Television shows often get tagged as “cinematic” when the visuals are particularly big or flashy. But TV scores can provide just as much scope, emotional weight, mood, and tone to a series — dancing backwards in heels against the imagery, sneaking unseen between cuts to create tension the viewer doesn’t even know they’re feeling, or bursting out of the frame to carry us through the most important moments in our favorite TV shows.
It’s all the more impressive given the number of cues TV composers often have to write and how quickly the music has to come together. So, IndieWire reached out to every Emmy-nominated composer this year to ask them which TV scores from the past year were extraordinary, even among the extraordinary challenges every TV score has to solve. The respondents themselves represent a real variety of genres, formats, and styles; and their responses show that — as Kathryn Bostic, composer behind the playful and delicate score for “The Supremes at Earl’s All You Can Eat,” put it — just like good food, you can cultivate a range of good musical taste.
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For instance, Ariel Marx, double-nominated (!) for “Dying For Sex” and “Black Mirror” — specifically her eerily lush work on the “Hotel Reverie” episode, of which Hitchcock would likely approve — singled out the score to a different filmic disaster, “The Studio.” Marx highlighted the ways that Antonio Sánchez’s work radiated confidence and fine-tuned calibration in ways a fellow practitioner can appreciate. “It just felt like the magic that occurs when talented collaborators trust each other, and let ’em run free,” Marx told IndieWire.
Sánchez, for his part, loved Federico Justid’s work on the Spanish-language science-fiction yarn, “The Eternaut.” Several composers behind the soaring or soul-searing music in documentary series — Caroline Shaw, composer of “Leonardo da Vinci,” and Kara Talve, one of the co-composers of “The Americas” — singled out Theodore Shapiro’s haunting vibes on “Severance.” Meanwhile, Daniel Pemberton might be nominated for another episode of “Black Mirror,” but Shapiro loves the distinctive sonic character that he’s built over on “Slow Horses.”
Several composers singled out the music on animated series, where scores can be that much more experimental and have to do that much more heavy lifting, too — including Bostic and Leo Birenberg, co-composer of “Cobra Kai.” Meanwhile, Sherri Chung pointed out that there’s an art in pairing score with licensed music, and heaped praise not only on Chris Bacon for his deviously dark “Wednesday” score, but the ways he clearly collaborates with music supervisor Jen Malone and song arranger/producer Alana Da Fonseca.
There was as much appreciation for music that is subtle and restrained — Ilan Eshkeri, composer behind “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story,” singled out the work that David Ridely and Aaron May did on “Adolescence” — as there was for music that has to drive whole episodes. Mick Giacchino, maestro behind the delightful, opulently evil score of “The Penguin,” loved the tour-de-force that Brandon Roberts put together for “Andor” Season 2, and Brandon Roberts still kind of wishes he could write music for “Shōgun,” that’s how much he loved the work that Nick Chuba, Atticus Ross, and Leopold Ross did on the FX series. Zach Robinson, who co-composes with Birenberg on the score for “Cobra Kai,” is also all of us at IndieWire, as he pointed out how criminally underappreciated Nathan Micay’s music is on “Industry.”
Below, you can read these composers’ thoughts on their favorite scores of the past year, gain a new appreciation for the scores you already love, and discover the hidden gems you should add to a playlist right now.
Series are listed alphabetically by title.
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