Streaming Euphoria: An Influential Soundtrack
If you went anywhere near social media last week, you’d know that HBO aired the final episode of Euphoria season two on Monday 28 Feb. The show has captured the attention of a significant audience, recently becoming the HBO network’s second-most viewed program, after Game of Thrones. ‘That’s all well and good, but what’s that got to do with music?’, we hear you say. Well, we’re glad you asked, reader of The Habit Weekly! Alongside its glistening visuals and controversial storylines, Euphoria’s soundtrack has become one of the show's defining features.
A phenomenon of its own, the Euphoria soundtrack has influenced the listening patterns of plenty of its viewers, and there’s a number of factors that have contributed to that.
Labrinth’s Original Score
Euphoria’s original score is the genre-diverse brainchild of singer-songwriter Labrinth. Season one’s score, which was released in 2019, peaked at number 79 on the Billboard 200 - marking the artist’s first placement on the chart. The album also made its way into several countries’ top 50 charts. On TikTok, the album's tracks ‘Forever’ and ‘Still Don’t Know My Name’ have been used on 2.5 million videos, and 1.4 million videos, respectively. Labrinth also picked up two Emmy nominations for his work, winning the Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics award for 'All For Us'.
As season two rolled out, new songs from Labrinth's catalogue accompanied scenes across millions of screens worldwide. Fans urged Labrinth to release the new musical additions to the show, and he responded to that demand by releasing tracks ‘Yeh I Fuckin’ Did It’ and ‘I’m Tired’. After an initial release, the latter of the two was pulled from Spotify and replaced with a new version, which features Euphoria's star Zendaya. Now, 'Im Tired' has been streamed 17.8 million times on Spotify, while 'Yeh I Fuckin' Did It' has been streamed 7.4 million times.
The Euphoria score acts as both an accompaniment to an already popular program, and a standalone project, complete with its own audience, TikTok trends and accolades.
Dominic Fike AKA Elliot
On January 9th, when the long-awaited first episode of Euphoria’s second season aired, viewers were introduced to Elliot, a character portrayed by singer-songwriter, and now actor, Dominic Fike.
During the program's season 2 finale, fans were quick to react to a scene where Elliot performed an original, four minute long song. Some viewers mocked the song for being too long, and for interrupting what was otherwise a suspenseful episode. Luckily, Fike didn’t seem to take the online responses too personally. He even shared a number of memes about his performance to his Instagram story, joking that he felt ‘humbled’ by the response. A few days after the episode’s release, another version of ‘Elliot’s Song’ was officially released. The new ‘Elliot’s Song’ features Zendaya and is just 2:28 minutes long.
‘Elliot’s Song’ has amassed 5.5 million streams on Spotify and been added to Spotify playlists like ‘big on the internet’, ‘Front Left’ and ‘Mood Booster’. Earlier this week, the track was also added to rotation on triple j, alongside ‘I’m Tired’. And since his first appearance on Euphoria, Fike has enjoyed a spike of approximately 49.9% in monthly listeners on Spotify.
Utilising The Classics
While its original score has become a major contributing factor to the show’s success, Euphoria doesn’t just feature original music. Thanks to Music Supervisor Jen Malone, tracks like Gerry Rafferty’s ‘Right Down The Line’, Steely Dan’s ‘Dirty Work’, and Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Holding Out For A Hero’ added a touch of classic charm to some of Euphoria’s scenes. Australia’s INXS made the cut too, with their songs ‘Need You Tonight’, ‘Mystify’, ‘Never Tear Us Apart’, ‘Devil Inside’, and ‘New Sensation’ all being included in recent episodes. Since the season finale, INXS’s Spotify streams have reportedly grown by 10%. By bringing these much-loved, older tracks back into the spotlight, Euphoria has encouraged a newfound appreciation for them, amongst the show's fans.
From Labrinth’s genre-bending scores, Dominic Fike’s new career path and a selection of classic favourites, Euphoria’s diverse soundtrack has left a lasting impression on fans, who in turn have generated some fascinating and telling data.
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