Why does Stranger Things' season three soundtrack feel more like a "standalone album" rather than a score?

Kyle: We definitely tried to make sure this OST (original soundtrack) felt more like an album. We just wanted to omit as much stuff as we could that felt like overtly like score, because score can be really weird and is not necessarily the best listening experience. You could really be enjoying something and then it just stops out of nowhere. Like it's 33 seconds long. Or it just takes a weird shift in to a different key that's not pleasant to listen to without a visual accompaniment. It doesn't make any sense.

Michael: We tried to be slightly more aware of that fact. When we were scoring, there were just a couple of ideas that could have been longer pieces and we made sure to record them for a longer amount of time. Then we had a little bit of time to go back and go over that stuff and turn them into tracks.

Kyle: Yeah. We had a lot more time to... well not a lot more time, but we had at least a week or two to prepare the soundtrack. In the past it was basically like, "go, it's due now."

Michael: It's mostly because the songs feel like they have some kind of start, build and resolve, versus just building and snapping out of something. Season one OST is a good example. Almost everything we did was just on there. It was like a double album. We just put like every cue on there.

The music plays a major role in emphasizing and separating the show's most playful and dark moments in Hawkins. What new sonic elements did you bring into the show to help you further emphasize those moments?

Kyle: So there's quite a bit more action in this season, which we kind of started to touch on in season two a little bit, but when we went back and realized that we were making action music. It's really quite a bit more amped up in a way. Even the stuff that was our action music for last year was pretty brooding and sort of slow compared to some of the stuff that we have for season three.

Michael: Yeah, it was a bit more horror and suspense. I also think it we put more care into the type of instrumentation we used. Last season felt like it was just packed with full atmospheric stuff and a little bit of movement on it while this year there are more individual kinds of percussion or drums or sounds that feel like they drive the scenes a little more. I think percussion is the best way to describe it. There may be some drum machines on there, but it's mainly just percussive synths and sounds that are percussive but not necessarily drums.

How important is it to have an open line of communication with the directors? Do they give you the creative freedom to do whatever it is you think is best for the show or are they very involved in your writing process?



Kyle: They give us a lot of freedom. They've come over to the studio a few times, but communication with them is super critical, because we don't want to go too far without getting their approval based on an idea of what we're going to do. Sometimes we'll try very different stuff than what they had in the temp (a place-holding piece of music used during the editing process). In those instances, when we realize it's a completely different direction, we absolutely need to get their feedback as soon as possible so that we don't go down a path that's not going to end up working for them. But they gave us a lot of freedom to try it. They're like, "You try whenever you want," but it doesn't mean they're going to say yes to everything.

Michael: We're always trying to pull things back. We're not always trying to go bigger than, we're always kind of trying to reign it in.

Kyle: We're like, we can achieve this without going (loud explosion sound) but it doesn't always work. Usually we end up having to put more on. Not all the time. It's so carved up on the mix stage and the sound effects are so loud.

Michael: We kind of take that into account, making sure that the sounds we know are going to cut through and given attention are cool. That we're really into.