BY SPOTIFY
Spotify’s Star Wars celebrations are in full Force starting today, and this May the 4th—aka Star Wars Day—fans will discover playlists with exclusive interactive content and new ways to explore audiobooks from the iconic franchise.
In our Best of Star Wars playlist—which has been streamed over 70 million times to date—multiple lightsabers have been hidden throughout our collection of the most-iconic Star Wars songs. Those intrepid enough to find them all will be rewarded with special Easter eggs featuring beloved characters from the Star Wars universe.
In addition, Spotify Audiobooks today launched its new Sci-Fi & Fantasy Essentials hub, which includes a number of Star Wars classics for fans to listen along to, in addition to new and quintessential sci-fi and fantasy titles such as The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, and Black Shield Maiden by Willow Smith, releasing May 6.
Ready to listen for yourself? Just follow these simple steps.
How to celebrate Star Wars Day with Spotify:
- Lightsaber Scavenger Hunt (Mobile Only): Listen to Spotify’s Best of Star Wars Playlist to begin unlocking hidden lightsabers in the tracks. As specific songs are played, listeners will receive a message from characters announcing they have unlocked a lightsaber. Once a listener has collected all five, they can check back later for a special message coming from a galaxy far, far away.
- Intergalactic Audiobooks: Spotify Premium users across the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand have access to 15 hours of monthly audiobook listening time—check out titles from the Essential Legend Collection including Yoda: Dark Rendezvous or Timothy Zahn’s top-streamed Heir to the Empire (Star Wars Legends).
Star Wars fans show their love on Spotify
While May the 4th is a banner day for Star Wars-related streams each year, Spotify data reveals that fans listen to their favorite Star Wars hits on Spotify all year long:
- California, Texas, and Florida rank as the top three U.S. states with most streams of Spotify’s Best of Star Wars playlist.
- On May 4, 2023, Spotify’s Best of Star Wars playlist saw an over 2,000%+ global increase in average daily streams compared to the week prior.
- In the U.S., this spike in average daily streams increased by more than 3,000%.
- “Star Wars (Main Theme)” and “The Imperial March (Darth Vader’s Theme)” by John Williams, and “The Mandalorian” by Ludwig Göransson were the three most popular tracks from the “Best of Star Wars” playlist on May 4th 2023.
- The sci-fi & fantasy genre ranks in the top three for audiobook completion rates on Spotify.
- “Heir to the Empire” (Star Wars Legends) by Timothy Zahn is the most-streamed Star Wars-related audiobook on Spotify.
The art of Star Wars soundtracks
Last (but certainly not least), For the Record spoke with composer Kevin Kiner who, alongside his children Sean and Deana, has created the scores for fan-favorite shows like Star Wars: The Bad Batch, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and most recently, Ashoka. Keep reading to discover what makes a Star Wars song a Star Wars song, his creative approach to Star Wars shows, and his experience of watching Star Wars for the very first time.
How does it feel to be a part of the Star Wars universe? Were you always a fan?
It means everything to me. It’s the crowning achievement of my career to be part of Star Wars, and in my opinion, having themes that are now canon in the Star Wars universe is one of the greatest honors a composer can have.
But to fully answer the question, I was always a fan. I went to every midnight showing I could. I don’t think there was a midnight showing in 1977, but I do remember when I first saw Star Wars. When I first saw that giant Star Destroyer and I first heard John’s magnificent theme, it changed my life, musically speaking.
Your work spans many different genres and worlds. How do you add in elements that bring those various places to life in a score?
It’s hard to talk about being eclectic and cohesive at the same time when the very definition of being eclectic often involves not being cohesive. I feel that all of the music we do for Star Wars still has a largeness of scope to it in the same way John Williams’ compositions do. If you take his “The Imperial March,” for example, it’s a giant piece of music in terms of not being subtle and being extremely bold.
Boldness is one of the hallmarks of Star Wars music. That’s what we strategically have in mind when we are writing. So even if we are using unusual flutes or dark synths, they are all bold sounds that hearken to the spirit of the Star Wars universe.
How do you get into the right creative mindset when you start work on a new Star Wars soundtrack?
For Ahsoka, Sean, Deana, and I put together a playlist of 20-25 tracks that we thought were really groundbreaking and unusual. The list included everyone from Joe Hisaishi to John Williams, with many other composers in between.
Then, we sent those to Ashoka creator Dave Filoni and got feedback from him as to what he liked. But mostly, we just let those percolate in our brains a little bit. My personal technique for preparing is I go to the piano every morning and I start working on ideas.
After a while, those ideas start to gel into different themes. Also, sometimes a theme just comes while I’m in the middle of writing a cue. Many times, that winds up being the best theme in the show.
The second season of Ahsoka is in development. Any fun musical surprises the fans can expect?
I actually don’t know a thing about Season 2 yet. Purposely, I have asked Dave to keep us in the dark, unless we need to develop a theme that happens later on in the arc of a series.
I like to be surprised when I first watch a show or a film because thoughts and ideas come to me as a visceral reaction to what I’m watching. So that’s a long way of saying that I have no idea if there are musical surprises. But I’m sure there will be something that surprises even me!
Kick off your May the 4th celebrations with the Lightsaber Scavenger Hunt in our Best of Star Wars playlist!
(Source: Spotify)
