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You Can Now Listen to the Soulful "Lovecraft Country" Soundtrack

Photo credit: HBO
Photo credit: HBO

From Oprah Magazine

  • Misha Green's Lovecraft Country has been a critical and cultural success, blending spooky sci-fi with hard-hitting commentary on America's history of racism and persecution.

  • Set in the 1950s, the show's music supervisor, Liza Richardson, makes extensive use of blues and R&B classics by B.B. King, Little Richard, Josephine Baker, and many more.

  • In addition to the soundtrack, Laura Karpman and Raphael Saadiq recorded the score entirely remotely on software like Zoom.


Lovecraft Country features a unique blend of genres and themes. One minute, it's giving us hair-raising horror, the next steamy, 1950s romance, all while delivering pointed, probing commentary on the racism deeply rooted in America's history. Created by writer Misha Green and adapted from a novel by Matt Ruff, the show has been a critical darling in its first season for HBO—and its music has caught viewers' ears.

The show thrusts its leads, played with grace by Jurnee Smollett and Jonathan Majors, into a myriad of different environments as they travel across the American South, haunted by both supernatural creatures and white supremacy. Therefore, it demands music that's as eclectic as its overall tone. Music supervision for the show is handled by Liza Richardson, who has previously worked on programs like Watchmen, The Leftovers, and Friday Night Lights.

For Richardson, choosing the right song for a given moment in the show, which soundtracks climactic moments with records like "Whitey on the Moon" by Gil Scott-Heron, "September Song" by Sarah Vaughan, and "The End" by Earl Grant, was instinctual.

"A lot of people say, 'Why did you choose this song?' And oftentimes the answer is because it just worked. You land on something that just gels or gives you chills," Richardson told Bustle. "Sometimes there's no intellectual reason. It's just instinct."

The series takes place in the mid-1950s, and as such it makes use of classics from around that era by Etta James, Nina Simone, Little Richard, and many more. Even from that period, Richardson said she emphasized "discovery" over using tracks audiences have heard many times.

"I love the music of this period. I can’t even tell you what a great collection I have," Richardson said to Rolling Stone.

Modern artists whose songs appear in the show include genre-benders like Moses Sumney, Leikeli47, and Tierra Whack, as well as rap superstar Cardi B.

Photo credit: HBO
Photo credit: HBO

While Lovecraft Country leans on popular music frequently, it differs from fellow HBO show I May Destroy You in that it also has an elaborate orchestral score. That comes courtesy of Grammy-winning producer Raphael Saadiq and Emmy-winning composer Laura Karpman. The score is unique because, though it uses 30 different musicians, it was recorded remotely and assembled digitally to create a seamless finished product.

"Who is it in sports who likes to have the ball, to take the shot? That’s Laura. Our dynamic is always trying to diversify the sound of strings in music and mix analog with instruments like bass guitars," Saadiq told Variety. "We use a lot of different effects so you don’t hear a guitar. It’s really flipped out to sound like something else, like a string."

Below is a list of all the songs featured in Lovecraft Country with links to stream, as well as the official Spotify playlist made by HBO for the series.

Lovecraft Country Complete Soundtrack


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