How to find music like the Fallout series soundtrack for your content
The Fallout series soundtrack blew up when Amazon released the show. Learn which genres to search for, and where to find the best Fallout-style songs for your content.
Post-apocalyptic wastelands have never been so fun — Amazon Prime Video’s Fallout adaptation took the world by storm in Spring 2024, thanks in no small part to its vintage soundtrack.
Want your content to sound like Fallout? We’ve got you covered. Let’s run through the essentials today:
- Why is Fallout so popular?
- Why does Fallout play old music?
- Does Fallout have a score?
- How to find music similar to the Fallout series soundtrack
- Looking for a shortcut?
- Five tracks to give your content that Fallout soundtrack vibe
Why is Fallout so popular?
Fallout might be new to some, but for die-hard fans, Prime Video’s TV series is the result of more than twenty years of dreaming. Fallout began life as a video game back in 1997, and has since grown into three direct sequels and a handful of spin-offs. The game series has scooped a raft of awards, with plenty of flowers given to its soundtrack.
Beyond that built-in fanbase, Fallout came at the right moment. Big-budget, critically acclaimed series like Station Eleven, Westworld, and The Last Of Us all used post-apocalyptic and dystopian backdrops to woo viewers and award juries alike. In particular, Fallout’s smashes the larger-than-life Westworld desert landscape with The Last Of Us’ gritty, survivalist storyline — it helps that Fallout is helmed by Westworld’s creators, Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy.
Why does Fallout play old music?
Fallout’s music taste is stuck in the 1940s and ‘50s because its technology diverts from real life just after WWII, resulting in no modern tech as we know it. Even though Fallout is set in 2296, they’re stuck in that mid-twentieth-century, retrofuturist aesthetic. That’s why you’ll hear Johnny Cash, Nat King Cole, and The Ink Spots as The Ghoul bounty-hunts across the desert.
Although you’ll find everything from ambient scores to Slipknot within the early Fallout games, the Prime Video series sticks to the vintage pop, doo-wop, and jazz that became so synonymous with the games.
This relationship goes all the way back to 2008, when Fallout 3’s trailer dropped. It was soundtracked by The Ink Spots’ 1941 cover of I Don’t Want to Set the World On Fire, which has since appeared in the Prime Video series. Fallout 3 also brought in diegetic music, letting players ‘tune in’ to in-game radio stations. This level of immersion made the game’s ye olde soundtrack an integral, near-constant part of the experience.
Does Fallout have a score?
Despite the focus on the soundtrack, the Fallout TV series does have its own original score. It was composed by Ramin Djawadi, the musician behind world-class scores for shows like Game of Thrones and Westworld, blockbusters ranging from Iron Man to Uncharted, and the Medal of Honor video game series.
Djawadi’s score is more contemporary classical than ‘50s-themed, taking cues from Inon Zur’s scores for a bunch of classic Fallout games. It’s fascinating work, but perhaps not what casual viewers would immediately think of if you mentioned the Fallout soundtrack.
How to find music similar to the Fallout series soundtrack
Struggling to find Fallout soundtrack-style music for your content? Don’t sweat it:
- Open the Epidemic Sound player — if you’re not signed up, you can get started here.
- Think about what tone you’d like for your content. You can search the player for a specific vibe — browse moods including quirky, busy & frantic, restless, and elegant.
- Consider the related genres that could fit your Fallout-style music brief. Try looking for genres like classic jazz, big band, swing, 1950s, rockabilly, and traditional country.
If you need to freshen up your memory, use Johnny Cash’s So Doggone Lonesome as a gold-medal reference point.
Looking for a shortcut?
If you want to pick and mix the best Fallout-style music from a playlist, we can help you out. Epidemic Sound’s music experts have curated playlists for:
- Old Movies: It’s giving sax, jazz, the shift from silent movies to talkies. Everything from the golden era of Hollywood to French film noir’s nestled in this playlist — whether you need big band bombast or the warmth of crackling vinyl, you’ll find it here.
- Vintage Dramedy: We’re rolling back the years a little more here, focusing on the 1920s and ‘30s dramedy boom. There’s mystery, there’s humor, there’s that old-school charm you get in spades with the Fallout series soundtrack.
- Vintage Camera: There are tons of upbeat, retro instrumentals to be discovered here. In a bebop mood one day, but need some solo piano for another leg of your project? It’s all in here.
- #Fallout: Yep, we’ve got a Fallout-specific cubby-hole just for you. Dive in and discover all manner of syrupy-sweet, old-timey tracks to soundtrack your content.
Intrigued? Dive into our catalog of more than 40,000 tracks below and find the perfect match today.
Five tracks to give your content that Fallout soundtrack vibe
Ready? Cue up that needle and drop it.
pär – My Sweet Ding-Didely-Dey
pär has cooked up a storm with My Sweet Ding-Didely-Day, capturing the cutesy glockenspiel and doo-wop harmonies most people might associate with later acts like the Beach Boys.
It’s a sweet, gentle track that’s easily syncable with chilled or high-octane footage — think of how it could juxtapose some hard-as-nails imagery like that of Fallout.
Golden Age Radio – Stompin’ Jazz Night
Golden Age Radio do as their name suggests: this is gramophone-style, crackly, old-school-as-they-come jazz. Stompin’ Jazz Night offers an authentic, feel-good vibe you’ll hear peppered all over the Fallout series soundtrack — this is bound to put a spring in your audience’s step.
The Best Ofs – Skip a Beat
Just because Fallout is set in a post-apocalyptic hellscape, it doesn’t mean they can’t hold a hoedown or two. The Best Ofs clearly got the memo — Skip a Beat delivers a turbocharged, rattling rockabilly rhythm similar to Johnny Cash’s early Sun Records material. It’s a bop, pure and simple.
Niklas Gabrielsson with Martin Landström & His Orchestra – Something’s Telling Me
Could this be any more fifties? Short of hula-hooping over a white-picket fence to offer you an ice-cold glass of Coca-Cola, not really — Niklas Gabrielsson with Martin Landström & His Orchestra got this thing down.
Something’s Telling Me’s all about that big band majesty, the gorgeous strings, the velveteen tones and cheeky wink of a Bobby Darin or Frank Sinatra. Dial back the clock and dunk your viewers in this nostalgic ode to romance.
Chris Shards – Summer of 59
Let’s wrap up with another barnstormer, this time courtesy of Chris Shards. Summer of 59 is rock ‘n’ roll all over, those strutting guitar licks and shuffling rhythms sounding every bit as playful as the classics from the mid-1900s.
Still not nailed the Fallout soundtrack style for your content? No worries. Dig into more than 40,000 A-grade tracks below, and find the perfect soundtrack today.
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