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Original Television Soundtrack

ITV’s drama series from the storied creative trio of multi-BAFTA Award winner Jack Thorne, director Lewis Arnold (Sherwood) and producer Patrick Spence (Mr Bates vs the Post Office) tells the story of how investigative reporter Nick Davies uncovered phone hacking at Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct News of the World more than a decade ago.

David Tennant stars as Davies alongside Robert Carlyle, who plays Met Police Detective Chief Superintendent Dave Cook. Cook led the investigation into the unsolved murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan, which is also told via The Hack.

The phone hacking scandal led to the closure of the News of the World and imprisonment of its ex-editor Andy Coulson. Davies wrote an award-winning book about it, Hack Attack: How the Truth Caught Up with Rupert Murdoch. The headline-grabbing story reared its head again recently after Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers (NGN) apologized to Prince Harry, settled with him and for the first time admitted “unlawful activities carried out by private investigators working for The Sun.”

The composers describe how they approached the scoring –
“The Hack follows Nick Davies, an investigative journalist at The Guardian, as he uncovers evidence of a scandal at renowned paper The News of the World. As he delves deeper into the story, it becomes clear that the scale of the phone hacking was greater than he could ever have anticipated. Nick makes it his mission to reveal the truth, gradually discovering how those responsible were connected to another even more troubling event: an unsolved murder.

The score for The Hack had two stories to tell: Nick Davies’s journalistic investigation, and DCS Dave Cook’s homicide case. We chose two distinct styles for the parallel storylines, each focused on expressing the emotional journeys of the central characters: Nick and Dave. Nick’s journey required something meticulous, professional, and above all driving to underscore his relentless motivation to uncover the truth. The darkness of the murder investigation needed to be gritty and intense, and we used a recurring motif of a ticking clock to emphasise Dave’s time running out.

As the series progresses and Nick and Dave’s stories begin to intertwine, the two musical styles also start to merge together, culminating in a powerful final scene where Nick hammers home the power of the truth, and the consequences for obscuring it.”

Tracklist

1 Based On A True Story
2 We Didn’t Get The Rights
3 I’m Here To Arrest You
4 The Story Goes Live
5 What Do You Know
6 Barbecued
7 Monstering
8 You’re Such A Hazard
9 Forty Victims
10 Criminal Investigation
11 It’s Time To Go Nuclear
12 Don’t Drop The Ball
13 It Was Cruel
14 What Did You Do
15 Milly
16 Truth Is Precious