Zedd Creates Theme For National Geographic Show ‘One Strange Rock’
As Zedd continues to push the boundaries and due to his love for planet earth, Zedd was asked to do the theme song for National Geographic’s new show, ‘One Strange Rock.’ It’s a pretty unexpected pairing on paper — a producer best known for festival-sized drops teaming up with a prestige nature documentary — but honestly, it makes more sense the longer you sit with it. Zedd’s always had a cinematic streak to his production, and a project this visually massive needed a score that could match the scale.
One Strange Rock is National Geographic’s newest show. The show’s premise is a look at the extraordinary story of Earth and why it is special and unique with life among a largely unknown but harsh cosmic arena. Each of the ten-episodes will take you around the world, viewing parts of the Earth through astronomy, chemistry, biology, and human culture. All while Will Smith is narrating it.
Having Will Smith attached as narrator gives the whole thing a mainstream, blockbuster feel that’s rare for a nature docuseries, and pairing that star power with Zedd’s original theme is a smart way to pull in viewers who might not normally tune into a science documentary. The series pulls together astronauts and scientists to tell Earth’s story from a genuinely unique vantage point, and having a track built specifically for that tone — rather than just licensing something off the shelf — makes the whole intro hit differently.
Check out the video featuring Zedd’s new song from the One Strange Rock soundtrack below.
National Geographic’s One Strange Rock
Photo via RUKES
It’s a genuine full-circle moment for a producer who’s talked openly about wanting his music to feel bigger than the club, and scoring a project about the entire planet is about as big as it gets. If this is the direction Zedd keeps pushing — original scores for prestige TV instead of just another radio single — it’s a pretty exciting lane for him to be carving out alongside the festival sets and pop collabs.
It also says something about where dance music production has landed culturally that a network like National Geographic went looking for an EDM producer in the first place. Sync placements have long been a way for electronic artists to reach audiences well outside the festival circuit, but landing the actual theme for a flagship series — one built around Earth’s origin story and narrated by one of the biggest movie stars on the planet — is a different tier entirely. Expect more of these crossovers going forward as studios keep chasing composers who can make a documentary feel as sweeping as the visuals it’s set to.
