Bear McCreary (born February 17, 1979) is an American composer of score and soundtrack music. He studied music at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music, and his mentor was Elmer Bernstein. McCreary learned piano, and taught himself accordion. His style of music is unconventional compared to other scores, featuring a mix of classical instruments, ethnic instruments, rock, electronica and vocals. He has said that the smaller budgets force him to be more creative, and it shows, as he has garnered extensive praise for his music. In the summer of 2010, he married his vocalist, Raya Yarbrough.
In addition to La-La Land Records releasing soundtrack albums for several of his shows, he now has his own boutique record label, Sparks & Shadows. As well as his wife Raya Yarbrough, vocals in his work have often been provided by his brother Brendan McCreary, of the band Young Beautiful in a Hurry.
Scores composed by Bear McCreary include:
- 10 Cloverfield Lane
- Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
- The Angry Video Game Nerd (the episode How The Nerd Stole Christmas)
- Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
- Ava
- Battlestar Galactica (2003): Collaborated with Richard Gibbs on the pilot miniseries before taking over as sole composer for the ongoing series.
- Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome
- Black Sails
- Call of Duty: Vanguard
- The Cape
- Caprica
- Child's Play (2019)
- Chillerama
- The Cloverfield Paradox
- Da Vinci's Demons (for which he won an Emmy)
- Dark Void
- Defiance
- Eureka
- Forspoken
- Foundation (2021)
- God of War (PS4)
- Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)
- Hell Fest
- Human Target
- Knights of Badassdom
- The Last Voyage of the Demeter
- The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, with Howard Shore
- Masters of the Universe: Revelation
- Outlander
- Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians
- Rest Stop and its sequel.
- Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
- SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs
- Step Up 3D
- Trauma
- The Walking Dead
- We Have a Ghost
- Wrong Turn 2: Dead End
His website is here and his blog is here. Excellent resources for music fans.
YMMV tropes here.
Bear McCreary and his music demonstrate:
- And Starring: By Season 4 of Battlestar Galactica (2003), Bear's name was shown on the opening credits as tribute to his importance to the show.
- Autobots, Rock Out!: "Apocalypse".
- Bilingual Bonus: "Battlestar Operatica". Woe upon your Cylon heart / There is a toaster in your head / And it wears high heels / Number Six calls to you / The Cylon Detector beckons / Your girlfriend is a toaster / Woe upon your Cylon heart / Alas, disgrace! Alas, sadness and misery! / The toaster has a pretty dress / Red like her glowing spine / Number Six whispers: "By your command" / Woe upon your Cylon heart.
- Also the main theme of Battlestar, "Wander My Friends", "Kobol's Last Gleaming", "Bloodshed", "Lords of Kobol", "A Distant Sadness", Baltar's theme, and others. In fact, most of the times when there are lyrics in his music, they're in some language other than English.
- Several tracks from Outlander feature singing in Gaelic, including "Much Sa Mhadainn," which adapts the lyrics to a song from the Jacobite Rising.
- Blues Rock: "Dirty Hands". Appropriate as a theme for the futuristing blue-collar workers.
- The Cast Show Off: Alessandro Juliani sings "Gaeta's Lament" in BSG and part of "Capricoperatica" in Caprica. Kandyse McClure hums her own theme music in "Funeral Pyres".
- Creator Cameo: The dwarf Raeb you meet as part of the mainquest and a post-game side quest in God of War Ragnarök is an Ink-Suit Actor of Bear, as Bear voices Raeb.
- Cult Soundtrack: Bear's music is very distinctive, especially the Battlestar Galactica score.
- Cyber Punk Is Techno: Not Caprica itself, but the virtual world of New Cap City. And also his score to Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
- Echoing Acoustics: "Something Dark Is Coming."
- Epic Rocking: Lots of examples. A few particularly noteworthy ones (seven minutes or longer):
- From Battlestar Galactica (2003): "Assault on the Colony" (15:09), "Something Dark Is Coming" (8:55), "Prelude to War" (8:26), "Storming New Caprica" (7:50), "Among the Ruins" (7:45), "Violence and Variations" (7:35)
- From Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome: "The Last Battle of Osiris" (8:39)
- From Caprica: "Capricoperatica" (8:42)
- From Defiance (TV series): "Battle of the Volge" (8:33)
- From Defiance (video game): "Mount Tam" (7:50), "Theme from Defiance (Extended Version)" (7:03)
- From Human Target: "Flipping the Plane" (10:54), "Skyhook Rescue" (7:05), "Confronting Baptiste" (8:51), "Gondola" (8:44), "Bertram" (7:00)
- Everything's Louder with Bagpipes: "Battle on the Asteroid," "Storming New Caprica," "Assault on the Colony."
- Throughout Outlander, obviously, which is set in 18th century Scotland, but especially prominent in Charge of the Highland Cattle, as well as much of the latter half of season 2, which features battle scenes set to bagpipes.
- Fading into the Next Song: "Colonial Anthem" -> "Baltar's Dream". "Reuniting the Fleet" -> "Roslin Confesses". "Key to Coexistence" -> "Goodbye Old Friend".
- Gangsta Rap: "Voices of the Dead" from Caprica. Since the Taurons are similar to Greeks, their rap song is in Ancient Greek. Awesome.
- Genre Mashup: Bear is an expert at mixing genres.
- Last Episode Theme Reprise: The Battlestar Galactica (1978) theme appears in the finale in "The Heart of the Sun".
- Left the Background Music On: "Kara Remembers".
- Leitmotif: "For a show that set out to avoid themes, Battlestar Galactica has certainly ended up with quite a few" (Bear in a 2009 interview). These are also seen in Caprica, Human Target, and Dark Void.
- Number Six's theme, later used as the BSG prologue music.
- The Opera House theme.
- The Adama family theme.
- Starbuck's Destiny.
- The metal percussion of the Cylons contrasted with the traditional drums of the humans.
- The religious theme, used for Roslin, Kobol, and anything associated with them.
- Outlander has several, most notably renditions of The Skye Boat song (both with and without lyrics), Jamie and Claire's theme (heard triumphantly for the first time in The Wedding, and later, Brianna and Roger's theme.
- Lonely Piano Piece: "Battlestar Sonatica", "Elegy" and "Dreilide Thrace Sonata No. 1". The 2011 2-part album The Music of Battlestar Galactica for Solo Piano is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, and features pianist Joohyun Park playing rearrangements of Bear's score.
- Musical Episode: "Someone to Watch Over Me", featuring the piano. Weirdest Musical Episode ever.
- Musical Spoiler: "Heeding the Call," "Kara Remembers" and "Kara's Coordinates."
- Non-Indicative Name: He is neither a large woodland creature, nor a stout, hairy gay man.
- Ominous Latin Chanting: Chanting in Anglo-Saxon, Armenian, Gaelic, Greek, Italian, Latin several times, Samoan, Sanskrit, Sinhalese, and Icelandic.
- One-Woman Wail: Raya Yarbrough has the perfect voice for wailing to Bear's music.
- Orchestral Bombing: "Prelude to War" is the most famous, with "Apocalypse" coming in a close second.
- Playing the Heart Strings:
- The "Opera House theme" heard in "Passacaglia", "The Shape of Things to Come", "Allegro", "Violence and Variations" and the endings of "Assault on the Colony" and "An Easterly View".
- Starbuck's theme from "Forgiven" and "Deathbed and Maelstrom".
- Starbuck and Apollo's love theme from "Violence and Variations", "Under the Wing", also briefly heard in "Deathbed and Maelstrom" and "Starbuck Disappears".
- The "Roslin and Adama love theme" heard in "Roslin and Adama", "Adama Falls", "Roslin and Adama Reunited" and "So Much Life."
- Bill and Lee Adama's theme from "Wander My Friends", "A Good Lighter", "Reuniting The Fleet", "Farewell Apollo", "Grand Old Lady" and "The Heart of the Sun".
- The "Starbuck and Anders love theme" heard in "A Promise to Return" and "Goodbye Sam".
- "Refugees Return" and "Gentle Execution".
- "The Hub" is a funeral dirge for the Cylons, who are mortal once more.
- Power of Rock: "Lords of Kobol", "Gaeta's Lament (Instrumental Version)" and "Apocalypse".
- Rearrange the Song/Cover Version:
- Bear remixed Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" into a version sung by his brother Brendan (although McCreary's arrangement is arguably just as inspired by Jimi Hendrix's, which is used in the ending to the show).
- Bear rearranged the old Galactica theme into the Colonial Anthem.
- He also had Shirley Manson sing a version of "Samson and Delilah" for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
- In fall 2011, he released the album The Music of Battlestar Galactica for Solo Piano where award-winning pianist Joohyun Park plays rearrangements of McCreary's Battlestar Galactica score.
- Even stranger Prelude to War for Accordion Orchestra
- Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" gets rearranged for acoustic guitar, strings, and Raya Yarbrough's voice in Defiance.
- Every season of Outlander has a different version of The Skye Boat song (sometimes more!) to correspond to the setting: in French when the action moves to France, with fifes and drums in the Thirteen Colonies, etc.
- Retraux: His soundtrack for Dark Void Zero.
- Shout-Out: "Battlestar Operatica" quotes Bach's Cello Suite No. 1, "Battlestar Sonatica" quotes Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata," and "Theme from Dark Void (Mega Version)" evokes the spirit of the old Mega Man (Classic) themes.
- Theme Music Power-Up: "Kara's Coordinates."