The Music Behind Fallen Ribbon
Good morning readers! Yesterday we finished the species and character introduction series of posts with the Lygoids, and next we will be heading into a set of jam-packed weeks filled with various other content. I’m hoping to upload the manuscript by the end of the week so I can start preordering the physical copies for my first readers along with the other gifts I have to give. As soon as I have those copies, I will definitely be uploading pictures of their quality and showing them off to you all. I would also like to open Pre-Orders as well for you all once I have quality checked the paperbacks and hardbacks. Those are my current objectives, so I make no current promises.
For the last post of the week, I wanted to delve deeper into the music that really kept me going these last few years with not only Fallen Ribbon but the rest of the series as well. I’ve known for a really long time that Fallen Ribbon was never going to be a stand alone novel, it was always my intention to make it a series. I’m also the kind of person who thinks in the long term for my endeavors and plan meticulously and accordingly, so most of the series in various parts have been brewing inside my head for many years, just itching to manifest their way into the world.
Well, the way I came up with a lot of my ideas for the story was through music primarily. In a previous post I mentioned the album Until There’s Nothing Left of Us by Kill Hannah and made some honorable mentions towards Celldweller and 30 Seconds to Mars, those heavily influenced the early workings of Fallen Ribbon along with some specific soundtracks as well. I do a lot of thinking in my free time, and I find it impossible to concentrate on anything without some kind of background noise, so music is always my go to, and soundtracks are generally better for me because then I’m not being distracted by the sound of lyrics. That’s not to say that I wasn’t inspired by lyrics though, because if you listen to the playlist I’m going to publicly share after you read Fallen Ribbon, you’ll get some nice hints and easter eggs into where my ideas came from.
One of the first soundtracks that really got me writing Fallen Ribbon was the soundtrack for the Adult Swim anime, Blood+. That show because one of my all-time favorites right next to Attack on Titan and Fairy Tail, and I took a lot of ideas from it’s concept of vampires and hidden themes of personal turmoil. The soundtrack of Blood+ was composed by Mark Mancina and produced by Hans Zimmer who is better known for his bigger projects such as some of my favorites, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Lion King, and True Romance (Favorite Movie ever next to The Princess Bride). Mark Mancina is most commonly known for composing quite a few Disney films as well as a notable favorite such as Fight Club.
Two other soundtracks that more recently influenced a lot of Fallen Ribbon specifically were the anime, Attack On Titan and Seven Deadly Sins. I didn’t know it at the time, but I later discovered some overlapping themes in the songs of both and learned they were both composed by the Japanese composer, Hiroyuki Sawano. Makes absolute sense and I love that he did both, they are fantastic. To steer away from the anime influence, the epic-ness of the Game of Thrones music also had a hand in inspiring me to write Fallen Ribbon. I would like to list Lord of the Rings as well given they had a huge impact on my love of fantasy overall, but if I am going to be completely honest, it wasn’t a soundtrack I went in the direction of often. On the other hand, the most recent Netflix Witcher series has a fantastic soundtrack to listen to, both while writing Fallen Ribbon and doing work on my D&D campaign. You’ll be able to listen to a few of my favorites from that series on the playlist I will be posting later.
You have a lot of different epic themes going on with all of those soundtracks I listed and they all meld together really well to set the different moods of the story. There’re some adventuring vibes, sad vibes, soft romantic vibes, and many more. There are also some songs that I’ve really enjoyed that came from my personal artist picks from more modern type soundtracks such as The Originals or The Vampire Diaries. Honestly, I’ll include really any artist or song that clicks in my head when I hear it and creates vivid imagery for me even when I’m not listening to it. The more like an earworm the song is and puts fantasy imagery in my head, the more likely it had something to do with Fallen Ribbon.
The self-titled album by Celldweller, although featured on my writing playlist, actually didn’t have too much influence on Fallen Ribbon, but it heavily inspired the core concept of latter half of the series due to its sci-fi nuances. Celldweller is more so known for his edgy futuristic beep boop bop sounds and for the themes of the later parts of the series, this is exactly what I want to go for as the series progresses over time. In general, when listening to “normal” music, I guess you could say, I do tend to gravitate toward the more electronic sexy moody music than anything else. The Gothic Industrial genre and its slower and more flowy rhythms tend to reflect on the dark underlying themes of Fallen Ribbon specifically, as the goth aesthetic has always been something I’ve found alluring. You’ll hear a lot of that throughout the playlist. A couple of other repeated artists on the playlist can be found in both Depeche Mode and Orgy.
Once again, we got that gothic moody vibe from Depeche Mode as well as the sci-fi industrial vibe of Orgy. Both technically considered gothic groups. There aren’t many songs by either artist in that playlist, but what you will find is that there are both some under the radar influences as well as some blatant references in the songs I chose. If you read the book and you listen to the playlist, you’ll understand what I am getting at, hopefully. The albums to really look out for are Playing the Angel by Depeche Mode and Vapor Transmission by Orgy. Again, not a significant influence in Fallen Ribbon, but Vapor Transmission really did a number on my brain for the latter half of the series similarly to Celldweller’s self-titled album.
If you want a multi-faceted playlist to listen to while reading Fallen Ribbon this summer, check out my spotify play list now titled Writing Playlist 2024. And don’t forget to order your copy of the book on August 15th! Make sure you like, share and comment your thoughts on my taste in music on my Facebook page!
