X-Males ‘97 might not have come together had Marvel Studios not been able to secure the rights to X-Men: The Animated Series’ theme track — a synth-heavy banger so iconic that you may in all probability hear it in your head now even when your recollections of the present itself are a bit fuzzy. As followers of the unique cartoon, X-Males ‘97 composers Andy Grush and Taylor Stewart knew that updating the theme was going to be a tricky exercise in balancing nostalgia with a sonic freshness reflective of the new series’ modernity.
However once I lately spoke with Grush and Stewart — identified collectively because the Newton Brothers — the duo defined that it took them a while to understand that letting go of the previous would finally be the important thing to creating X-Males ‘97 sound like an evolutionary next step for Marvel’s animated mutants.
Together with giving longtime comics readers a brand new approach to expertise a few of Marvel’s most thrilling storylines, X-Males: The Animated Sequence additionally gave its characters a signature sound that grew to become an indelible a part of their bigger cultural presence. On the web page, Wolverine all the time had his “snikts” and Nightcrawler, his “bamfs.” However every episode of The Animated Sequence featured a wealthy tapestry of sounds led by an exhilarating, guitar riff-driven theme track that made you wish to cost into battle identical to the heroes and villains on-screen.
Like most individuals who watched The Animated Sequence throughout its authentic run, the Newton Brothers remembered it as feeling pointedly futuristic. However once they went again to revisit the unique present to prep, it rapidly grew to become clear that their recollections of The Animated Sequence’ sonic palette didn’t fairly sync up with what they had been listening to. “We hadn’t seen the original series in a while, but as we were watching we realized that our memories about the show’s sound were very different from what the show actually was,” Stewart stated.
The Newton Brothers recalled the pulsing, driving power that made the theme track so nice and an ideal scene-setter for the cartoon’s explosive motion. However X-Males: The Animated Sequence was additionally a cleaning soap opera digging into the human dramas that made characters like Jean Gray and Wolverine attention-grabbing individuals in addition to superheroes. The Newton Brothers had been eager on crafting X-Males ‘97’s rating in a approach that might seize the broad spectrum of feelings they felt represented the X-Males.
In addition they wished to honor The Animated Sequence, which is why they experimented with digital devices used throughout that present’s manufacturing. However whereas the pair had been capable of create tough tracks that sounded genuine to the unique collection, there was an instantaneous datedness to them that felt at odds with Marvel’s imaginative and prescient for X-Males ‘97 as a progression rather than just a continuation.
“Synthesizer sounds and remixing techniques can become time stamped in a way that makes it impossible not to know exactly when they were used,” Stewart explained. “We whipped out a bunch of these Roland synths that were used in the original series, and they were great, but in a lot of cases, songs would just sound too old — almost as if they came purely out of that era.”
Marvel was still in the process of securing the rights to use The Animated Series’ theme when Grush and Stewart first signed on to X-Males ‘97, but it was obvious that doing the original song justice was going to be one of the more important parts of the gig. Along with being beloved in its own right, the melody is also one of the bigger ways Marvel has been teasing the arrival of mutants to its cinematic universe. And while the Newton Brothers wanted to try new things with X-Men ‘97, they knew that opening with a straightforward version of the original theme would be the best way to immediately hook viewers.
“The overall rule was to keep it true to the original, so the nostalgic feeling upon watching the opening credits still resonates,” Grush said. “On a more technical note that involved adjustments to the orchestra, choir, and a couple of modern synths.”
Early into their creative process, Grush and Stewart sat down with former showrunner Beau DeMayo to discuss what kinds of feelings X-Men ‘97’s rating wanted to evoke. It dawned on them that steadily modernizing the present’s music episode by episode might be a novel approach to convey how the collection is transferring by time.
The Newton Brothers started experimenting with their respective concepts for songs individually, however they each recognized “wanting to be seen or heard” because the widespread emotional thread working by the lives of X-Males ‘97’s characters. It was round that thread that the duo first wrote musical suites meant to ascertain who the characters are and what motivates them to spring into motion earlier than they wind up reflecting on what’s simply occurred because the credit start to roll. These suites, Grush recalled, helped them work out which distinctive sounds they wished to make use of as calling playing cards for particular characters — particularly in moments when their superhuman powers are on show.
“With Storm, we used a lot of woodwinds to allude to the wind aspect of her powers, and her signature sound also incorporates a lot of choir singing and chanting that almost sounds like an instrument,” Stewart added. “For Magneto, we did a lot of bowing of metals, and other weird kinds of metallic sounds with waterphones.”
By creating these signature sounds for every character and constructing them into the present’s bigger rating, the Newton Brothers gave themselves a approach of constructing certain that X-Males ‘97 always sounded like a story unfolding organically rather than a series of segments fashioned into a half-hour show.
The process involved quite a bit of throwing things against the wall to see what would stick. And Grush likened going back and forth with Marvel on revisions to trying on countless new outfits until they found the one that fit just right. Grush and Stewart’s concept of “right” wasn’t all the time precisely the identical, and there have been occasions once they couldn’t inform whether or not they had been getting too caught of their heads. However it was in moments of doubt when it helped to have the remainder of the present’s inventive crew chime in.
“Sometimes you need people who can tell you ‘hey guys, this is corny, and doesn’t sound right,’” Grush stated. “Or ‘this is really corny and sentimental, and sounds great.’”