The White Lotus’ latest season opener may have already gripped fans, won over critics and pulled in an even bigger audience than its predecessors after just one episode – but there’s one part of the show fans are still pretty unhappy about.
Yes, the refreshed theme music for season three continues to be a sticking point for many White Lotus viewers, particularly after the previous two offerings proved to be surprise hits (even inspiring an official club remix from trance superstar Tiësto).
Composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer has worked on all three seasons of the award-winning drama’s opening music, including its latest incarnation, Enlightenment, and previous works Aloha! and Renaissance.
Speaking to Spotify in 2023, six months after the season two finale aired, Cristbal opened up to Spotify about his hopes for his next White Lotus theme.
“For Thailand, I want to bring in some Eastern philosophy, something a little bit spiritual,” he said. “I love the Buddhist temples there, and funnily enough I have a collection of Thai gongs. I have 36 Thai gongs to make melodies with, so you can expect to hear some of those. I’d really like to go deep with it, make it take a journey.”
And in a separate interview with Variety from around the same time, the Chilean-born Canadian musician shared some of his unusual musical inspirations that would feed into his season three composition.
He claimed: “I hear interesting things in TikTok or YouTube sometimes. I think that the best song I heard in the last few years that I can remember is people harmonising to a cat on TikTok.
“There’s a cat, and somebody put some piano and then some girls started harmonising, and then there’s all these versions harmonising this cat, it’s super moving and so spontaneous and fresh that this is grabbing a lot more my attention than super-produced pop music.
“I’m a fan of pop music, but it feels like it’s been a while that I feel like something has surprised me. So I’ve been looking a lot into these eight-second bits of music that people [are] putting together and harmonising a cat or stupid, silliest things.
“To me, it’s like a gold mine, it’s just moving to me. It feels like you are actually in contact with a person.”
In 2022, Cristobal won two Emmys for his work on The White Lotus, for composing the original opening music as well as scoring the whole show.
His additional work includes the cult British thriller series Utopia, the horror movie Smile and its 2024 sequel, the Black Mirror episode Black Museum and Nicole Kidman’s erotic thriller Babygirl.
The White Lotus continues on Monday on Sky and Now in the UK.