The moment I knew I would love Yellowjackets, Showtime’s slow-burn piece of splatter art, was four minutes into the first episode when one of the main characters is listening to “Today” by the Smashing Pumpkins. The pilot also includes songs from Liz Phair (“Supernova”), Salt-N-Pepa (“Shoop”), Hole (“Miss World”), and PJ Harvey (“Down by the Water”). Yes, Yellowjackets is partially set in the 1990s, why do you ask?
Yellowjackets is an extremely good show with an equally good soundtrack, including an addictive theme song from Craig Wedren, the lead vocalist of Shudder to Think, and Anna Waronker, formerly of that dog. It’s not to the level of the Succession theme (what is?), but if you press Skip Intro while the song is playing, well, you know what happens in the first scene of the show? That’s where I’m going to throw you.
“For the theme, we aimed to channel our off-kilter ‘90s roots into something that felt like ‘then’, but could only have been made NOW, just like the show,” Waronker and Wedren told Brooklyn Vegan. “Our respective pedigrees as front-people for that dog. and Shudder to Think made it eaaaasy, like a nice warm bloodbath.”
You can listen to the theme song above, and the official Yellowjackets playlist below.
The Yellowjackets soundtrack comes out on Lakeshore Records on January 21.