Loki Season 2's Pink Floyd Sound Was Not Intentional
Pink Floyd boasts a discography that evokes dynamic emotions and moods, all conveyed within the expansive, experimental mold of progressive rock that feels timeless. Countless franchises, including the Marvel Cinematic Universe, have used tracks from the band's impressive work in their films. For instance, "Interstellar Overdrive" was featured in "Doctor Strange" to convey the nature of Stephen Strange's life before it turned upside-down, while "Time" was used in "Eternals" to set the tone of its worldbuilding. Since both seasons of "Loki" also feature retro-tinted soundscapes that harken to branched timelines and similar cosmic events, it is not a stretch to assume that the show's music was inspired by Pink Floyd.
There is good reason for this assumption, as the show's "TVA Theme," which plays at the end of every episode, sounds remarkably similar to Pink Floyd's "Have A Cigar." There is a haunting effect in how the guitar and bass ramp up the mystery, with an incessant ticking clock in the background. The Pink Floyd influence on "Loki" seemed more entrenched in season 2, which often featured tracks reminiscent of "Time," from the band's wildly popular album, "The Dark Side of the Moon."
However, during a Reddit AMA for season 2, violinist-composer Natalie Holt, who created the soundtrack for "Loki," clarified that the Pink Floyd sound was not intentional and that any sonic overlap was purely accidental.
Loki's music leans on grand, rhythmic swells
In the aforementioned AMA, a Reddit user asked Holt whether "Time" was embedded into season 2's theme, to which the composer replied that she listened to "The Dark Side of the Moon" after creating season 2's music, and the overlaps were not on purpose:
"I realized that Pink Floyd influence had happened but it wasn't intentional. I hadn't really heard that album '[The] Dark Side of the Moon' before...(love it now!) but Kevin [Wright] the producer mentioned it. I think it's because we were going retro synth/big orchestra/ big guitars... so that is the Pink Floyd's sound world."
While the soundscape in "Loki" might not be a deliberate nod to the band, it is interesting how Holt uses rhythmic components to establish the themes of time warps and other temporal shenanigans, which are much more pronounced in the latest season. Speaking to Rolling Stone India, Holt explained that she used variations of season 1's "Loki Green Theme" to drill home the fact that things are now "different and darker," especially with the presence of Victor Timely (Jonathan Majors), the catalyst for a new world that brandishes rules that defy the established laws of time and physics.
Heavy, guttural synth sounds are also used to paint the new season as an escalation of the events that defined the first, reflected in tracks such as "The Architect," a demo that Holt created before she started working on the Disney+ series. It also features a ticking clock and sounds like a grander, more eventful version of the TVA theme from the first season, punctuated by mechanical warp sounds that reinforce the mind-bending nature of the narrative.
Both seasons of "Loki" are currently streaming on Disney+.