Blitz (Soundtrack from the Apple Original Film) is the soundtrack to the 2024 film "Blitz" directed by Steve McQueen. The musical score is composed by Hans Zimmer, whose soundtrack featured 18 songs; it also included few original musical numbers scored by Nicholas Britell, who provided additional music. The album was released through Milan Records on 1 November 2024.
Development.
In July 2024, it was announced that Zimmer would score music for "Blitz", collaborating with McQueen for the third time after "12 Years a Slave" (2013) and "Widows" (2018). Though Zimmer had scored "Pearl Harbor" (2001) and "Dunkirk" (2017), both films were set during the World War II, he opined that the story of Blitz personally connected with him, recalling about his mother sheltered as a German Jewish refugee in England during the war, and with McQueen insisted him that he would understand his mother better, after watching this film, when he was involved in the project, adding "And I knew all the stories, and as I was working on the film. I started to feel her stories. So, he was absolutely correct."
This eventually allowed him to create a score that reflected the terror and confusion of how an adult and child would feel, resulting in a dissonant, atonal score that was "very difficult to put pieces together". To achieve that, Zimmer thought of writing music that would be brutal and violent and feel uneasy towards the audience. He primarily used a treble recorder, which was "one of the most tortuous instruments in the world", according to Zimmer, who recalled on the instrument being played in his school days where "everybody’s out of tune and everybody’s blowing really hard into them – and it’s the sound of hell".
The score starts with an orchestra of children's recorders and gradually move towards a complex orchestration as the story progresses. Zimmer tuned the score, when he was returning from the orchestra tour and formed a close relationship with the performing band, adding "They've spent their whole life learning how to make their instruments sound beautiful. And it takes a certain amount of courage to go and then turn all that upside down and me saying, here are the notes, but what I want from you is I want them to be, like, you know, razors running down a piano wire."
Nicholas Britell was brought for the film to compose original songs and produce additional music; he previously did the same for "12 Years a Slave". An original song "Winter Coat" was performed by Saoirse Ronan and Britell, which was recorded on 7 November 2024, at the Studio A located at Power Station at BerkleeNYC in New York City. The video of the performance was released through "Deadline Hollywood" on 27 November. The album was released through Milan Records on 1 November.
Critical reception.
"Filmtracks.com" wrote "The soundtrack altogether is the kind of souvenir-oriented experience that requires an admiration of the film to appreciate." Fionnuala Halligan of "Screen International" noted that Zimmer's score "occasionally threatens to overwhelm [...] but keeps a respectful and impactful distance." Monica Castillo of "RogerEbert.com" wrote "Hans Zimmer scores these events with discordant and jarring notes that sound vaguely electronic and metallic as if the sounds were ricocheting off trains and bombs." Justin Chang in his review for "The New Yorker", summarized "Hans Zimmer’s dread-infused score at times evokes the drone of planes and the scream of sirens, but McQueen practically cues up an orchestra in jubilant response." Clarisse Loughrey of "The Independent" stated "Hans Zimmer’s thunderous, relentless score transforms itself into the machine of war, the crunch of metal against metal, or the whistle-whir of death falling from the sky." Leslie Felperin of "The Hollywood Reporter" called it as a "percussive, thrumming score". Rogan Graham of Little White Lies deciphered it as both "tense and dynamic".
Accolades.
As Zimmer's score for "" deemed ineligible for the Best Original Score category at the 97th Academy Awards, due to the major themes being borrowed from the first film, the score for Blitz was instead considered as a contender for the possible category. It was shortlisted as one among the 146 other film scores on 2 December 2024.