Music of Red Dead Redemption 2

Production and composition

Woody Jackson, the composer behind the scores for Rockstar Games' Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto V, took on the same role for Red Dead Redemption 2. The team started talking about the music early on, believing it was key to building the game's mood and setting. Jackson created around 60 hours of material, though not everything made the cut; the final game includes 192 tracks that play during missions. According to Ivan Pavlovich, the director of music and audio, a typical player will only hear roughly a third of all the music made for the game in one playthrough.

The score is split into three categories: narrative music for story missions, interactive music for free-roaming and multiplayer, and environmental music like campfire songs or a character playing an instrument. The soundtrack shifts in response to what the player does, adapting to the atmosphere and their choices. Jackson described the early work as similar to scoring a film, since he was working with linear cutscenes, but it became less like that as things went on.

He recorded 11 stem loops, each four to five minutes long, which the game alters based on emotional shifts. This change is handled by an AI system called the "Gunfight Conductor," which was first used in Grand Theft Auto V but got a major update for this game and its online mode, Red Dead Online. Jackson wanted the ambient music to support the sound design without being a distraction. He thought of each mission like an episode of a TV season, telling its own story while keeping the same themes across multiple missions.

For the narrative tracks, he stuck to a consistent tempo and key to keep things from getting messy. At one point he was using about 15 stems, but he eventually trimmed that down to roughly six.

Albums

The Music of Red Dead Redemption 2 (Original Soundtrack) comprises the original songs created for the game, produced by Daniel Lanois and including songs from D'Angelo, Willie Nelson, Rhiannon Giddens, and Josh Homme. The album was released digitally by Lakeshore Records and Rockstar Games on July 12, 2019, and as a CD and vinyl record on September 20, 2019. Rockstar announced the album's title and track listing on June 14, 2019, when pre-orders became available, granting immediate access to two singles: 'Crash of Worlds' and 'Table Top'.

An additional song by David Ferguson was originally due for inclusion. The soundtrack peaked at 45 on the Billboard Top Album Sales, 21 on the Soundtracks charts, 15 on Vinyl Albums, 12 on Independent Albums, and 11 on Digital Albums. At the Hollywood Music in Media Awards, the soundtrack won Best Soundtrack Album and 'That's the Way It Is' was nominated for Original Song in a Video Game. The vinyl release, produced by Tony Giles, split the album into four sides across two records.

The Music of Red Dead Redemption 2 (Original Score) comprises the original score by Woody Jackson, recorded at his Electro-Vox Recording Studios in Los Angeles and mastered at DNA Mastering in Glendale, California. It features additional production and arrangement by Jeff Silverman, and musical score and orchestration by Colin Stetson, David Ferguson, David Ralicke, Gabe Witcher, Luke O'Malley, Mario Batkovic, Matt Sweeney, Rabih Beaini, and Senyawa. Over 110 other musicians contributed, including Arca, Duane Eddy, Jon Theodore, and Michael Shuman.

Singles

'Unshaken' is a D'Angelo track produced by Daniel Lanois, who co-wrote it with D'Angelo and DeLuca. RCA Records put it out as a digital single on January 4, 2019, before it appeared on the Original Soundtrack that July. It marked D'Angelo's first new release since his 2014 album Black Messiah. On the song, he uses his lower vocal range, a choice made by Ivan Pavlovich to set it apart from his usual falsetto.

It reached number six on the US R&B Digital Song Sales chart. 'Letter from Bluewater Man' is a blues piece by Christone 'Kingfish' Ingram, who wrote and produced it with Carl Lois. It was made for the Blood Money update to Red Dead Online, which came out on July 13, 2021. In the game, Ingram portrays 'Bluewater' John, a guitarist inspired by Robert Johnson.

Ingram aimed to capture Johnson's spirit, steering clear of the typical I–IV–IV chord pattern and instead using an eight-bar blues progression with a groove similar to the standard 'Key to the Highway'. The song dropped as a digital single on August 20, 2021.

Legacy

The soundtrack for Red Dead Redemption 2 received several accolades, including wins at the 2018 Game Awards, Giant Bomb, and IGN. It was also up for the Tin Pan Alley Award for Best Music in a Game at the 8th New York Game Awards and Excellence in Musical Score at the 6th SXSW Gaming Awards. Many reviewers placed it among the finest video game soundtracks, praising how its authenticity to the setting strengthened the game’s worldbuilding. At the 2018 Game Awards on December 6, Daniel Lanois and his band Heavy Sun performed alongside Rhiannon Giddens.

Woody Jackson led a live hour-long performance of the soundtrack at the Red Bull Music Festival in Los Angeles on February 23, 2019. Lanois and his band also played music from the game at Amoeba Music on September 19, 2019. That same September, Amazon Music’s Amazon Originals series had Giddens record a cover of “Cruel World,” while Lanois and Heavy Sun covered “That’s the Way It Is.” In February and March 2021, to mark the release of The Housebuilding EP, Lakeshore Records put out live recordings of all five tracks by David Ferguson, Matt Sweeney, and Tim O’Brien, captured at the Butcher Shoppe.

On June 10, 2021, D’Angelo, Giddens, and Lanois performed music from the game at the Battery in New York during the Tribeca Film Festival. This event celebrated the inaugural Tribeca Games Award and the tenth anniversary of the festival’s recognition of Rockstar’s L.A. Noire (2011). It was D’Angelo’s only live performance of the game’s songs and his final public performance before his death in 2025.