Game of Thrones - TV's #1 Musical Score
*(Will be some spoilers for latest season)
Game of Thrones is widely regarded by many as one of the greatest TV series to ever be seen. As a fan, i agree. It has top everything. Story lines, character development, special effects, locations and more. But most importantly (for me at least) is the musical score by Ramin Djawadi.
The main theme and opening to Game of Thrones is known by anyone not living under a rock now days. It has joined the ranks of the great themes with Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter etc. To do this alone is a huge achievement. Few T.V series can claim this feat. The Simpsons comes to mind. Having a likable and instantly recognizable theme song is a huge benefit to anything looking to become a franchise. And Ramin Djawadi has nailed this. So from the beginning this has been a huge success for T.V music.
But the real beauty of the G.o.T soundtrack comes from within each episode. Each scene or moment or house having unique themes (The Stark theme being among my favorite). And often the themes have that beat and rhythm of the main theme running through it. A clever tactic to reinforce that audio part of the franchise. Having a big score on TV series is rarely seen. Maybe due to budgets, or maybe producers feel visual content overrules all else. And I can see an argument for that. Some of the best series are still the best without a musical masterpiece. Can you really remember the music in 24, or Breaking Bad. That is not to say some openings are not memorable. Such as The Walking Dead. But that seems to be about as far as they go. A trend which I have seen changing. More and more shows are focusing more into the overall score. Which is great. As budgets and demands for greater TV experiences rise, music is being elevated with it.
Perhaps it is dependent on the genre and style of the TV series. For example two of my other favorite scores from TV are from LOST and Penny Dreadful. Both are series that focus on the story's of several characters while having an over-arching plot, as is G.o.T. Maybe thematic music works well for shows such as this. LOST is the first time I remember being infatuated with music from something that wasn't a big Hollywood movie. And Penny Dreadful is the latest score, along side G.o.T to have captivated me.
But back to G.o.T. It was this latest season, season 6, that I felt Ramin had the most room to expand and really go for it. With Hodor's.. scene.... (spoilers.. sorry) that had such a beautiful theme (derived from the Stark theme) I felt something in this season had improved. To then the music in the penultimate episode that had to keep up with the huge scale and epicness and clearly all out expense of the episode, and it did this so well. And just when I thought it was a great score to a great series, the final episode just blew me away.
Again, spoilers, but the episode opens with the music specially composed for Cersi's latest plan to come to it's ultimate goal. It was perfect. With simple piano and strings slowly building the scene. It represented the planned revenge, the desperation of those caught in it's affects, the rush of the episode, the culmination and end of things. An all new theme sounding piece, and still with the main theme undertones and rhythm in there. It was HBO saying, we know we are now giants. We have shown our budget muscles in the last episode, and now we are showing our story writing skills to finish it all off. They know they had nailed it. And they didn't want the music to fall short of that. And it didn't. With a show that easily contends most high budget movies, Ramin had to live up that level of composing. Every piece in that finale screamed that. The most notable parts for me where, the opening, when Sam enters the great library, 'Winter has come' scene, the tower flash back, Cersi's coronation and the final scene with Daenerys sailing off. Especially that last one, that was the episode closer. It brought the whole score up a level, made you excited for whats to come and boasted of the whole franchises success with that classic G.o.T rhythm pounding through the piece.
To me, this reflects why Game of Thrones is the best thing on TV. It does or tries to 100% in ALL fields, writing, acting, characters, cinematography and music. I believe this will start other TV series looking to be the next big franchise focusing more on the musical score. And we have already seen this happening in for mentioned things like Penny Dreadful. And it's not just TV. Anything that has become a huge lasting franchise that stands the test of the time is backed by a memorable musical theme. From movies like Star Wars, to video games like Mario and Zelda. All show that if you have something good, having a memorable score will make it something great.
