Straight-up, I love the music in Stranger Things. It’s not very often that a show can immediately become iconic thanks to the score, but Stranger Things was indeed one of the shows for me. Right off the bat, with its MIDI-style opening theme, it really laid the foundation: This would be an ’80s-inspired series that brings the charm of Steven Spielberg and the darkness of Stephen King. It’s not an easy task to accomplish, but it does so with aplomb.

In a new video from Vanity Fair, the two composers, Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein break down just how they pull it off, but not before revealing how they got the gig in the first place. It turns out that Dixon and Stein were in a band together called Survive, and the show’s creators contacted them, saying they were using one of their songs in a mock trailer for the show. They then went on to ask the pair to do the music for the series proper.

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In the video, Dixon and Stein discuss the difference between standard pop music and scoring, and why some of their initial songs they pulled from their library didn’t necessarily work because it didn’t fit to picture. Of course, this is a big difference between music that stands on its own and score, the latter of which is created to enhance the visual medium.

It’s a 9-minute piece, and while I’d love to walk through it bit-by-bit here, there’s far too much to cover. Among the highlights are how they handled specific scenes, recorded specific sounds, and the use of jump-scares in their music.

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SOURCE: Vanity Fair