''Blade Runner 2049 – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack'' is the

soundtrack album A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television show. The first such album to be commercially released was Walt Disney's ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ( ...

for the 2017 film ''

Blade Runner 2049 ''Blade Runner 2049'' is a 2017 American Epic film, epic neo-noir science fiction film directed by Denis Villeneuve from a screenplay by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green (writer), Michael Green, based on a story by Fancher. A sequel to ''Blade ...

''. Released in October 2017, the album contains music composed by

Hans Zimmer Hans Florian Zimmer (; born 12 September 1957) is a German film score composer and music producer. He has won two Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, five Grammy Awards, and has been nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards, Emmy Awards and a Tony ...

and Benjamin Wallfisch, along with additional tracks by

Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977) was an American singer and actor. Referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one of the most significant cultural figures of the ...

Frank Sinatra Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Honorific nicknames in popular music, Nicknamed the "Chairman of the Board" and "Ol' Blue Eyes", he is regarded as one of the Time 100: The Most I ...

and

Lauren Daigle Lauren Ashley Daigle ( ; born September 9, 1991) is an American contemporary Christian music singer and songwriter. After being signed to the label Centricity Music, she released her debut album, ''How Can It Be (album), How Can It Be,'' in 2015 ...

. The soundtrack was produced by Michael Hodges, Kayla Morrison and Ashley Culp. It also includes the piece "Tears in the Rain", which was originally composed and performed (as "Tears in Rain") by

Vangelis Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou (, ; 29 March 1943 – 17 May 2022), known professionally as Vangelis ( ; , ), was a Greek musician, composer, and producer of electronic, progressive, ambient, and classical orchestral music. He composed ...

, the composer of the original 1982 soundtrack ''

Blade Runner ''Blade Runner'' is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott from a screenplay by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos, it is an adaptation of Philip K. Di ...

''. ''Blade Runner 2049'' is the sequel to

Ridley Scott Sir Ridley Scott (born 30 November 1937) is an English film director and producer. He directs films in the Science fiction film, science fiction, Crime film, crime, and historical drama, historical epic genres, with an atmospheric and highly co ...

's 1982 film ''

''. Directed by

Denis Villeneuve Denis Villeneuve Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, OAL (; ; born October 3, 1967) is a Canadian film director and screenwriter. He has received seven Canadian Screen Awards as well as nominations for four Academy Awards, five BAFTA Awards, and two ...

, it stars

Ryan Gosling Ryan Thomas Gosling ( ; born November 12, 1980) is a Canadian actor. His work includes both independent films and major studio features, and his accolades include a Golden Globe Award, in addition to nominations for three Academy Awards, a ...

and

Harrison Ford Harrison Ford (born July 13, 1942) is an American actor. Regarded as a cinematic cultural icon, he has starred in Harrison Ford filmography, many notable films over seven decades, and is one of List of highest-grossing actors, the highest-gr ...

, Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks and

Jared Leto Jared Joseph Leto ( ; born December 26, 1971) is an American actor and musician. Known for his method acting in Jared Leto filmography, a variety of roles, he has received List of awards and nominations received by Jared Leto, numerous accolade ...

. Set thirty years after the original film, the story depicts a bioengineered human, a replicant blade runner named K, who discovers the remains of a once-pregnant replicant. To prevent a possible war between replicants and humans, K is secretly tasked with finding the child and destroying all evidence related to it. The soundtrack was nominated for the

BAFTA Award for Best Film Music The BAFTA Award for Best Original Music, formerly known as the Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music, is a film award that is presented to film composers by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. It has been presented annually at the B ...

at the 71st British Academy Film Awards. In 2018, the Soundtrack received a

Grammy The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious a ...

nomination for Best Score Soundtrack for visual media, losing to Ludwig Göransson's score for

Black Panther A black panther is the Melanism, melanistic colour variant of the leopard (''Panthera pardus'') and the jaguar (''Panthera onca''). Black panthers of both species have excess black pigments, but their typical Rosette (zoology), rosettes are al ...

History

Warner Bros. reportedly considered engaging the

rapper Rapping (also rhyming, flowing, spitting, emceeing, or MCing) is an artistic form of vocal delivery and emotive expression that incorporates "rhyme, rhythmic speech, and ommonlystreet vernacular". It is usually performed over a backing ...

and

music producer A record producer or music producer is a music creating project's overall supervisor whose responsibilities can involve a range of creative and technical leadership roles. Typically the job involves hands-on oversight of recording sessions; ensu ...

El-P Jaime Stuart Meline (born March 2, 1975), better known by the stage name El-P (shortened from his previous stage name El Producto), is an American rapper, songwriter, and record producer. Starting his career as a member of Company Flow, he has ...

to write the film score for ''Blade Runner 2049'', and he was commissioned to write a short score for the film's first trailer. Conscious of the legacy of Vangelis's score for the original 1982 film, El-P's composition made use of a

Yamaha CS-80 The Yamaha CS-80 is an analog synthesizer introduced by Yamaha Corporation in 1977. It supports true 8-voice polyphony, with two independent synthesizer layers per voice each with its own set of front panel controls, in addition to a number of ha ...

analog synthesizer An analog synthesizer () is a synthesizer that uses Analogue electronics, analog circuits and analog signals to generate sound electronically. The earliest analog synthesizers in the 1920s and 1930s, such as the Trautonium, were built with a var ...

, an instrument used by Vangelis. However, El-P's music was not used in the end, and he has stated that his score was "rejected (or ignored)".

Jóhann Jóhannsson Jóhann Gunnar Jóhannsson (; 19 September 1969 – 9 February 2018) was an Icelandic composer who wrote music for a wide array of media including theatre, dance, television, and film. His work is stylised by its blending of traditional orchest ...

, who had worked with Villeneuve on '' Prisoners'', '' Sicario'', and '' Arrival'', was initially announced as composer for the film. However, Villeneuve and Jóhannsson decided to end the collaboration because Villeneuve felt the film "needed something different, and I needed to go back to something closer to

soundtrack A soundtrack is a recorded audio signal accompanying and synchronised to the images of a book, drama, motion picture, radio program, television show, television program, or video game; colloquially, a commercially released soundtrack album of m ...

". New composers

and Benjamin Wallfisch joined in July 2017. In September, Jóhannsson's agent confirmed that he was no longer involved and that he was contractually forbidden from commenting on the situation. According to

Epic Records Epic Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), cong ...

, Zimmer and Wallfisch sought to continue the legacy of the original ''Blade Runner'' score by incorporating the Yamaha CS-80 synthesizer. Zimmer has said of the soundtrack: "First of all, I realized that Denis illeneuveis a director who has a vision; he has a voice. Remember, I've done a lot of movies with

. So, it was important that this was an autonomous piece of work. Let's just be honest. Ridley is a hard act to follow—as is Vangelis. While Ben allfischwas four-years-old, I had actually experienced all of this. We watched and literally, as we stopped watching, we decided on the palette. We decided this wasn't going to be an orchestral thing. The story spoke to us."

Release

The soundtrack album was released online on October 5, 2017, and a two-disc CD version was released on the

/ASG Records label in the United States on October 27. On October 25, 2017, it was announced that a vinyl double-LP of the soundtrack album would be released on December 15, 2017, in a numbered limited edition of 2500, pressed on 180-gram premium vinyl, intended for

audiophile An audiophile (from + ) is a person who is enthusiastic about high-fidelity sound reproduction. The audiophile seeks to achieve high sound quality in the audio reproduction of recorded music, typically in a quiet listening space in a room with ...

s. Although the information about the release mentioned that the album would have 24 tracks, the advertised tracks on sites selling it shows only 20 tracks, with the tracks by

and

being omitted from the LPs.

Track listing

Note indicates tracks that are not on the limited edition two-LP vinyl release

Charts

, - , - , - , - , - , -

Certifications

References

External links

Official film website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Blade Runner 2049

Soundtrack A soundtrack is a recorded audio signal accompanying and synchronised to the images of a book, drama, motion picture, radio program, television show, television program, or video game; colloquially, a commercially released soundtrack album of m ...

2017 soundtrack albums Benjamin Wallfisch albums Epic film soundtracks Epic Records soundtracks Hans Zimmer soundtracks Science fiction film soundtracks