The Stranger Things theme song lasts less than a minute, plays before a single word of dialogue, and still manages to tell you everything about the show you’re about to watch. It wasn’t composed by an established Hollywood name — it came from two members of an obscure Austin synth band the Duffer Brothers stumbled onto almost by accident, years before Netflix ever greenlit the series.
Table of Contents
- How Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein got the job
- What actually makes up the Stranger Things theme song
- The philosophy behind the show’s synth-heavy sound
- How the theme song’s success changed the composers’ careers
- Frequently asked questions about the Stranger Things theme song
How Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein got the job
The Stranger Things theme song exists because of a movie the Duffer Brothers happened to watch years before their show existed. Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein, two members of the Austin-based electronic band Survive, had music featured in the 2014 thriller “The Guest,” which the Duffers saw and were struck by. While putting together a mock trailer to help pitch their still-unmade series to networks, they used one of Survive’s existing tracks, “Dirge,” as the trailer’s temporary soundtrack.
Once Netflix greenlit the show, the Duffers reached out to Survive around July 2015 to ask if the band was still active and available to score the series. Dixon and Stein handed over dozens of unreleased tracks from the band’s back catalog, and were ultimately brought on as the show’s composers — working under the name Short Hour for film and television projects distinct from Survive itself. The pair have said only the two of them took on the scoring work rather than the full four-person band, since the production’s schedule and requirements didn’t support the whole group’s involvement.
What actually makes up the Stranger Things theme song
The Stranger Things theme song is built from roughly 25 layered synthesizers, according to Dixon and Stein’s own account of the composition process. Its signature pulsing arpeggio was played by hand by Stein on an original Oberheim synthesizer, while the track’s distinctive “heartbeat” rhythm was plucked out on a Sequential Pro-One. The haunting lead melody comes from a Roland Jupiter-8 that the pair personally retrofitted with MIDI components to make it usable in a modern studio setup.
Despite its ominous tone, the theme is written in C major — a choice the composers have said was deliberate, meant to suggest a thread of youthful hope running underneath the darkness of the show’s premise. Dixon has described the extensive layering of similar parts across multiple tracks as a technique he regularly uses to build mood and depth, rather than relying on a single dominant melodic line.
“There is a lot of layering of the same part, which is a very common technique I use for mood and depth,” Stein has said of the theme’s construction.
The philosophy behind the show’s synth-heavy sound
The broader Stranger Things score draws directly from a specific lineage of 1980s electronic film composers, including John Carpenter, Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, Giorgio Moroder, and Jean-Michel Jarre — artists whose analog synthesizer work defined the sound of an entire era of genre filmmaking. Dixon and Stein have said they weren’t trying to simply replicate that era’s technology for nostalgia’s sake; rather, they blended vintage hardware with modern production techniques, arguing that a classic synthesizer, much like a fine violin, produces a sound that can be approximated but never perfectly copied by newer equipment.
That approach extended to unconventional sound sources as well — the composers have noted that virtually the only non-synthesizer elements anywhere in the score come from the crashing of spring reverb units and mechanical noise picked up from an aging Leslie speaker cabinet, details that ended up adding what they described as a complementary ambience to the otherwise entirely electronic soundscape.
How the theme song’s success changed the composers’ careers
The Stranger Things theme song and its accompanying score earned Dixon and Stein a Primetime Emmy Award, along with two separate Grammy Award nominations — a remarkable trajectory for two previously unknown musicians whose main outlet had been a modestly sized synthwave band. The show’s soundtrack was released commercially in two volumes in August 2016, followed by CD and later vinyl pressings, with a cassette edition sold exclusively through Urban Outfitters in 2017.
Beyond the awards, the success of the score effectively launched Dixon and Stein’s career as in-demand film and television composers, giving momentum to Survive’s parallel work as a band while establishing the duo as key figures in the broader revival of synthesizer-based scoring for genre television that followed in Stranger Things’ wake.
For more on how the Duffer Brothers built the rest of the show’s distinctive 1980s soundscape, Read more: Running Up That Hill covers the Kate Bush needle drop that became the show’s biggest musical moment. And for more on how the series first got off the ground before Netflix ever heard its theme song, Read more: The Hawkins Lab Experiments covers another piece of the show’s real-world inspiration.
Roland’s in-depth interview with Dixon and Stein goes deeper into the specific gear and techniques behind the theme’s construction, and it’s worth reading in full here.
Stranger Things 5 | Official Trailer | Netflix
Frequently asked questions about the Stranger Things theme song
Who composed the Stranger Things theme song? The Stranger Things theme song was composed by Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein, two members of the Austin-based synth band Survive, working together under the production name Short Hour.
Did the Stranger Things theme song win any awards? Yes. The Stranger Things score, including its theme song, won a Primetime Emmy Award and received two Grammy Award nominations for Dixon and Stein.
How did the Duffer Brothers find the composers of the Stranger Things theme song? The Duffer Brothers discovered Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein’s music through the 2014 film “The Guest,” and later used one of their band Survive’s tracks in a mock trailer while pitching Stranger Things to networks.
What instruments were used to create the Stranger Things theme song? The Stranger Things theme song uses roughly 25 layered synthesizers, including an Oberheim for its arpeggio, a Sequential Pro-One for its heartbeat rhythm, and a modified Roland Jupiter-8 for its lead melody.
Why is the Stranger Things theme song written in a major key despite sounding ominous? The theme is written in C major deliberately, a choice the composers made to suggest an underlying current of youthful hope beneath the show’s darker, more unsettling tone.
