# Music of Bridgerton

The music for the historical fiction-romance streaming television series Bridgerton, on the novel series of the same name by Julia Quinn, features an orchestral and classical score composed and produced by Kris Bowers and orchestral covers of contemporary popular music, performed by Vitamin String Quartet, Dunno and Bowers himself. Both the soundtrack and covers were released in the course of the series' premiere, with the first season's album being distributed by Lakeshore Records and the second season, by Capitol Records. The music received critical acclaim.

## Background

According to the showrunner, Chris Van Dusen, he described the musical choice selection, saying "It really goes to the idea of making this feel different than your other period shows. Whether it's music or the world of the show, the scripts, the sets, the costumes; it all comes back to infusing things through our own unique modern lens and making things feel relatable to whoever's watching." The director and executive producer Julie Anne Robinson said that she was inspired from the use of classic rock songs in A Knight's Tale (2001). To perform the selected covers, Van Dusen wanted to feel modern especially for the ball sequences, hence he bought the Vitamin String Quartet from Los Angeles, for covering the tracks.
Bowers started working on the score right after Mrs. America (2020), with the musicians performing and recording the score remotely due to COVID-19 pandemic. He felt it as a "trial and error" approach as he discussed with Van Dusen on taking a "super-modern approach to the sound" but with the use of traditional instruments. He tried with all the orchestral elements sound like they had been sampled and used it like producing hip hop or pop music, and followed the same for the ball scenes, but felt it did not work. Hence, he approached the traditional classical approach that was appropriate to the time it was.
While zeroing Simon and Daphne's theme, he used a ravel piano which wanted to be classical but slightly modern, which made sense as the story followed the younger generation of that period. The theme showed an array of emotions, which Bowers had described as:
   "In the beginning, it has this mysterious, somewhat longing feeling to it. It’s very dramatic, romantic and a bit darker. By the middle of the season, it starts to feel ambivalent when she discovers the truth behind what the Duke has told her. It feels ambiguous or unsettled. Towards the end, it’s triumphant, warm and much more optimistic, especially in the very last scene. That last scene mirrors one of the only times where we heard it optimistic when they make that pact. It’s the only time we hear the theme bright and happy, aside from episode one."
The theme for Lady Whistledown (voiced by Julie Andrews) was described as "harder to crack" as every time writing, it felt too proper and did not "have the bite and sass and edge". He tried over six iterations for the theme until finalising the seventh one. Another cue, he liked in the score was "What Women Do Best" as in place of the original score, he had a cue from A Clockwork Orange (1972), which the showrunner liked but could not use in the film, hence he felt scoring the original one was harder to beat the temp, which resulted in him recording till the last minute.

## Score albums

The score for the first season composed by Bowers, were released on December 25, 2020, on the show's premiere by Lakeshore Records. The second season's score was released by Capitol Records on March 25, 2022.

### Chart performance

Weekly chart performance for Bridgerton: Season 1 (Soundtrack from the Netflix Series) :
| Chart (2021) | Peak position |
| UK Album Downloads (OCC) | 35 |
| UK Soundtrack Albums (OCC) | 14 |
Weekly chart performance for Bridgerton: Season 2 (Soundtrack from the Netflix Series) :
| Chart (2022) | Peak position |
| Australian Albums (ARIA) | 37 |
| Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria) | 23 |
| Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders) | 34 |
| Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia) | 86 |
| Danish Albums (Hitlisten) | 26 |
| Dutch Albums (Album Top 100) | 92 |
| New Zealand Albums (RMNZ) | 33 |
| Spanish Albums (PROMUSICAE) | 56 |
| Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade) | 28 |
| UK Soundtrack Albums (OCC) | 36 |

## Soundtrack albums

Bridgerton: Season 1 (Covers from the Netflix Series) featured selections of songs from Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, Shawn Mendes, Taylor Swift, Celeste and Maroon 5, picked by the music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas. The first four of them were covered by the Vitamin String Quartet, except for the last two of the tracks—Celeste's "Strange" covered by the show's composer Bowers with his friend Hillary Smith and Axel Tenner (known by his stage name Duomo), performing Swift's "Wildest Dreams". The soundtrack was released by Lakeshore Records in a six-track extended play on December 25, 2020, alongside the show's premiere.
The covers for the second season had been released in conjunction with the premiere on March 25, 2022, with the score album also accompanied them. Capitol Records distributed the score and soundtrack. Some of the covers featured artists from Nirvana, Madonna, Rihanna, Miley Cyrus, Harry Styles, Pink, Robyn, Alanis Morissette and Lata Mangeshkar. The tracks were covered by Hannah V, Joe Rodwell, Steve Horner, Kiris Houston, Tomas Peire-Serrte and Midnite String Quartet, along with appearances from Vitamin String Quarter, Bowers and Duomo, who covered the contemporary songs for the first season's soundtrack. The soundtrack was released in two-disc 180 gram LP record on December 9, 2022, which contained Bower's score in one of the discs.

### Chart performance

Weekly chart performance for Bridgerton: Season 1 (Covers from the Netflix Series) :
| Chart (2021) | Peak position |
| Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders) | 132 |
| Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia) | 182 |
| UK Compilation Albums (OCC) | 8 |
| UK Album Downloads (OCC) | 8 |
| UK Soundtrack Albums (OCC) | 3 |
| US Soundtrack Albums (Billboard) | 10 |
Weekly chart performance for Bridgerton: Season 2 (Covers from the Netflix Series) :
| Chart (2022) | Peak position |
| UK Compilation Albums (OCC) | 4 |
| UK Album Downloads (OCC) | 3 |
| UK Soundtrack Albums (OCC) | 2 |
| US Soundtrack Albums (Billboard) | 20 |
Weekly chart performance for Bridgerton: Season 3 (Covers from the Netflix Series) :
| Chart (2024) | Peak position |
| Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria) | 67 |
| Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders) | 28 |
| Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia) | 126 |
| Hungarian Albums (MAHASZ) | 35 |

## Accolades

| Year | Award | Category | Nominees | Result |
| 2021 | Golden Reel Awards | Outstanding Achievement in Sound Editing – Music Score and Musical for Episodic Long Form Broadcast Media | Brittany DuBay (for "Shock and Delight") | Nominated |
| 2021 | Hollywood Music in Media Awards | Best Original Score in a TV Show/Limited Series | Kris Bowers | Nominated |
| 2021 | Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards | Outstanding Music Composition for a Series (Original Dramatic Score) | Kris Bowers (for "Diamond Of The First Water") | Nominated |
| 2021 | Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards | Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music | Kris Bowers and Michael Dean Parsons | Nominated |
| 2021 | Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards | Outstanding Music Supervision | Alexandra Patsavas (for "Diamond Of The First Water") | Nominated |
| 2022 | Black Reel Awards | Outstanding Music Supervision | Alexandra Pastvas | Nominated |
| 2022 | Black Reel Awards | Outstanding Musical Score | Kris Bowers | Nominated |
| 2022 | Grammy Awards | Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media | Kris Bowers | Nominated |
| 2022 | MTV Movie & TV Awards | Best Musical Moment | Anthony and Kate dancing to Midnight String Quartet's cover of "Wrecking Ball" | Nominated |
| 2023 | NAACP Image Awards | Outstanding Soundtrack/Compilation Album | Bridgerton Season Two (Soundtrack from the Netflix Series) (by Kris Bowers) | Nominated |