Actors Jeremy Sturdy (from left), Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin are pictured in an episode of Succession, which ends on Sunday.
Claudette Barius/HBO
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Actors Jeremy Sturdy (from left), Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin are pictured in an episode of Succession, which ends on Sunday.
Claudette Barius/HBO
The ultimate episode of Succession airs on Sunday, bringing an finish to the hit HBO collection and, virtually as importantly, what some have known as “the definitive TV theme of the twenty first century.”
The opening theme, with its dissonant chords, dramatic strings and 808 beats, has remained a widespread earworm over the previous few years, to not point out fodder for high-profile remixes and viral memes.
All of that got here as a shock to Nicholas Britell, the composer behind the present’s Emmy-winning rating.
“What’s occurred with Succession has been past my, any of our wildest goals, I believe,” he instructed Morning Version. “And definitely on the music facet, it has been very particular that the music has resonated the way in which it has. I didn’t count on that.”
Succession is Britell’s first foray into tv. He beforehand labored on acclaimed movies together with Moonlight, If Beale Avenue May Speak, Do not Look Up and The Massive Brief. That is how he knew director Adam McKay, who instructed him in 2016 in regards to the new present he was government producing.
As soon as Britell got here on board, his first activity was to determine what the challenge ought to sound like.
“A lot of my early work on something is actually form of attempting to experiment and see what may work and what feels proper,” he says, including that the method normally begins with conversations with the showrunner and ends as soon as there’s an edited episode to work off. “The image tells you what it is in search of.”
The sound of Succession got here from Britell’s early conversations with McKay and the present’s creator, Jesse Armstrong, in addition to his visits to the set.
He watched the filming of the pilot — together with a battle scene between patriarch Logan Roy and his son-slash-original inheritor obvious, Kendall — an expertise Britell describes as “subconsciously sort of taking issues in in regards to the frequency of the present.”
Then Britell invited McKay and Armstrong again to his studio and performed them some early concepts, one among which was a chord development “that felt very, very 1700s.” And that is how the Succession theme was born.
The present’s musical signature is its mixture of “darkish, courtly classical sound” with “oversize hip-hop beats and 808s,” with the latter reflecting the style of each protagonist Kendall and real-life hip-hop fanatic Britell.
And it is meant to sound “off-kilter.” Britell says he will get requested whether or not the piano and strings are presupposed to be out of tune — and the reply is at all times sure.
“I’ve takes of a few of these issues the place it is excellent and it doesn’t sound correct as a result of when issues sound, quote unquote, ‘proper’ for the Roy household, it is incorrect,” he provides. “It does not work as a result of the household is so dysfunctional that the music has to have this sort of brokenness to it by some means.”
Nicholas Britell accepts the award for excellent authentic foremost title theme music for Succession on the 2019 Emmy Awards in Los Angeles.
Phil McCarten/Invision/AP
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Nicholas Britell accepts the award for excellent authentic foremost title theme music for Succession on the 2019 Emmy Awards in Los Angeles.
Phil McCarten/Invision/AP
Britell’s Succession repertoire consists of excess of simply the opener. He says he does 5 to 10 new themes each season, along with variations on the principle theme chords, which was a part of his acutely aware effort to evolve the music all through the present’s 4 seasons.
“I had this framework, it was sort of like an early thesis of, effectively, what if each season was a little bit bit like a motion of a classical symphony?” he explains, including that every has its personal “emotional hue.”
Season one, like the primary motion of a classical symphony, was an allegro: “You are setting out a sure set of concepts in maybe a barely faster tempo.” Season two was an adagio, or a “slower, extra inward, extra introspective sort of a motion” (impressed by Kendall’s arc). Season three was a lighter scherzo, which comes from the Italian phrase for joke.
Britell stated season 4 may have been many issues, and he approached it not by one specific angle however by contemplating the form of the storyline and the characters’ journeys. Logan’s dying posed a specific problem: It arguably modified the character of the present and demanded a brand new sound, and but Britell did not need that sound to “not really feel like Succession.”
“I believe the largest problem was determining a approach ahead for the sound the place it may enable for the potential for a way forward for some kind, whereas additionally staying true to, to me, that unusual combination of absurdity and gravitas that’s the essence of the present,” he says.
Britell spoke to Morning Version about his course of, the ultimate season and what comes subsequent.
This interview has been edited and condensed for readability.
Interview highlights
On his use of hip-hop
I used to be obsessive about hip-hop and in school was in a hip-hop band. … So when the concept struck me to maybe experiment with using 808s or or beats with this sound, it was one thing that I knew learn how to do as a result of I might spent 20 years doing it. … The hip-hop is used very particularly in sure locations — the beats, using 808s — actually in the principle title sequence.
In season 4, there is a sequence the place Kendall is strolling into the workplace and he listens to hip-hop as a approach clearly of giving himself extra confidence. It is form of a lift in a way, and the sequence the place I put one among my beats beneath him strolling into the workplace, it is instantly after he is listening to a Jay-Z observe within the automotive, so there is a little bit of a parallel, I believe, in that to the pilot episode the place he is listening to the Beastie Boys after which he is strolling into the workplace after which the principle title beat form of is available in. … I like making an attempt to attract sure connections and parallels and symmetries to issues.
On the method of scoring an episode
I get a full episode from editorial and … I’m going by and I begin experimenting with, the place do I put music? … It is a massive, massive query, since you may put music theoretically anyplace, however there are particular locations the place music goes which have an influence to them, that work in relation to the grammar of a specific challenge. … After which after getting a way that there could possibly be a second for music, effectively then it’s a must to really say, OK, effectively then what’s the music? What can we put there? One of many great issues with Succession is that having lived with it for 4 seasons now, you get an intuition for the place and what and the way for the music.
On the episode the place Logan dies
That episode specifically was actually fascinating for me, as a result of I had written a couple of items of music imagining what that is perhaps. However after I lastly received the episode and I noticed the cellphone name sequence … I spotted that that entire sequence really required a kind of music or a sound that I had by no means used within the present earlier than, as a result of Logan had by no means died earlier than. … To me, the important thing for that sequence specifically was that we needed to really feel like we had been inside that emotion. I did not need to push folks to really feel a sure approach, I needed it to really feel such as you had been really one among them, feeling this, feeling your father dying on the cellphone and you’ll’t be there.
I known as [Armstrong] up and I believe he was touring, he was in a foreign country. And I stated, “I actually suppose we have to get within the room collectively, as a result of this sequence is so vital and I believe the one approach we can have it really feel proper is that if we’re sitting collectively, taking a look at it and within the minutest element shaping it collectively.” … He flew to New York and came to visit to the studio and … we principally sat collectively like a complete day, simply taking a look at this sequence and speaking about it and experimenting with it.
On whether or not there’s extra TV work in his future
Tv is quite a lot of work. I imply, it has been a pleasure to work on Succession. I am very pushed by the collaborators that I work with, it is form of the belief of working with sure folks and believing within the initiatives themselves. So to me, I might go ahead and work on one other present if it was the best nice folks for certain. … And I believe tv does require an order of magnitude extra work than motion pictures, simply due to the sheer scope of a present. So I believe earlier than I might go into another tv collection, I might take into consideration the sheer quantity of music that must be written.
The published interview was produced by Chad Campbell and edited by Olivia Hampton.