Before season 2, Westworld composer Ramin Djawadi (who also did the music for Game of Thrones) spoke to Pitchfork about the process of developing the Westworld soundtrack over the last few years.
Djawadi was working on Person of Interest with Jonah Nolan when Nolan pulled him aside and asked if he would be interested in doing the music for a project he was developing: Westworld. Djawadi was immediately interested as the Westworld movie had been one of his favorites growing up, and didn’t wait to get started on crafting a sound for the science fiction western…
“I started writing music for it very, very early on, which most of the time I don’t do. Usually I come in towards the end during post-production when the episodes or the movie are already shot, and I get to see visuals. But this one I started writing just based on the conversations with Jonah. Then he started giving me scripts, and from that I started writing more. It was great just having that back and forth with him before there were even any visuals.”
The Westworld soundtrack quickly became partially defined by its minimalist piano covers of modern pop songs. For Djawadi, those moments are a “subtle reminder that, ‘Wait, there is something not right. This is not real.’ It’s just such a powerful tool that only music can do.”
Here are the featured piano songs and their original cousins for Westworld season 2.