HBO’s successful fantasy TV show “Game of Thrones” premiered its eighth and final season on Apr. 14 along with the full track listing for its accompanying soundtrack titled “For the Throne.” As fans eagerly wait to see who will claim the Iron Throne once and for all, they’ll have songs and scores that are nothing short of captivating to listen to.
The album was released Apr. 26 by Columbia Records. With 14 songs, the collection features a stunning lineup of artists such as The Weeknd, Ellie Goulding, Mumford & Sons, Travis Scott and Florence + The Machine among various others to create a beautifully memorable and poignant celebration of the “Game of Thrones” journey that has lead fans to season eight.
The second episode of the season, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,” exposed fans to Podrick’s rendition of “Jenny of Oldstones.” The song was then covered by Florence + The Machine for the album, a version that sends goosebumps through listeners as the lyrics ignite emotional uncertainty for whose deaths are to come in later episodes. The lyric video features scenes from the show’s first season, making the nostalgic impact even more unforgettable. The slow rhythm evokes not only a consideration for everything that the surviving characters will have to face in the final fight, but also everything that the weathered characters have been through.
Not all songs on the album are dark and dreary. Ellie Goulding’s single “Hollow Crown” is not only fortifying with its rallying beats and brooding lyrics, but it is also highly reminiscent of the show’s defining tension and angst.
The track “Power is Power” by SZA, Travis Scott and The Weeknd, also titled after one of the most famous quotes by the show’s villainess Cersei Lannister, was released in a spellbinding visual collage featuring some of the show’s most dramatic moments. In the lyric video, the song pays particular homage to two of the remaining survivors, Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen, by reliving some of their most heroic scenes with lyrics like “a knife in my heart couldn’t slow me down” – a heavy callback to Jon Snow’s death in the season five finale, or “my fire never goes out…now watch me burn it down,” – a reference, of course, to none other than the Mother of Dragons herself.
In addition to the soundtrack, the “Game of Thrones” composer Ramin Djawadi also released a stand-alone nine-minute track titled “The Night King,” which was introduced during the season’s third episode, “The Long Night.” It is perhaps just as popular as the soundtrack songs and is my personal favorite alongside Goulding’s “Hollow Crown.” The arrangement opens with a haunting piano theme that plays during the Battle of Winterfell all the way through the end credits. As the song grows in disturbing intensity around the five-minute mark, the climax of the episode parallels the invigorating melody, leading up to a heart-stopping crescendo as the final scene of the episode plays before the score retreats to its melancholy pace.
Given the show’s consistent themes of betrayal, love, sacrifice and power, shown through its addictive bloody and morally conflicting plot, it makes sense for a soundtrack to mirror that. With that, “For the Throne” is not a happy compilation. Rather, it encompasses everything that made “Game of Thrones” the product that it is today, and unifies talented artists under a singular underlying proposition: what would you be willing to do for the throne?
