Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3

In April 2017, Gunn felt the music for the film would be different from what was used for the first two films’ soundtracks, Awesome Mix Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. The next month, he added that he was “panicking” about the soundtrack and had to make some “pretty specific choices” shortly due to the wider range of available music for the story, By early July 2017, Gunn had narrowed down his choices for potential songs to 181, but noted that this list could grow again.

Official Releases

All of the songs for the film had been selected by the following month; the songs are not modern and come from Quill’s Zune that he received at the end of Vol. 2, although Gunn added that the soundtrack was not limited to 1970s pop songs compared to the first two films, instead spanning multiple decades. Gunn was unable to use the song “Russian Roulette” by The Lords of the New Church for Vol. 3 due to a legal battle over its ownership. The film opens with an acoustic version of “Creep” by Radiohead, which provided “a much different tone from the beginning than the other two films”.

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The film ends with “Dog Days Are Over” by Florence and the Machine, as Gunn is a fan of that album; he had thought about including the song to wrap-up the trilogy since he started writing Vol. 2.

The track list for Awesome Mix Vol. 3 was revealed in April 2023, and was made available on Spotify and Apple Music on April 3 as part of a larger Guardians of the Galaxy: The Official Mixtape playlist, which also featured the soundtracks and scores from the previous two films. Awesome Mix Vol. 3 was released by Hollywood Records on CD and digital download on May 3, 2023, a 12″ 2-LP vinyl on May 5, and is set to release on cassette on July 7.

In October 2021, Gunn revealed that John Murphy was composing the film’s score and had already recorded music to be played on set during filming. Murphy replaces Tyler Bates, who composed the score for the first two films, however Bates’ theme from the previous films were referenced; Murphy had also replaced Bates as composer of The Suicide Squad after Bates left that film during production. Murphy’s original score for the film was released digitally on May 3, 2023.