Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (soundtrack)
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: Awesome Mix Vol. 2 is the soundtrack album for the Marvel Studios film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Featuring the songs present on Peter Quill's mixtape in the film, the album was released by Hollywood Records on April 21, 2017. A separate film score album, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 , composed by Tyler Bates, was also released by Hollywood Records on the same date. Awesome Mix Vol. 2 was the United States' eighth best-selling album of 2017 with 600,000 copies.
Background
Tyler Bates, composer of Guardians of the Galaxy, announced that he would return to score the sequel film by August 2015. As with Guardians of the Galaxy, Bates wrote some of the score first so that writer–director James Gunn could film to the music, as opposed to Bates scoring to the film. Recording for the score began in January 2017 at Abbey Road Studios. By August 2014, Gunn had "some ideas listed, but nothing for sure" in terms of songs to include in Quill's Awesome Mix Vol. 2 mixtape. In April 2015, Gunn said he felt "a little pressure for the soundtrack because so many people loved the first film's soundtrack and we went platinum and all that other stuff. But I feel like the soundtrack in the second one is better." In June 2015, Gunn stated that all of the songs for Awesome Mix Vol. 2 had been chosen and built into the script. One of the most exciting things for Gunn in selecting the songs for the album "was knowing I would be making bands that may have been forgotten suddenly be a topic of conversation." Gunn had hoped to include "She's Gone" by Hall & Oates in the film, calling it "one of the greatest pop songs ever written", but could not find a place for it, as with "Teenage Lament '74" by Alice Cooper In January 2016, Gunn stated that he had chosen an additional David Bowie song to appear in the film but had cut the original scene it was featured in. The inclusion would have made Bowie the only artist to be featured on both mixtapes. With Bowie's death, however, Gunn hoped to find a way to include the chosen song somewhere else in the film as a "fair and appropriate" way to honor him, as Bowie was one of Gunn's idols. "For Once in My Life" by Stevie Wonder was also considered for a scene. Gunn called the Awesome Mix Vol. 2 "more diverse" than the first one, with "some really incredibly famous songs and then some songs that people have never heard."On August 6, 2017, Marvel released the music video of an original song, "Guardians Inferno", performed by The Sneepers featuring David Hasselhoff. This was to promote the home media release of the film. The 1970s-style video was directed by David Yarovesky, and features Hasselhoff alongside James Gunn, Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Dave Bautista, Pom Klementieff, Karen Gillan, Michael Rooker and Sean Gunn. Stan Lee and Guillermo Rodriguez also make cameo appearances on the video.