When the first season of Arcane was released in 2021, it broke records within its first week and earned plenty of praise from fans and critics alike. It brings new and old fans into the world of Riot Games’ League of Legends with ease, painting the conflict between Piltover and Zaun with beautiful storytelling and hard-hitting nuance that keeps fans guessing even into season two. Arcane is currently releasing said season throughout November on Netflix, serving as the curtain call for the show as a whole. With episodes already out, fans can look forward to another set of three releasing on November 23.
One of Arcane‘s key elements that helps it stand out among Netflix Originals and other video game adaptions is its use of music to emphasize storytelling. The hit TV show uses both a regular orchestral score and songs from popular artists, such as Linkin Park and Fever 333. This approach to Arcane‘s soundtrack goes hand-in-hand with Riot’s adoration for special musical tributes, which can be seen through League of Legends‘ many music videos over the years. Alex Seaver is the executive music producer of Arcane, and in an interview with Game Rant, Seaver spoke about the process behind the hefty collaborations seen in the show and what other steps go towards making the musical moments of Arcane unique, eye-catching, and informative. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
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Riot Games’ History With Music Before Arcane
Q: Can you talk about what it’s like working with Riot Games and the many artists who have collaborated with the League of Legends projects you’ve been on?
A: Absolutely, yeah, it’s amazing working over there. I think that’s actually one of the reasons why I had put my artist project that was called Mako on hold a little bit is that I’ve just been having so much fun with the many different kinds of things I do there. Beyond Arcane, we write these incredible music videos celebrating champions, their e-sports division commissions, these thrilling stadium anthems that we get to put on each year with great artists… Arcane is this like out-of-control sort of multi-medium, musical collaboration with animation, television, and storytelling. Beyond that, over the years since I’ve been with Riot, you know the greater music community now kind of knows about us. The ability we have to collaborate with really successful and talented artists is unlike anything we thought it could be when I started writing songs for them back in, I don’t know, 2015 or so.
It’s been astounding what League of Legends has managed to do with the music scene as well; everything they’ve been doing is just impressive.
A: Yeah, like, the Arcane experience was kind of a good example of that because, during season one, we’d reach out to artists and Arcane didn’t exist. We had to like… beg these artists, in a way, being like “We swear this will be good! Please, please, please!” In season two, we just had tons of artists reach out to us in advance, being like, “If there’s anything I can do on this show, please let me know,” which is just a surreal kind of switch to what it felt like before.
How the Arcane Soundtrack is Organized Among Multiple Artists
Q: Now I’m curious, are there any dream artists that you’ve worked with that have reached out because of Arcane?
A: Definitely. I mean, Woodkid was actually the first dream artist of mine that reached out, and he was the only one that reached out before season one because he actually went to school with the heads of Fortiche Productions. He’s a French artist, so they were all in school in France together, and Woodkid knew what they were up to and knew that it was going to be great. He reached out to us, and that was like, for me, a big bucket list because I had been a fan of Woodkid’s for, I don’t know, five years already.
Stromae was another one, I guess another French artist, where his brother was huge fan of Arcane season one. He reached out to us, and we were blown away because Woodkid and other artists like Stromae felt like an untouchable person to collaborate with because he does few things outside releasing his own albums. And we respect his work so much. That was another one of many artists that had us like, “Holy cow, I can’t believe this person is down to make music with us.”
Q: What exactly makes working on Arcane different from the other work for League of Legends that you’ve done?
A: The basic thesis is the same as other Riot works, which is like, “Let’s make something as good as we can possibly make it,” but Arcane is definitely its own beast. You know, it’s a television show, so it has some things about it that function like traditional television scoring, but the thing with Arcane is that, from the very beginning, our showrunners and the animation team wanted to weave music deliberately into everything that’s happening on-screen. And on the song side, a lot of that involves film scoring the song’s pace.
In other kinds of film and television, you’ll usually have artists write and finish a song first and then a music editor will put it into the series and make it all work. We actually like to stare at the pictures with no music and then write a song that does all the exact beats that happen on screen. This process is so wonky, it’s so challenging, but it ends up getting you to a place where the songs and the music almost act as characters themselves. Then we reverse engineer that later on and turn them into more traditional songs on Spotify.
It just creates this experience that I don’t know if it exists elsewhere in film and television where you’re writing pop songs to picture.
Q: You’ve worked with so many notable artists for Arcane’s soundtrack. How does the creative process with all those different artists work?
A: That’s a really good question. In season two, I actually executive produce the soundtrack as well. So season one, I was only kind of involved in the songs that I was writing and then, you know, other people would help finish the other ones. In season two, our showrunner is named Christian. He asked me to kind of like quarterback the whole soundtrack and really make sure that the entire thing turned out, you know, up to par. That was a steep learning curve, but a really rewarding experience because I started to understand how to approach something like this. I mean, we have 22 songs or something?
The answer to your question is that every single song and every artist had a different approach, and it was really all about the artist. The start of the process would be having a conversation with each artist and explaining the scene to them. If they were writing the song themselves, I’d give them a bunch of different information, but really, it’s just kind of getting in their head and learning how they create because everybody’s different.
Some people really create from a place of self-expression, some people don’t want that much information to get started, some people want as much information as you can possibly give them. Some people are comfortable writing to picture, some people get distracted by it, and so I would kind of curate an experience for each artist based on where I sensed they create from. Then I’d be with them the whole way, helping them sort of access what they do best in a way that would still work for the show.
It was really important to us that we didn’t just steal an artist’s voice or their abilities and then turn it into something that doesn’t even seem recognizable to them. We wanted them to feel as proud of their songs as much as they work for Arcane at the same time, so it really depended on each person, but one of the great things about season two was just getting to play with so many different people.
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What It’s Like Working on Arcane’s Soundtrack From Start To Finish
Q: Was there anything different between creating songs for Arcane’s first season compared to the second season?
A: There are a couple of changes. The first thing I want to point out—I’m so curious to see what people think when they see the show because we have twice as many songs this time—is that we wanted to make sure that the genesis of how we created these was exactly the same as season one, which is about supporting the storytelling. We don’t have flashy music moments to be like, “Check out this song that we’re going to promote.” Every bit of music is in there because it supports the storytelling, and it’s what our team, like Christian and Fortiche, want.
A lot of how we approached this was the same, but definitely in season two, there were a couple of things where we were like, “Let’s flex! Let’s see how much further we can push this!” Because season one, we kind of felt like we invented a lot of things, like that process of scoring the songs to picture that I was explaining to you. A lot of that stuff is just growing pains, kind of figuring out… how does an Arcane song come together?
By season two, you know, we had 11 of them under our belt, and we’re like, “Okay, we know how to do this at a basic level. How much deeper can we integrate these songs and how can we surprise people?” Because the other thing is, we don’t want to do everything exactly the same where people are like “Okay, I get it. Here comes another classic Arcane song moment.” There are a couple songs in season two where we’re really like, “Alright, let’s mess with our set up, and just try and throw people in ways that still support storytelling.” I can’t spoil any of them yet, but there’s some really cool ones coming up.
Q: Looking back at Arcane’s first season, which song was the most challenging for you to tackle?
A: I think, for me, “What Could Have Been” – the finale – was challenging. It wasn’t like… impossible. I’ve had experiences in music where I’m like—I can’t even imagine, I think I’m ruining this—but I think that finale, the one with Sting, it just felt like the stakes were as high as anything I’d done, which is like try and write something that is deserving of nine episodes of this beautiful story because it really is. The song ends the whole season, like there’s no other dialogue, really. And then beyond that, it was like we’re going aim as high as we can with the artists that we collaborate with. Before starting it, it was like “Try and write a song that’s worthy of being the finale that also somebody like Sting might sing.” And I just remember that was like, really, really freaking scary at the time.
Actually, writing that one to picture was a little tricky as well because it didn’t really conveniently play out. You start the song and it just continues naturally all the way ‘till it finishes. I had to kind of figure out a couple of weird moves and arrangement choices to kind of make it all work, and that one was a tough one for me.
Q: That reminds me; how did you feel when “What Could Have Been” was performed at The Game Awards a couple of years back?
A: It was so surreal. It was beautiful. I was there throughout the process because we worked with Lorne Balfe, the legendary composer who also is the creative director for the Game Awards. He reached out to us with Geoff, the head of The Game Awards, and said they wanted to feature it. We got to work with those guys, arrange it for orchestra, record it, and then the set design that they did, I mean, everyone can see it on YouTube, it was just beautiful. They built this whole thing that honored the finale moment when, you know, the rocket is flying across the blood red sky and it was just unbelievable what they did. And Ray Chen, the incredible violinist joined us on-stage and played his solo, that was cool. That was a highlight for me, for sure.
Q: Have you seen the final season of Arcane all together?
A: Here’s the funny sneaky thing – I’ve seen the whole show because we had to write music to it, obviously, but the point where it gets to final animation, I only start paying attention to the specific scenes that I’m working on. Alexander Temple scores the show with me as well, and he does more than half of the orchestra score because I’m so busy working on the soundtrack at the same time.
When everything’s cooking, I stop watching his bits because I want to see it. That’s the toughest thing, I’m such a fan of the show. Even if I had nothing to do with it, I don’t want to spoil it for myself. I know what happens in the plot, but I want to experience it all at once for the first time. I did that with season one, and it made for such a fun release month. I’ve kind of gone through the same experience where some of these are foggy in my memory, but I haven’t seen a final version of the show top to bottom before, and I’m really excited for that.
What to Expect from Arcane’s Final Season
Q: What are some nuances you try to put into your music when it comes to the emotional depth in Arcane’s story and characters?
A: I think the thing that’s really fun about Arcane is that you’re telling the stories you’re seeing on-screen. Taking on the perspective of these characters when you’re writing lyrics for them is something I’m going to miss so much after this season. You just look up and you see, for example, Vi brutally slap Powder in the face as she abandons her at the end of episode 3 in season one, and you’re just like, “Okay, I just have to tell that story.”
Man, I can’t get over these people. It’s so weird because they’re in your life so deeply and they’re fictional characters, but I’ve probably written five or six songs pretending to be Jinx, living in her head, and just imagining what she’s experiencing and writing those lyrics. Season two, I got to write a lot of Caitlyn and stuff. I liked her in season one, but I didn’t really connect with her quite as much as I connected with some of the other characters. In season two, I was so connected with her, maybe more than any other character.
I think that experience of just darting around and sort of taking on a role like an actor, just imagining the story through their eyes and writing a song on their behalf is what makes Arcane so freaking special to me.
There was a fun moment where I did some behind the scene videos on my YouTube channel, and I revealed that the song “Guns For Hire” from episode six in season one, that really iconic scene where Jinx lights the flare. I revealed on there that that’s actually a Silco song, like the lyrics are written through Silco’s perspective. It’s just really funny because nobody really pays attention to that because you’re busy watching Jinx and then watching Vi in that moment that you really don’t think of it as a Silco thing, but it’s fun for me on the other end to share that information and see everybody’s perspective kind of change and be like, “Oh crap!” I was reading the comments and people were saying that the line “you sold your friends like guns for hire” didn’t really make sense because everybody was trying to map it onto Jinx, and it’s because it was what Silco was doing.
All of these moments, they mean to people whatever they want them to mean; it’s not necessarily like you have to hear that as a Silco song, but that’s how I wrote it, you know? That’s where it came from.
Q: Is there anything you want to tell Arcane fans ahead of the final season’s finale?
A: Just thank you for joining this journey with us. I think I just want to say to everybody that the love, appreciation, and the energy we got after season one was so inspiring as we started working on season two. I was kind of like floating on a cloud for two years after season one came out, and we’re working on season two because I just felt so inspired and motivated based on everyone connecting with the story as much as we were connecting with it. We really took it as an insane responsibility to take care of everyone’s feelings towards the show in season two. We really gave it as much love and care as we did in season one, so I’m just really excited for everyone to see it.
I just wanted to say thank you to everyone that loved it and also loved the music moments because it’s what ultimately made our showrunner in our animation studio say, like, “Let’s do more of that. That’s something that’s a part of the Arcane identity. Let’s keep the music flowing.”
[END]
Arcane is an animated series developed by Alex Yee and Christian Linke that follows a the story of Piltover and Zaun, two pivotal locations in the League of Legends universe. The first season follows the stories of Jynx and Vi, as well as Jayce and Viktor.
- Release Date
- November 6, 2021
- Cast
- Hailee Steinfeld , Ella Purnell , Kevin Alejandro , Katie Leung , jason spisak , Toks Olagundoye , Harry Lloyd , JB Blanc , Reed Shannon , Mick Wingert
- Seasons
- 2
- Franchise(s)
- League of Legends
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