M3GAN (soundtrack)
M3GAN is the soundtrack to the 2023 film M3GAN directed by Gerard Johnstone. Featuring musical score composed by Anthony Willis, the album consisted of 29 tracks were released by Back Lot Music on January 6, 2023. The soundtrack was further issued on vinyl LP by Waxwork Records on March 10, 2023.
Background
Johnstone wanted several factors that does not feel clichéd, which also applied to the music as well. He had a vision that the AI doll M3GAN would sing as well as playing piano, and there was a song written into the script. He listened to Willis' score for Promising Young Woman and liked it as well as the film's femme fatale aspect, which attracted Willis. During a discussion with Johnstone and the executives of Blumhouse Productions, Willis suggested to do musical arrangements similar to that of Disney animated films. The idea eventually attracted the producers and Willis was hired as the film's composer.Production
Score
The score had several elements, where Johnstone demanded a "deeper and richer" music more than the string arrangements, and also the action music should have more intensity. It then turns into a "dark Alice in Wonderland" kind of melancholy that is set in a contemporary tech environment. The harmonies were played consistently in the dramatic moments, and the common denominator being the range of musical colors, according to Willis. Even in the action music, the harp is used as it had a feminine color, and it would become dark when it is ripped really fast, becoming strong and heartless. The score also had string music, which Johnstone wanted it to be warm, which was different from a horror film director.Willis wrote a descending motif that was not melodic in a traditional lyrical sense, but something was identifiable. He further described it as "the death riff" which plays when M3GAN finds that Cady's parents have died and she starts processing death, which features a sequence where M3GAN looks out the window and sees a butterfly and helicopter and starts to process and fill in the blanks in her programming. For the sonic palette, he used a vibraphone because of its ambiguous, organic and metallic quality and because of its fluttering mechanism, it was slightly technical providing a sci-fi quality. Later he used a piano, it make it bit more unique to M3GAN blending with a small piano. The vocal harmonies were done by Willis' friend Holly Sedillos.
An array of instruments such as synths, anvils, low percussion, were provided for the intense action music. He used instrumentation from the traditional horror palette which emulates the shape of chanting.