Even if you’ve never heard Labrinth’s scoring work outside of “Euphoria” or seen Disney’s Encanto, chances are you know two things: How Labrinth’s vocals can pierce through a track to freeze an audience and not to talk about Bruno. That’s the power of a great soundtrack — it has the potential to transcend the artist and its host format while simultaneously propping up both.
Not all soundtracks have scores written by GRAMMY-nominated artists or go on to spend eight weeks atop Billboard’s 200 chart (as the Encanto soundtrack has), but the great ones do follow a similar path of storytelling, collaboration and transcendent impact.
A Great Soundtrack Tells A Story
Many people consider the music in Encanto, with its irresistible catchiness and universal charm, to be the epitome of a great soundtrack. But there’s also a large subset of people who would prefer a more eccentric set of songs, like those in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Yet a great soundtrack isn’t determined by its replay value or its musical distinction — it’s determined by the joint effort of the music and the visual media’s story.
“Music can just take a scene to a specific place,” Karsten Runquist, a writer/director and reviewer of over 1,500 films on Letterboxd, said. “‘Euphoria’ is a really good example right now. It’s just littered with music, and it really drives the mood of the show. Different characters have different songs. Each character in the show kind of has their own playlist — it’s another way of adding depth.”
In season 2, episode 3 of “Euphoria,” INXS’s 1987 song “Never Tear Us Apart” is played while Cal Jacobs — an abusive, adulterous main character in the show — dances with his high school lover in a flashback scene. The song’s romantic but foreboding lyrics of “they could never tear us apart” add dramatic irony, and helps viewers form a complex understanding of what might otherwise seem to be a strictly deplorable character.
According to “Euphoria’s” Music Supervisor Jen Malone, the new wave track was so integral to Jacobs’ backstory that the show’s creator wrote it into the script himself. “We have no parameters about the genres or the time period … We wanted to stay in our world and use the music as an interesting storytelling device [and a] very prominent character in the show,” Malone told the Ringer.
In many cases, the role of music can even surpass that of a central character. Films like Pulp Fiction, SuperFly, Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse, Shaft and countless others use music to weave together plots and define characters. Sometimes, the music in these films becomes just as memorable, if not more so, than the action or dialogue. For example, Miles Morales losing track of time while humming along to “Sunflower” in Into the SpiderVerse emphasizes how young the character is just as well as any visual could.
A Great Soundtrack Is Collaborative
Crafting a soundtrack generally comes down to three major elements: the storytelling foundation of the medium, the music taste of those involved, and the relationship between director, music supervisor and artist.
“Grand Theft Auto V” (GTA V) features Frank Ocean as the host of an always-on, in-game radio station and includes Dr. Dre as a key character in the game’s downloadable content, “The Contract.” Such superstar additions would likely be impossible if Rockstar games had not spent decades pushing for quality music in its “GTA” series.
“We’ve built one of the biggest platforms in the world for music,” Ivan Pavlovich, Director of Music for Rockstar Games, told the Los Angeles Times in 2018. “We fight for this in every game, and artists can see that. We could have gone in any direction, but we’re making choices based on the music we love.”
The importance of/the tendency to create soundtrack choices based on personally beloved music is a sentiment Malone echoed.
“[‘Euphoria’] is almost like a mixtape that we give to our audience. Like in the same way that everybody shares music, you know a friend will be like, ‘Oh my god, this song is so dope, you have to listen to it,’ and then it enters your personal playlist, right? So in a way, it’s like we’re sharing Sam’s mixtape to the audience,” she explained to Buzzfeed.
Malone estimates that the average “Euphoria” episode may feature up to 37 tracks in an hour-long runtime, while “GTA V“ has over 400 songs and 16 radio stations. For stories like those told on “Euphoria” and “GTA V,“ attempting to create a soundtrack that matches the graphic nature of their plots can lead to a series of dead-end phone calls, difficult conversations and denials, leaving more room for original scores to fill.
“[Creating an original score] is a blend of me and the director speaking… and just shooting the breeze about ‘Oh, I love this music, or I love this soundtrack,'” explains Labrinth, who composed the score for Malcom & Marie and co-produced The Lion King: The Gift soundtrack. “Quite a lot of the process for me is that I zone out, I’ll watch some footage, or I’ll hear what somebody says to me. And then I kind of throw all of that stuff away. And I go, ‘What does my instinct say needs to go in this area or into this scene?'”
A Great Soundtrack Is Magical
A great soundtrack has the power to break new acts and breathe life into past hits. According to Spotify, streams of Colbie and G.L.A.M.’s “Uhuh Yeah” increased 2,700 percent and Sinéad O’Connor‘s 1987 track “Drink Before the War” increased by 26,900 percent after appearing in season 2 of “Euphoria.”
As insane as some of these streaming boosts can be, soundtrack placements have even more power than just skyrocketing listener counts — they can go as far as freeing an artist from the creative expectations they place on their personal projects.
“When I was making music for myself, I would overthink it, or I would second guess stuff, and it was a bit more precious …. It felt more dangerous to me and [that there was] much more to lose,” Labrinth details. There’s less pressure when creating an original score, however, “because I’m trying…to elevate something they’re creating, so it feels like it’s a collaborative effort. And so it kind of takes the weight off of yourself needing to make something perfect.”
Whether the soundtrack goes on to become a record-breaker like Encanto or serves as a timeless collection of music like Kendrick Lamar‘s Black Panther album, a great soundtrack maintains the impact of the visual media while transcending its original, supplementary role.
“When you match great songs with a great show, then when you listen to those songs, part of the show is still in your psyche. You remember the show and you can relate. It speaks to your life,” says Uziel Colon, Sr. Project Manager of the Latin & Music For Visual Media category at the Recording Academy. “Once you marry great songs, great lyrics, great shows and scenes…That’s magic.”
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