-in-hand with these songs being a pivotal moment for Ali, it was also a turning point for us as a company. It put us literally and figuratively on the charts.
We were, by and large, a catalog business before then, and all of a sudden, to be thrust into the mainstream on market share charts was incredible.
But also to have the client service and the creative service to nurture her and move in lockstep with her was an honor. So those songs, they mean something to me professionally – but I also love them.
7) Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now (1969)
Our relationship with Joni is such an important and treasured one.
This particular song was an early career-defining moment for her, and I have many memories of it having different meanings for me at different times in my life.
It also goes without saying that Joni and her entire body of work has meant so much to me for so long – being a musician, moving to Canada in the 1980s and just observing and learning about the craft of songwriting through her.
And now, having learned so much more, you really understand the depth of her talent, which for me is truly unparalleled.
I went to an event recently at the New York Phil where Sutton Foster performed A Case Of You. What really struck me was just how contemporary Joni’s music is. How it retains its modernity, how it retains its relevance – sonically and lyrically. You hear something new, or you realize something new, every time.
It has been an incredible three years for us, because Joni has performed more in that time than in the previous seven or eight years, even more. And the new generations of fans who are getting to discover her magic through these performances is amazing to witness.
She received the MusiCares Person of the Year award in 2022, which was such an extraordinary evening. It is an honor to be trusted as her administrator during this special time in her career.
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