Donnie Darko

The Donnie Darko soundtrack was created by Michael Andrews and released in 2002. It consisted of 16 instrumental tracks and two covers of "Mad World" by Tears for Fears.

Richard Kelly (director) commissioned Michael Andrews, a San Diego musician and television and film composer who had worked as a member of a range of bands, including The Origin with Gary Jules, whose two solo albums he had produced, and The Greyboy Allstars. Kelly said that he was confident that Michael Andrews could do the job: "I met with Michael and I just knew right away that he was really, really talented and that he could come up with a really original score. He would allow me to be in there and be really kind of editorial with how I wanted the score to be." Michael Andrews relocated to Los Angeles to work on the film between October and December 2000. As Michael Andrews states, the low budget for the project encouraged him to play a diverse range of instruments for the soundtrack:

Like many of his role models for soundtrack composing such as John Barry and Ennio Morricone, Michael Andrews wanted to put a song on his otherwise instrumental score. He eventually chose "Mad World" (1982) by Tears for Fears, who were one of his and childhood friend Gary Jules' favourite bands while growing up. Andrews enlisted Jules to sing the song, while Andrews himself played the piano. Other songs from the film include "The Killing Moon" by Echo & the Bunnymen (another of Andrews' and Jules' favourite bands), Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart", The Church's shimmering "Under the Milky Way" in the cathartic party scene, and "Proud to Be Loud" by the '80s incarnation of the metal band Pantera.

Michael Andrews's derivative style of composing owes much to the ground-breaking Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) by Henryk Górecki, to which Cherita mimes on stage. An excerpt of For Whom the Bell Tolls as composed by Steve Baker and Carmen Daye starts the credit sequence at the end of the film. This music was however not included in the album-version of the soundtrack.

In the subsequent director's cut, a number of musical choices are changed. In the film's opening, "The Killing Moon" by Echo & the Bunnymen is replaced by "Never Tear Us Apart" by INXS. "The Killing Moon" later replaces "Under The Milky Way" by The Church during the party scene. "Under The Milky Way" can be heard in the car scene with Donnie and his father, played on the radio. Many of these tracks were originally meant to be on the soundtrack, but could not be obtained for licencing reasons.