
Plenty of TV sitcom theme songs stand the test of time. The singability of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, clap-infused pop of I'll Be There For You from Friends, and nostalgic harmonies of Where Everybody Knows Your Name from Cheers each holds a notable slot in the cultural zeitgeist. It's less common for a drama's theme song to meet the same reception. And that picture is even more complicated when the theme is a wordless instrumental used-in the first moments of the show-to set the scene for dead bodies washing ashore.
Yet composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer's Aloha! and Renaissance, which serve as the theme songs for first and second seasons of The White Lotus, respectively, have reached such success. Each track features a consistent melody with high-pitched instrumentation, a danceable beat, and breathless vocals. Each is also tailored to reflect its season's location-Hawaii in the first and Sicily in the second.
Each season, The White Lotus offers colorful, suspenseful commentary on exploitation, wealth, class, and race with a backdrop of murder and dysfunction set in a fictional luxury resort. The combination of Cristobal's masterful composition, the show's alluring storytelling, and a rabid global fan base has propelled both themes to viral fame and millions of Spotify streams, and raised the profile of their composer.
Fans on the prowl Since its July 2021 release, Aloha! has been streamed most by fans in Warsaw, Berlin, and Paris. The song's popularity only grew in the lead-up to the October 2022 premier of the second season, with fans taking to the internet to share commentary on the song.
One popular fan theory was that its repeated notes created a musical allusion to the Gregorian chant Dies Irae, or The Day of Wrath. In a rare interview with For the Record, Cristobal explained that this is but a coincidence. Those melodies are the result of chanting with voices and finding a melody that works with the sound. For lots of reasons, I ended up with those types of harmonies, but I wasn't specifically inspired by that music or trying to use it intentionally.
Following the debut episode of the second season on October 30, 2022, searches for White Lotus on Spotify increased more than 500%. But to the chagrin of fans, Renaissance wasn't released on Spotify until December 11, the end of the season.
Even so, dedicated fans steadily played Aloha! on Spotify while they waited, and on December 12, streams of Aloha! jumped 200% compared to the month prior. Searches for White Lotus soared to 4,800% compared to two months prior.
Once released, daily streams of Renaissance hit an all-time high on December 13, 2022, with fans in Paris, Oslo, and Berlin leading the charge. And as for Cristobal? The composer saw a 162% lift in his own catalog's daily streams following season two.
Even after the season came to an end, fans continued to circulate the song, using it as the musical background to their viral videos. On February 17, 2023, Dutch DJ Ti sto put out his own remix of Renaissance, which became a favorite among fans in Sydney, New York, and Oslo in particular.
Soundtracking suspense So what went into creating the right soundtrack? Cristobal employed wind instruments to create the whirling bird sounds on Aloha! For the first season, I wasn't trying to make Hawaiian music. It was more about making something about nature kicking the characters in the ass, and the wild stuff coming for the characters, Cristobal explained. To hit his mark, he combined bird calls with tribal chants for an island feel with a spooky tropical depth.
Composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer
The temp score was this loungy, rather soft thing-something that would be playing in a nice luxury cafe when you're on vacation somewhere, he recalled. It was very different from what I came up with. I went with a tribal, rather aggressive screaming, and drums and flutes.
That screaming, which seems to be the best way to describe the vocal sounds, became a driving force behind the song's virality when it came time to adapt it for the second season. Cristobal knew he wanted to match the vibe of the location and utilize disconcerting vocal tones.
The oululus' are the most important thing, said Cristobal, using his tongue heavily to propel the sound from his own mouth. For the second season, I was trying to fit into the Italian and the Sicilian vibe. We spoke about having some renaissance sounds, some harps, mandolin, violin, things that we'd connect with Italian music and opera. I did a demo of some classical Italian music, something operatic, and that's the beginning of the track. From there, I wanted to somehow bring back the sound of the first season, which is these screaming voices that are so recognizable.
He also wanted to evoke a different journey for a new cast of characters.
In the first season, there's a lot of conflict in the music, he said. It feels very stressful and more tense than how it should; it has more dissonance. But this was something calculated. And I think the second season is funnier because things become dark later, towards the end of the show. So the song keeps it more playful, more light and harmonious.
A trip to Thailand Cristobal finds the composing process as tumultuous as life is for the White Lotus patrons at times. I don't do anything particular to get into the zone, he notes. Sometimes people try to have the best conditions-relaxed and with a view-but surprisingly, for me, I like to see the stuff that results from being in a bad situation, a stressful situation, not having the right equipment, or not being in the right place.
For Cristobal, discomfort is more impactful, motivating, and conducive to creativity than pleasure or perfection. When I feel tha
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
18/11/2025
KEIZER, Ore. Municipal broadcaster Keizer City Television, K23 TV, has deployed four Telycam PTZ cameras to upgrade the visual quality of its live meeting cover...
18/11/2025
STAMFORD, Conn. NBC Sports and Peacock have announced that they are working for the second consecutive year with the National Football League, EA Sports and Gen...
18/11/2025
LONDON A new Ampere Analysis study finds that familiar franchises are successfully driving kids' TV consumption on Netflix and that the streamers big bet on...
18/11/2025
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. TV viewers continue to find it challenging to find relevant programs in the fragmented universe of streaming content, according to new findings...
18/11/2025
20 Bob Dylan Songs That Reflect a Legacy of A-Changin On the heels of Bob Dylan receiving a Berklee honorary doctorate, we take stock of one of the most singu...
17/11/2025
EA SPORTS Madden NFL Cast to Return Thanksgiving Night With Immersive, Data-Driv...
17/11/2025
Behind the Broadcast Booth: Impact Ventures' Greer Christian on Building Her...
17/11/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Sportradar's Brian Josephs Talks Peacock's Powerful Perfor...
17/11/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Greg Gumbel, Iconic Voice and Comforting ...
17/11/2025
ESPN, Pixar, the NFL, and Beyond Sports Team Up for ESPN's Dec. 8 Monsters,...
17/11/2025
SVG Sit-Down: EA SPORTS' Evan Dexter on How the EA SPORTS Madden NFL Cast...
17/11/2025
Cast your votes and sail into 2026 with the return of SBS's the Chillest 100
17 November, 2025
Media releases
Voting is now open for Australia's ul...
17/11/2025
When VSI Group, one of the world's leading localisation providers, set out to modernise its complex, multi-site operations built through years of acquisitio...
17/11/2025
Dealmaking for broadcast stations continues to heat up, with Sinclair reporting it has built up a 8.2% stake in E.W. Scripps and has been talking with Scripps f...
17/11/2025
The worlds online population grew by more than 240 million people in 2025, according to Facts and Figures 2025 released today by the International Telecommunica...
17/11/2025
ASB GlassFloor, the leading provider in LED sports flooring, today announced the opening of Athletes Lab 2.0, a premier athletic training facility designed to e...
17/11/2025
SmallHD today announced the release of its popular Camera Control for Canon cinema cameras. This new integration enables filmmakers to adjust critical camera se...
17/11/2025
Luxury is in the details, and no one captures that better than the creative team at Samuel & Sons. As the visionaries behind iconic photography and advertising ...
17/11/2025
NVIDIA Apollo - a family of open models for accelerating industrial and computat...
17/11/2025
To power future technologies including liquid-cooled data centers, high-resoluti...
17/11/2025
At SC25, NVIDIA unveiled advances across NVIDIA BlueField DPUs, next-generation networking, quantum computing, national research, AI physics and more - as accel...
17/11/2025
Across quantum physics, digital biology and climate research, the world's researchers are harnessing a universal scientific instrument to chart new frontier...
17/11/2025
It used to be that computing power trickled down from hulking supercomputers to ...
17/11/2025
17 Nov 2025
VEON Commences USD 100 million Buyback Program Dubai, November 17, 2025: VEON Ltd. (Nasdaq: VEON), a global digital operator ( VEON or the Compan...
17/11/2025
Monday 17 November 2025
Sky brings top comedy talent to screens with new stand-up specials
Sky and streaming service NOW are bringing audiences a fresh dose o...
16/11/2025
L3Harris to deliver advanced electronic warfare systems quickly for worldwide F-16 programs...
16/11/2025
Upgrading your Apogee Symphony MKII from TB2 to TB3: Need to Knows Upgrading your Apogee interface to Thunderbolt 3 isn't difficult - but it's not a cas...
16/11/2025
Apogee Electronics Acquired by Dirk Ulrich's Rockforce Tech Holding, Parent ...
15/11/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The Walt Disney Company and YouTube TV have reached a new multi-year distribution agreement, ending a carriage dispute that had blacked out ABC,...
15/11/2025
PLYMOUTH, Wis. A group of about 20 TV technology vendors supporting NextGen TV are wrapping up their ATSC 3.0 Interop here at Heartland Video Systems headquarte...
15/11/2025
NEW YORK NBCUniversal has announced that it will be launching NBC Sports Network (NBCSN), a 24/7 linear network featuring a wide range of marquee sporting event...
15/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has released an updated agenda for its Open Meeting on Thursday, November 20, 2025, which is scheduled to comme...
15/11/2025
JERSEY CITY, N.J. OpenVault has released new data showing that DOCSIS 3.1 and higher services are driving significant across-the-board increases in speed and co...
15/11/2025
ATLANTA Gray Media has concluded an agreement with the Ohio Valley Conference ( OVC ) to broadcast OVC college basketball games across 20 Gray markets in five s...
15/11/2025
NEW BERN, N.C. Wheatstone has named company veteran Darrin Paley vice president of business accounts, effective immediately....
15/11/2025
Back to All News
Netflix Serves Up the Trailer for Dining with the Kapoors'...
14/11/2025
Op-Ed: The Automation Imperative - Why AI Is the Only Scalable Defense Against L...
14/11/2025
FutureSPORT 2025: Caretta Research on why streaming won't save broadcasters By Jo Ruddock
Monday, November 10, 2025 - 14:37
Print This Story
Caretta R...
14/11/2025
Daneysse Daniels, Emmy-Winning Production Manager and Beloved Teammate at TNT Sp...
14/11/2025
The NBA 2K League Returns as an Immersive Entertainment Ecosystem' With Non...
14/11/2025
Inaugural SVG LIVE! Conference Brings 250 Top Sports and Entertainment Producti...
14/11/2025
(L-R) Suzette Quintanilla, Isabel Castro, and Chris P rez attend the 2025 Sundan...
14/11/2025
This week, Casa Spotify lit up Las Vegas with an unforgettable celebration of Latin music and culture ahead of the 26th Annual Latin Grammy Awards. Hosted at th...
14/11/2025
Boston Conservatory Orchestra to Perform at Carnegie Hall for United Nations Gen...
14/11/2025
Berklee Alum Lewis Pickett Wins Record of the Year at Latin Grammy Awards Pickett, a 2009 graduate, was nominated six times across three categories at this ye...
14/11/2025
PLYMOUTH, Wisc. A group of about 20 TV technology vendors supporting NextGen TV are wrapping up their ATSC 3.0 Interop here at Heartland Video Services headquar...
14/11/2025
What if your idle operations centers, inactive cloud time, staff or you as a freelancer could start generating revenue tomorrow?
NECF Corporation today announc...
14/11/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, today announced that it has been recognized as a Major Player in the IDC MarketS...
14/11/2025
The recent ADAC RAVENOL 24h Race at Germany's legendary N rburgring circuit marked a milestone for live broadcast production, and Clear-Com played a pivota...