''This Town (Music from the Original BBC Series)'' is a

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...

by various artists of the 2024

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, p ...

TV miniseries, ''

This Town This Town may refer to: * "This Town" (Frank Sinatra song) * "This Town" (Niall Horan song) *"This Town", a song by Kygo, featuring Sasha Sloan * "This Town", a song by O.A.R. from the album All Sides * "This Town", a song by Roger Miller from ...

''. It was released on 26 April 2024 by

Polydor Records Polydor Records Ltd. is a German-British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in the United States. ...

on CD, and as an LP pressed on blue vinyl and clear vinyl. The album's release coincided with the broadcast of the TV show's final episode on BBC One on 28 April 2024. The miniseries was created by British screenwriter and film director

Steven Knight Steven Knight (born 1 April 1959) is a British screenwriter, film director and film producer. Knight wrote the screenplays for the films ''Closed Circuit'', '' Dirty Pretty Things'', and ''Eastern Promises'', and also wrote and directed the f ...

. It takes place in the United Kingdom during the two-tone ska revival in the 1980s. The show's soundtrack features songs by various artists, including UB40,

the Clash The Clash were an English rock band formed in London in 1976 who were key players in the original wave of British punk rock. Billed as "The Only Band That Matters", they also contributed to the and new wave movements that emerged in the wa ...

and Desmond Dekker,

cover Cover or covers may refer to: Packaging * Another name for a lid * Cover (philately), generic term for envelope or package * Album cover, the front of the packaging * Book cover or magazine cover ** Book design ** Back cover copy, part of co ...

s of songs recorded for the show by several musicians, including Self Esteem, Gregory Porter and

Sekou Sekou, also spelled Sékou or Seku, is a given name from the Fula language. It is equivalent to the Arabic ''Sheikh''. People with this name include: Given name * Seku Amadu (1776–1845), also known as Sékou Amadou or Sheikh Amadu, founder of ...

, and songs written for the show and performed by show's actors.

Content

''This Town (Music from the Original BBC Series)'' was released by

in association with Mercury Studios on 26 April 2024, and features selected music from the TV show's soundtrack. It comprises six covers of previously released songs, and five new songs written for the show. " You Can Get It If You Really Want", a 1995

reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...

song by Jamaican musician,

Jimmy Cliff James Chambers OM (born 30 July 1944), known professionally as Jimmy Cliff, is a Jamaican ska, rocksteady, reggae and soul musician, multi-instrumentalist, singer, and actor. He is the only living reggae musician to hold the Order of Merit, t ...

, was covered by

Sheffield Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...

singer, Self Esteem. Other covers on the album are " Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by English record producer and musician Ray Laurél, "

The Harder They Come ''The Harder They Come'' is a 1972 Jamaican crime film directed by Perry Henzell and co-written by Trevor D. Rhone, and starring Jimmy Cliff. The film is most famous for its reggae soundtrack that is said to have "brought reggae to the world". ...

" by English

neo soul Neo soul (sometimes called progressive soul) is a genre of popular music. As a term, it was coined by music industry entrepreneur Kedar Massenburg during the late 1990s to market and describe a style of music that emerged from soul and contempo ...

singer

Olivia Dean Olivia Lauryn Dean (born 14 March 1999) is an English singer. She began her career working in collaboration with Rudimental. She was named Amazon Music's 2021 breakthrough artist of the year and recorded an exclusive version of Nat King Cole's "T ...

, "

Blue Moon A blue moon is an additional full moon that appears in a subdivision of a year: the third of four full moons in a season. The phrase in modern usage has nothing to do with the actual color of the Moon, although a visually blue Moon (the Moon a ...

" by English singer

Celeste Celeste may refer to: Geography * Mount Celeste, unofficial name of a mountain on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada * Celeste, Texas, a rural city in North Texas ** Celeste High School, public high school located in the city of Celeste, ...

, "The World (Is Going Up in Flames)" by American musician Gregory Porter, and another Cliff song, "

Wonderful World, Beautiful People Wonderful may refer to: Albums * ''Wonderful'' (Adam Ant album), or the title song, 1995 * ''Wonderful'' (Circle Jerks album), or the title song, 1985 * ''Wonderful'' (Madness album), 1999 * ''Wonderful'' (Rick James album), or the title so ...

" by English singer

. The album's new songs were written for the show by English record producer and songwriter Dan Carey and English poet Kae Tempest. They were performed by actors in the show in the ska band they started called Fuck the Factory.

Reception

In a review in ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

'', Liberty Dunworth described the soundtrack as "an eclectic mix of artists putting their own spin on songs from the era in a bid to pay tribute to the hugely formative period." They called Self Esteem's version of " You Can Get It If You Really Want" a "sonic new cover" that puts "a modern, dance spin on the original". Also writing in ''NME'', Anagricel Duran described the soundtrack as a "genre-wide mix of timeless anthems, original songs, and iconic hits set in the world of ska and two-tone in the early ’80s." Marc Robinson of Mercury Studios described Polydor's vinyl artwork as "beautiful", and said that

"just nailed" "

". Alfie Jones writing in ''whynow'' called Celeste's cover of "Blue Moon" "stunningly evocative".

Track listing

LP release

CD release

Original score

''This Town''s

original score A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to e ...

composed by

Kormac Kormac is a DJ, producer, and composer from Dublin. In the mid-2000s, Kormac was a turntablist and multi-instrumentalist in the Irish experimental band 8Ball. In 2007, Kormac released his first solo EP, ''Scratch Marchin. Kormac has perform ...

was released by Globe Soundtrack & Score on 10 May 2024.

References

External links

''This Town''
at

Soundtrack.Net Soundtrack.Net (originally SoundtrackNet) is a website dedicated to film and television music. History Created in 1997 by Amélie E. Koran and Dan Goldwasser at Carnegie Mellon University, Soundtrack.Net has grown over the past decade to become ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:This Town 2024 soundtrack albums Polydor Records soundtracks