Maybe my favorite in recent years was the theme for Survivor season 45 contestant Kellie Nalbandian’s elimination, which began curiously calm, tricking viewers into thinking that another player was set to go. But when the first “Kellie” vote appears, the music falls out and a churning drumbeat comes in. It was similar to Kishan Patel’s blindside last season; the music almost completely slips away, capturing the pure despair that overtakes him and his alliance members as they lose hope.
As someone who finds most reality TV themes gratingly over-the-top—sorry, The Traitors—I’ve always been curious why the Survivor soundtracks scratch my brain like nothing else. It feels similar to the way I used to listen to Bourne Supremacy chase themes to power myself during algebra homework, or Relaxing Pokémon Music compilations while locked-in on a college essay at 2 a.m. It’s instrumental music that’s much more intertwined with the neurons in my brain and my personal history than, say, a magnificent Bach piece or high-wire jazz fusion, and it’s not as limp and lifeless as lo-fi beats to study to. It reminds me of all the years I spent watching the show next to my mom on the couch every Wednesday, all those times I fiddled around on a clunky Dell laptop hosting camps and having fun. It may be tacky, even at times tasteless music, the antithesis of hip and cool, but it sounds sweet to me.
The show’s composers have changed—Russ Landau made some of the most iconic themes like the soaring intro “Ancient Voices,” along with David Vanacore. One of the more recently hired composers for the show, Sam Fuller, 27, was only three when the first episode of Survivor aired. Now he’s written hundreds of themes, starting with season 41; he was brought on along with members of the Burnett Music team after host Jeff Probst heard their work on the World’s Toughest Race. “They’ve got 40 seasons of Survivor music,” he says. “We were brought on to give it a different flavor. We’d try to make it a bit more filmic.” Fuller, who produces the themes from his home studio in the UK, explains that they’ll receive briefs and references—“things that start dark and finish light,” “triumphant,” James Horner’s Apocalypto soundtrack—and sculpt themes ranging from 90 seconds to two minutes long. He uses Landau’s sample library and plays real instruments when he can, like guitar, shakers, and a conch that his parents brought back from Saint Lucia. “I’ve done some funny vocals here and there, chanting and heavy breathing,” he says, which he’ll distort digitally.
