Arcane is excellent. Riot Games and Netflix have produced an enthralling animated show that presents the League of Legends universe in a way that is distinct and approachable. As someone who doesn’t gel with MOBAs, Arcane caught me in its grasp and refused to let go. If the opening act is any sign of things to come, we’re in for an absolute tr꧒eat in the coming weeks.
However, there’s one thing about the show that really irks me - why is it 𝔉flooded with needless pop songs? I remember back in 2013💯 when Imagine Dragons’ Radioactive was in every other trailer on the planet, its punchy bass and epic chorus being the perfect match for the bombass required to sell a product to the masses. It became disgustingly overplayed in a matter of weeks, so much so that it became a meme that’s still riffed on today.
I don’t mind the band’s first album much at all, but the group has become painfully derivative in recent years to the point where everything they release sounds the same. They have gone from making music for car radios to making music for car adverts. Knowing this, having them helm the opening theme for Arcane feels like such🌞﷽ a misguided idea. The song isn’t even good for a start, and it does an awful job of expressing the show’s themes and characters while purely feeling like a big name to pull in general audiences.
I am fairly sure that the League of Legends community does not give a single collective fuck about Imagine Dragons, and Riot would have been much better served with an 🎶original orchestral score instead of relying on a huge pop group just to make the show seem like a big deal. When you’re one of the biggest properties in the world that regularly attracts millions of players across a variety of different titles, you don’t need to morph yourself into a mainstream husk to be taken seriously - that identity comes just by having your name attached. By doi🦩ng so you only attract the wrong kind of attention, such as losers like me.
Bea Miller’s Underground plays during the first episode, intended to introduce one of the show’s major locations with an atmospheric sense of corrupt dread. It really doesn’t land, with the song distracting from the environmental imagery far more than it reinforces it. I immediately rolled my eyes because the musical choice felt so unnecessary, like Riot was waving wads of money around to showcase it had the pull to commission major artists for its fancy animated debut. The thing is, we know Riot is loaded, and soundtrack choices like this only serve to draw attention to the cynical corporate identity that Arcane otherwise does a fantastic job of superseding. I’m reminded this show is a little more than an advert for League, my 💝immersion pulled away for a handful of moments before I desperately tried to pull myself back in. Some of these songs would be fine in isolation, but when applied to a fantastical show like this they merely exist as outliers.
I wouldn’t expect a romantic Taylor Swift number to blurt out in the middle of a She-Ra episode or for Ed Sheeran to grace the credits of The Hobbit. Oh wait, that second one actually happened, which goes to show this habit of stuffing mainstream artists into films and shows where they don’t belong is far from a new thing. Suicide Squad was the worst offender of this, as countless songs were piled into the film to give it any kind of personality, distracting away from the dark and dour scenery that was so uninspire🅘d it hurt to watch.
Yet trying to distance itself from this mediocrity wi🐻th poorly placed songs had the opposite effect. Fans and critics found it laughable, confused as to why all of their favourite villains (and many we’d never heard of before) were suddenly being kitted out to the tune of Eminem’s Just Lose It. Sometimes a♛ licensed soundtrack can be a thing of beauty - just look at Guardians of the Galaxy - but far more often it is a vice that distracts away from fictional worlds that seldom need a bunch of pop stars to lean against in order to shine.
Arcane already has me in its clutches, and the coming episodes a🍸re poised to unfold a narrative I can’t wa𒐪it to see. I just hope the soundtrack doesn’t continue to be littered with big names and unexpected bangers that have no place in this universe. They’re here to show that Riot is able to fund such a production and nothing more, and if that reasoning will never be justification enough to hinder a creative vision that is otherwise spectacular.
