Dune: Part Two — find music to soundtrack your content like Hans Zimmer
Dune: Part Two is one of 2024’s biggest movies. Learn about the soundtrack, its composer, and how to find music like Hans Zimmer’s Dune score for your work.
Fear is the mind-killer…but did you know that bad sound kills good video, too? Ride the sandworm and find blockbusting music like the Dune: Part Two soundtrack for your content.
Today, we’ll cover:
- Did Hans Zimmer write the Dune: Part Two soundtrack?
- What makes the Dune soundtrack so good?
- Why does Dune have three soundtracks?
- How to find music similar to the Dune: Part Two soundtrack
- Five tracks to give your content that Dune: Part Two vibe
Did Hans Zimmer write the Dune: Part Two soundtrack?
Yep, Hans Zimmer and his team created the Dune: Part Two soundtrack. Zimmer is one of the world’s most famous and critically acclaimed living composers, having worked on movies including The Lion King, Gladiator, Inception, and more. He started collaborating with film director Denis Villeneuve in 2017, for the sci-fi sequel Blade Runner 2049.
Before Blade Runner, Villeneuve worked with Ludwig Göransson, a Swedish composer who’s since become Christopher Nolan’s go-to. Given Nolan worked with Zimmer across seven movies — Zimmer turned down a job on Nolan’s 2020 film, Tenet, to score Dune — he’s essentially traded composers with Villeneuve.
As we just mentioned, Zimmer composed the score for Villeneuve’s 2021 film, Dune — now commonly called Dune: Part One. Given the second part picks up immediately after the first, it made sense for Zimmer to return.
What makes the Dune soundtrack so good?
People love Hans Zimmer’s Dune soundtracks because they encompass the scope, severity, and seriousness of the source material. The 1965 book upon which the film’s based, Frank Herbert’s Dune, is one of the best-selling sci-fi novels of all time, and is often regarded as the best.
Zimmer blended his signature bombast with electronica, Tuvan throat-singing, bagpipes, Armenian wind instruments, literal scrap metal, and more to build the world of Dune. It was a conscious step away from Western orchestration, which often dominates big-budget Hollywood movies.
The resulting 74 minutes were a far cry from David Lynch’s Dune adaptation in 1984, which was soundtracked by…Toto. Yep, that Toto. Nothing wrong with a bit of Africa or Rosanna, but Zimmer’s score nailed everything people love about Dune. It’s now considered one of his best scores, and won its creator a Grammy — all the more impressive considering much of it was recorded remotely, due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Why does Dune have three soundtracks?
Dune: Part One came with three soundtrack albums. One was the Dune Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, which features music from the film.
If you want to dive into more Dune music, there’s The Dune Sketchbook and The Art and Soul of Dune, which include additional and altered themes. One of Dune’s more popular tracks, Paul’s Dream, sits on The Dune Sketchbook.
How to find music similar to the Dune: Part Two soundtrack
Zimmer’s work on Dune: Part Two is next-level, lending that extra weight needed for such a massive story. The mixture of instruments, the peaks and troughs, the sheer scale of it all — it’s a triumph in sound design and cinematic score.
Take Harvester Attack. The dense percussive layering, electronic pulsing, and vocals from Loire Cotler hark back to movements from the Part One score, namely Armada. But there’s something more urgent here, escalating, dragging the narrative along to its conclusion. It’s easy to venture into cliché when discussing Hans Zimmer’s work, but there’s no other way to label it: it’s epic.
If you want to include it in your content, though, things can get difficult. Using tracks from the official Dune: Part Two soundtrack via social media platforms’ music libraries will eat into your earnings, and licensing it off-platform will be complicated and expensive.
Unless you have the budget to obtain the rights to Zimmer’s tracks, you can find plenty of Dune-like music with Epidemic Sound.
The catalog’s packed with more than 40,000 high-quality tracks, spread across mood playlists including dreamy, chasing, epic, and more. Check it out below, and keep reading for five Dune-esque tracks to use in your content.
Five tracks to give your content that Dune: Part Two vibe
Want to blow viewers away with your soundtrack? Dig into our five picks to nail that Dune feeling.
Savvun – A Cold Wind
Zimmer’s score proves that you don’t need high speed to ramp up the intensity. Savvun’s A Cold Wind tingles the spine with primal folky beats, ambient droning, and sparse, throaty vocal inflections — it’s ideal for widescreen, all-encompassing shots.
DEX 1200 – Shadows Unseen
The world of Dune is larger than life, but it’s often bleak. Desolate. DEX 1200 conveys that vibe to the letter with Shadows Unseen, painting a soundscape of melancholy with scant piano notes and whirling drones. This might not match all of your content, but if you need a soundtrack with real weight and atmosphere, Shadows Unseen is essential.
Polar Nights – Lurken and Craven
The warped sounds of a synth being thrown around. Throat-singing. Escalating, scratchy strings. Polar Nights conjure the barren desert planes of Arrakis and then some — Lurken and Craven builds and builds, hitting two instrumental peaks before fading back into the dirt. Want to give your viewers the creeps? This’ll do it.
Christoffer Moe Ditlevsen – In Night’s Embrace
Christoffer Moe Ditlevsen’s just good at making you feel, pulling influence from Swedish flutists, death metal, action movie scores, and more. In Night’s Embrace is a measured, low-key affair, all pizzicato strings against deep, rumbling tones. If you need something yearning and mysterious for your content, this fits the bill.
Hampus Naeselius – Alpha Squad
The Dune: Part Two score underpins an epic movie, so why not go all-out in your own efforts? Hampus Naeselius’ Alpha Squad is a little more ‘traditional’ Hans Zimmer than the Dune score, leaning on brassy orchestration and bombastic, gut-churning choirs. ‘Earth-shaking’ is too mild a word — Alpha Squad is gigantic.
Still not found what you’re looking for? No worries. Explore our genre playlists, including ambient, classical, drone, and more. Don’t settle for second-best — find the perfect soundtrack today.
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