Tag: Ludwig goransson

Celebrate May the 4th With Special ‘Star Wars’ Playlists, Audiobooks, and More

May 1, 2024

Spotify’s Star Wars celebrations are in full Force starting today, and this May the 4th—aka Star Wars Day—fans will discover playlists with exclusive interactive content and new ways to explore audiobooks from the iconic franchise.

In our Best of Star Wars playlist—which has been streamed over 70 million times to date—multiple lightsabers have been hidden throughout our collection of the most-iconic Star Wars songs. Those intrepid enough to find them all will be rewarded with special Easter eggs featuring beloved characters from the Star Wars universe.

In addition, Spotify Audiobooks today launched its new Sci-Fi & Fantasy Essentials hub, which includes a number of Star Wars classics for fans to listen along to, in addition to new and quintessential sci-fi and fantasy titles such as The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, and Black Shield Maiden by Willow Smith, releasing May 6.

Ready to listen for yourself? Just follow these simple steps.

How to celebrate Star Wars Day with Spotify:

  • Lightsaber Scavenger Hunt (Mobile Only): Listen to Spotify’s Best of Star Wars Playlist to begin unlocking hidden lightsabers in the tracks. As specific songs are played, listeners will receive a message from characters announcing they have unlocked a lightsaber. Once a listener has collected all five, they can check back later for a special message coming from a galaxy far, far away. 
  • Intergalactic Audiobooks: Spotify Premium users across the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand have access to 15 hours of monthly audiobook listening time—check out titles from the Essential Legend Collection including Yoda: Dark Rendezvous or Timothy Zahn’s top-streamed Heir to the Empire (Star Wars Legends). 

Star Wars fans show their love on Spotify

While May the 4th is a banner day for Star Wars-related streams each year, Spotify data reveals that fans listen to their favorite Star Wars hits on Spotify all year long: 

The art of Star Wars soundtracks

Last (but certainly not least), For the Record spoke with composer Kevin Kiner who, alongside his children Sean and Deana, has created the scores for fan-favorite shows like Star Wars: The Bad Batch, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and most recently, Ashoka. Keep reading to discover what makes a Star Wars song a Star Wars song, his creative approach to Star Wars shows, and his experience of watching Star Wars for the very first time. 

Kevin Kiner

How does it feel to be a part of the Star Wars universe? Were you always a fan?

It means everything to me. It’s the crowning achievement of my career to be part of Star Wars, and in my opinion, having themes that are now canon in the Star Wars universe is one of the greatest honors a composer can have.  

But to fully answer the question, I was always a fan. I went to every midnight showing I could. I don’t think there was a midnight showing in 1977, but I do remember when I first saw Star Wars. When I first saw that giant Star Destroyer and I first heard John’s magnificent theme, it changed my life, musically speaking.

Your work spans many different genres and worlds. How do you add in elements that bring those various places to life in a score?

It’s hard to talk about being eclectic and cohesive at the same time when the very definition of being eclectic often involves not being cohesive. I feel that all of the music we do for Star Wars still has a largeness of scope to it in the same way John Williams’ compositions do. If you take his “The Imperial March,” for example, it’s a giant piece of music in terms of not being subtle and being extremely bold. 

Boldness is one of the hallmarks of Star Wars music. That’s what we strategically have in mind when we are writing. So even if we are using unusual flutes or dark synths, they are all bold sounds that hearken to the spirit of the Star Wars universe. 

How do you get into the right creative mindset when you start work on a new Star Wars soundtrack?

For Ahsoka, Sean, Deana, and I put together a playlist of 20-25 tracks that we thought were really groundbreaking and unusual. The list included everyone from Joe Hisaishi to John Williams, with many other composers in between. 

Then, we sent those to Ashoka creator Dave Filoni and got feedback from him as to what he liked. But mostly, we just let those percolate in our brains a little bit. My personal technique for preparing is I go to the piano every morning and I start working on ideas.  

After a while, those ideas start to gel into different themes. Also, sometimes a theme just comes while I’m in the middle of writing a cue. Many times, that winds up being the best theme in the show.

The second season of Ahsoka is in development. Any fun musical surprises the fans can expect?

I actually don’t know a thing about Season 2 yet. Purposely, I have asked Dave to keep us in the dark, unless we need to develop a theme that happens later on in the arc of a series. 

I like to be surprised when I first watch a show or a film because thoughts and ideas come to me as a visceral reaction to what I’m watching. So that’s a long way of saying that I have no idea if there are musical surprises. But I’m sure there will be something that surprises even me!

Kick off your May the 4th celebrations with the Lightsaber Scavenger Hunt in our Best of Star Wars playlist!

10 Years Later, HAIM Dishes on the Success of Debut Album ‘Days Are Gone’

September 28, 2023

Ten years ago, L.A. trio HAIM announced its arrival to the world with the album Days Are Gone, an indie rock classic that has continued to resonate with fans around the world in the years since. 

The success of the album thrust sisters Este, Danielle, and Alana Haim into the spotlight, allowing them to tour globally, collaborate with some of music’s biggest names, compose and produce TV and movie soundtracks (including A Small Light), and even star in movies. 

For the Record sat down with the members of Haim and asked them to reflect on what it was like to work on their breakthrough debut, and how their lives have changed over the last decade. 

What is your favorite song from Days Are Gone?

Este Haim: My favorite song on the album is “Days Are Gone.” It’s also the name of the album. And maybe not a coincidence. I’ll leave it at that.

Danielle Haim: I’m going to maybe go with our song “My Song 5.” I feel like it’s a very fun listen.

Alana Haim: I remember when you showed us the demo for that song on your laptop.

Danielle: Yeah, I wrote the demo on my laptop, and most of what was on that original demo made it to the final song. So it’s very nostalgic. I remember when I played that kick drum in the living room, on the floor, with my shitty mic.

Alana: I’m going to go with “Forever.” We were notoriously known as just a live band for a very long time. We could never get a recording right. We would basically save all of our money every year, go into the studio for like two days and record all these songs, and they always sound like shit. 

It was so devastating because we knew exactly what we wanted our music to sound like in our minds. We didn’t have the vocabulary to go into a studio and say what we wanted in the studio setting. 

So all these recordings were so just not what we wanted, and we refused to put out anything unless we were fully in love with it. And when we met Ludwig Göransson, who produced “Forever” and the Forever EP, it was the first time that I was so proud of a song that I would actually listen to it repeatedly and be very excited about it. We found ourselves with that song, and it kind of kicked everything off and changed our lives. 

Was there a particular moment within the last decade where you really kind of stood back and realized that you’d made it?

Alana: Playing Glastonbury for the first time was a huge moment for us.

Este: We met Stevie Nicks in London and that was a pretty big moment for us.

Danielle: That was pretty crazy.

Alana: In general, we really didn’t know what was going to happen. We put this album out. The thing that’s so amazing about it is that even holding the album and listening to it after 10 years, is that we’re so proud of it still. I feel like that’s a kind of rare feeling. We’ve grown a lot as a band over the last 10 years, but listening to Days Are Gone, it still feels like the most “us” album. 

I think it was just so pure and we were so young and so wide-eyed, and it was the first time we got to travel the world together. And the biggest part of our story is the album. We wouldn’t be here without it.

What are some ways you feel you’ve grown or changed as people in the past 10 years?

Alana: I think after 10 years we finally know when we step into a studio, we have the vocabulary to explain what we want in terms of the sound. And I think with each album we get more and more confident in the studio.

Danielle: Yeah, I’m learning. Every record is a learning experience when it comes to knowing how to make things sound the way you hear them in your head.

Este: With each passing year, we care more and more about the music that we make and the songs that we write and our live show. But with everything else, we give less of a fuck.

So you’ve toured with Vampire Weekend, Florence + The Machine, Rihanna, and Taylor Swift twice. What are some lessons you’ve taken from them?

Este: I think it’s just try to have as much fun as you can on tour. Everyone, especially Florence and Taylor, have so much fun on tour. They perform their asses off, but they also know how to cut a rug before and after the show. 

You have to remember that you’re so lucky you get to do this and try to have as much fun as possible. 

Alana: It’s the best.

Revisit all the most thrilling and nostalgic moments from HAIM’s debut album, Days Are Gone (10th Anniversary Edition)