From the moment the glowing title card of Netflix’s “Stranger Things” drifts across the screen, the undulating synth arpeggios of the opening theme make it clear that the show’s music will play a key role in scene-setting. Created by twins Matt and Ross Duffer, who landed a spec script for their first feature film just months after graduating from Chapman University in 2011, “Stranger Things” has been most commonly referenced as an homage to ’80s classics like E.T. and Poltergeist. Similarly, the soundtrack has drawn comparisons to film composers from that era, including John Carpenter and George Romero co-conspirator John Harrison. But Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein—the soundtrack’s composers, as well as members of the Austin synth band S U R V I V E—weren’t necessarily looking to emulate their soundtrack heroes when writing the score.
“The Carpenter thing is there, but it wasn't something we were thinking about at all,” Dixon tells Pitchfork. “We're using all these instruments that he was using, so it's going to sound kind of similar, but we weren't necessarily looking to what he did.”
Dixon and Stein were tapped by the Duffer Brothers to score “Stranger Things” early on in the show’s progression, after the Duffers initially used the S U R V I V E song “Dirge” to soundtrack their pitch trailer. This long-term collaborative process may be one of the biggest reasons that the show’s soundtrack feels like such an integral part of the production: music and picture were conceived simultaneously. “We had a few scripts, but we were pitching the demos before they had even finished casting,” Dixon says. “They played some of the demos that we had done against the auditions, so I think the music kind of informed who they cast, and vice versa.”
The presence of ’80s analog synths rising and falling in the background of conversation comes off as jarring at first, but after a few episodes, the score starts to carve out its own presence; you can start to anticipate when the music might cut in. An immense amount of thought went into writing these cues and themes, so much so that the “Stranger Things” soundtrack requires two volumes. The first, featuring 36 different original tracks, is out now via Lakeshore Records, which has released a number of standout soundtracks recently (Swiss Army Man, “Mr. Robot”); volume two arrives August 19.
“One thing that we thought early on would be simple is to have very thematic things. ‘Oh, the theme for the show is mysterious, we'll try to add a mysterious part when something is brooding.’ And we'd realize, that doesn't work here,” Stein says. “Or we'd be like, ‘Oh, here's this romance scene for the kids; well, here's a romance cue… oh, that's not really what we want.’ We ended up writing very specifically tailored stuff for each scene instead of just revisiting all the same motifs.”
The two went on to contrast their soundtrack to that of a show like “Twin Peaks,” where patterns from Angelo Badalamenti’s now-iconic “Laura Palmer’s Theme” were used as the musical backdrop for everything from romance to discovering a dead body. “It’s crazy how they got that theme to work over multiple parts,” Stein says. “Trying to force our music to work like that would have been difficult, so we just kind of evolved our workflow.”
From a production standpoint, it’s obvious that Dixon and Stein are not only composers, but also craftsmen with a deep enough knowledge of analog synthesizers, like the Prophet 6 and ARP 2600, to be able to manipulate them into producing the exact sentiment that a given scene calls for. Tracks like “Friendship” and “Lamps” respectively embody the feel-good warmth and melancholia of the moments they score; meanwhile, the paranoid “Agents” and dynamically abrasive “Lights Out” showcase the darker, more mysterious nature of the story.
Yet the music of “Stranger Things” carries just as much emotional heft when removed from these supernatural adventures in Hawkins, Indiana. Think of how Cliff Martinez’s Drive score (also an ’80s synthwave homage), or Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s Oscar-winning soundtracks used unsettling electronics to great effect in the works they’ve accompanied, but in recent years, have taken on perhaps unlikely second lives alone among a wider listening audience outside of electronic music fans.
Besides this compelling score, music is also woven intricately into the plot of “Stranger Things.” One of the leads, big brother Jonathan Byers (played by relative newcomer Charlie Heaton), is a shy outsider who’s passionate about photography and British punk/post-punk. His love of the Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go” plays a prominent role in the story (and that’s about all that can be said without giving away key spoilers). “The Clash was a scripted cue that they [the Duffer Brothers] had intended from the get-go to be part of the storyline,” said “Stranger Things” music supervisor Nora Felder, a veteran of “Californication” and “Ray Donovan.” “When I read the script I thought it was pretty perfect really, as it is one of those songs that grabs you and doesn’t let go so easily.”
But on a narrative level, how do you justify a teenager in small-town Indiana having access to alternative bands like Joy Division and Reagan Youth? “I think the Duffers have established quite well that Jonathan has a very strong artistic essence,” Felder said. “With his photography, he is always looking further to capture something unique and special through the lens. It would only seem natural that he would also be curating his own personal music playlist and not relying on what’s being fed to the town on the local radio station. Jonathan would surely what to know—no pun intended—‘What else is out there?’”
Felder says that like with the score, the Duffer Brothers played a key role in the music supervision of “Stranger Things,” describing them as collaborative in every possible way. Other ’80s rock acts scattered throughout the season include Foreigner, Echo and the Bunnymen, and Peter Gabriel, whose cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes” plays during a heart-wrenching moment early on in the series. Revered synth god Vangelis and seminal German electronica group Tangerine Dream also have songs featured in the show, their synthwave soundscapes blending inconspicuously between the cues from Dixon and Stein.
S U R V I V E’s Mark Donica, Kyle Dixon, Adam Jones, and Michael Stein. (photo by Alex Kacha)
As for the S U R V I V E members, their newfound popularity could not have come at a better time. Dixon and Stein are about to launch the third S U R V I V E album and tour, alongside bandmates Adam Jones and Mark Donica. Their RR7349 arrives September 30 via Relapse, with a soon-to-be-announced North American tour starting in October. “It’ll be really interesting to see how the crowds change,” says Dixon, considering the inevitable rush of “Stranger Things” fans. “I'm assuming they will, at least somewhat.”
When asked about the possibility of returning to score the second season (which has been all but confirmed by Netflix), Dixon and Stein don’t hesitate for a second. “I couldn't be happier with our relationship with the Duffers, and I think it's mutual,” says Dixon. “We're kind of in the same situation—they weren't expecting this to go as well as it has, and so it's their first big thing, and also our first big thing. We've become friends, and so when we talk to each other it's just like, ‘Holy shit, dude. What the fuck is happening?’”
