Succession (soundtrack)

Nicholas Britell was hired to score the television series' music, referred by director and executive producer Adam McKay, who previously worked with him in The Big Short (2015) and Vice (2018).[2] It was his first scoring stint for a television series. Though he understood the musical language of being distinctive from the show's satirical elements, he tried not to be musically funny, because "as soon as the music says this is funny, all the humor is drained [...] Getting darker makes it funny, and that’s what I leaned into — this counterpoint." Hence, he approached a lot of the writing of the music as "imagining what the Roy family might imagine for themselves".[1]

He wrote a dark classical score based on the late-18th century music, which had infused with hip-hop beats, using a Roland TR-808 drummed machine, detuned piano, modern filters and samples, which is music for "delusions of Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong), who has a predilection for rap, but intentionally exaggerated". He sampled an initial part of the score to infuse with hip hop beats.[3] Some of the score had consisted of cohesive, song-like variations of main themes instead of cues being directed for the actions, situations and characters.[2][4] He was fascinated by finding strange sounds that are linked through the show. While mixing bass in the score, Britell "always turn it up a little ‘too much’, because that feels right to him for the show" while also experimenting piano, bells, strings, and percussions.[5]

In the second season, the album featured the rap song "L to the OG" performed by Strong himself, to depict Roy's rap obsession.[6][7] The song was written by Britell himself, as the showrunner Jesse Armstrong told him "Kendall was going to perform a rap for his father – because of course he would. Kendall doing a rap for Logan in itself is going to be a cringeworthy event, but if it’s just cringeworthy and falls flat then it doesn’t really work. It needs to be cringeworthy and well-executed [...] Kendall is basically the same age as I am and most people form their musical predilections in college, so I thought it would be really [funny] to take a beat [I wrote] from that time, that probably would represent Kendall’s tastes too."[5] Strong asked him to record the demo of it and had practiced the vocals, which was finalised.[8] Britell appreciated his performance in both acting and singing, saying "To rap a sequence like that is not easy and requires a whole rhythm sensibility. It’s a very different skill set from acting. I think he did an incredible job."[5]

The third season's score was influenced by.Italian classical music. Britell spent time in Tuscany studying the musical tradition.[9] In some cues, the score had "the timelessness of that part of the world, the history and how that parallels with the sort of current mythmaking that the Roy family has of themselves at the same moment in time."[9][10] As a result, he had the scope to explore grandeur for the sequences in the location, as well as its cues. He added that the FBI raid in the third episode is probably "one of the largest [cues] certainly up to that moment".[9][11]

The main title theme was composed using classical piano layered with hip-hop beats. He used beats from the TR-808, along with strings and brass, and wove the percussive instruments into the theme to create a dissonant sound.[5][12] The theme song was released as a single on July 20, 2018.[13] It has been opened to acclaim from critics and fans, and has given rise to several memes, remixes, fan projects, and TikTok viral trends.

In an article for Time, Raisa Bruner wrote that "The theme mixes Britell’s expertise in classical composition with his background making hip-hop beats, layering the two styles. [Drew] Silverstein calls out the 808s (a popular drum machine sound), detuned piano (piano intentionally made to sound out-of-tune), audio-processing filters (more technical composition tools) and “gritty” strings that all come together in a way that’s “not as sweet and glossy as you might get in other soaring themes.” This is no Downton Abbey, gilding an image of a genteel patrician family, but rather something less polished and pleasant, reflecting the nastiness of the Roy family dynamics."[14]

Emmanuel Ocbazghi of Insider stated of the main theme, "Britell manages to distill Succession's key themes into its title song. There's an unsettling atmosphere to it, an unease lurking beneath its polished veneer. This makes it hard to pinpoint exactly what the tone of the song is, but that's the point. Even fans of Succession argue whether the show is a dark comedy or a drama. The theme song matches those conflicting tones.[15]

An official remix of the song by rapper Pusha T was released on October 2019.[16]