Red, White & Royal Blue (soundtrack)

Red, White & Royal Blue (Amazon Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack to the 2023 film Red, White & Royal Blue directed by Matthew López, based on Casey McQuiston's 2019 novel of the same name. The soundtrack featured 27 tracks, with two songs—"If I Loved You" and "Fruit (Red, White & Royal Blue Version)" by Vagabon and Oliver Sim released as singles—and the remainder of the album consisted of instrumental tracks composed by Sofia Hultquist a.k.a. Drum & Lace, released by Lakeshore Records on August 11, 2023.

Background
Sofia confirmed to compose the music for the film in April 2023. She started working on the score after finishing her compositions for the horror film Cobweb and had a chance to lean the music into the emotional weight and importance of the story, as well as a chance to write thematically, giving unique sounds and instrumentations to each characters. Although she co-composed the music for the 2022 film Rosaline with her husband Ian, she felt that the film offered her a deep insight on the musical themes.

The soundtrack further accompanied two songs from the film. "If I Loved You", the song from the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel was covered by Vagabon for the film, who claimed it as an "exercise in discovery". Lopez who had been a playwright, liked her voice and sound that "married to that classical music theater" as she wanted to "preserve the melodic information that makes this song from the original musical so special while reimagining the instrumentation and arrangement". The song was released as a promotional single from the album on July 27, 2023.

Lopez further asked The xx band frontman Oliver Sim for an original composition, but after watching the early cut of the film, he decided to have one of his songs covered for the film. His song "Fruit" which released through his 2022 album Hideous Bastard, was reworked as an orchestral version specifically for the film. As Sim claimed that he made the acoustic version, he further wanted to make the cinematic version of that track, which Lopez had claimed "He took something very delicate and blew it up to these epic proportions. It sounds so swoon-y and hopeful. That was a big win, for me, to get him to do that." This song was released as the second single on August 4, 2023.

The soundtrack was issued by Lakeshore Records and released alongside the film's premiere on August 11. A track from the score "First Kiss" was exclusively made available through Screen Rant on August 7, 2023, four days before the film and album release. In addition to the album's digital release, it was further set to be made available in 180-gram picture disc vinyl LP with all of its 27 tracks in either sides of the record. The album art accompanied a still from the film with its lead actors, with the record itself covered with the flag of United States and United Kingdom. It is set to be released sometime in January 2024.

Curated soundtrack
Lopez recruited Kristen Higuera and Maggie Phillips as music supervisors for selecting the songs. While some tracks such as Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" and Lil Jon's "Get Low" featured in the book as well as in the film, Lopez, at certain instances did not want to include all the songs that were mentioned in the book. The dance sequence between Alex and Henry at Victoria and Albert Museum in London, was soundtracked by the Elton John single "Your Song" in the book, but it does not feature in the film, as the scene he envisioned did not have the song played. Instead Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling in Love which covered by Perfume Genius was instead played in that sequence. The original song was supposed to be an onset placeholder for the film, until the newly recorded version released in 2016 was finalised.


 * Track listing
 * 1) "All I Really Want Is You" by The Marias
 * 2) "3 Boys" by Omar Apollo
 * 3) "Tu-Bardh" by Clanadonia
 * 4) "Le Canal Saint Martin" by Maria Remusal
 * 5) "City of Lost Souls" by Tim Koss
 * 6) "Nighttime in Harlem" by Benny Reid
 * 7) "Shining Armor" by Mamalarky
 * 8) "Alejandra" by Luis Perez Meza
 * 9) "Canciones De Amor A Ti" by Rigoberta Bandini
 * 10) "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen (Performed by Nicholas Galitzine)
 * 11) "Can't Help Falling in Love" by Perfume Genius
 * 12) "Momentary" by Edvard Kravchuk
 * 13) "Color My Life" by Chicano Batman String Quartet
 * 14) "No. 10 in E Flat Major, D. 87: IV. Allegro" by Franz Schubert
 * 15) "Bad Reputation" by Joan Jett
 * 16) "Duda Dance" by ĠENN
 * 17) "Up the Hill Backwards" by David Bowie
 * 18) "Beautyful Beauti" by Brainstorm
 * 19) "Rudolph, The Red-Nosed Reindeer" by Billy May
 * 20) "The Thing You Do (LHOTSE Remix)" by Ellem
 * 21) "Echalo Pa Ca" by Sofia Reyes, Darell and Lalo Ebratt
 * 22) "Que Calor" by Major Lazer, J Balvin and El Alfa
 * 23) "Tití Me Preguntó" by Bad Bunny
 * 24) "Get Low" by Lil' Jon & the East Side Boyz featuring Ying Yang Twins
 * 25) "Magic" by David From Barberton
 * 26) "Party in The Hague" by DJ Roc
 * 27) "Johann Sebastian Bach "Goldberg Variations, BWV 988: Variation 17" by Pi-hsien Chen
 * 28) "Piano Sonata No. 11 in A, K331 – "Alla Turga": 3 Alla Turca (Allegretto)" by Alfred Brendel

Reception
Lovia Gyarkaye of The Hollywood Reporter complimented the score as "great". Benjamin Lee of The Guardian praised Drum & Lace's score as "one of the positive aspects of the film". Jeff Conway of Forbes wrote "The movie’s soundtrack quickly becomes its own important character in effectively telling this story."