Who composed the score for Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums?

Mark Mothersbaugh composed the score for Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums.

Mothersbaugh was already an important Anderson collaborator by the time the film was made. He had composed music for Bottle Rocket and Rushmore, helping establish the director’s characteristic relationship between carefully chosen songs and distinctive original scoring.

The Royal Tenenbaums also uses prominent pre-existing recordings, including music by Nico, Elliott Smith, and the Ramones. That combination can lead viewers to attribute the entire soundtrack to one composer, but Mothersbaugh wrote the original score while the soundtrack album gathered both score material and licensed songs.

Mothersbaugh is best known as a founding member of the new-wave band Devo and as a prolific film and television composer. Alexandre Desplat later became one of Anderson’s major collaborators, but he did not score The Royal Tenenbaums.