As with the TV series it accompanied, the music of Lost really ramps up the stakes in season two. Where it’s scary, it’s much more boisterous and scary than season 1, and where it’s mysterious, it’s much more mysterious. There are quieter moments too, including the piano piece from what still stands as my favorite episode to date, Everybody Hates Hugo.
Definite themes emerge as the chronologically-ordered selection of music unfolds (if indeed any show that has flashbacks every week can be described as chronological), including a theme for the Dharma station hatch, which may also be shared by Desmond. This first appears in “Peace Through Superior Firepower,” the scene which introduced us to Desmond, and later appears in a couple of other tracks, including the moment in last season’s finale when Desmond realized that he brought down Oceanic 815 in the first place.
Michael Giacchino’s instrumentation is more densely layered here, generally lending the whole thing a “bigger” sound. (Like Battlestar Galactica composer Bear McCreary, Giacchino is classy enough to list every session player who participated in the Lost sessions – and lo and behind, many of them are the same musicians. What a great job that must be, playing all that killer music.) Somehow that fits because, obviously, the story is getting bigger too.
One of the most interesting tracks is the show’s end credits. (“Wha…?”, I hear you saying already, “there isn’t music on the end credits because ABC squishes everything and runs previews.”) I’m guessing this is the end credit music for the un-squished credits on the DVDs. It’s interesting, and it defnitely has the same “Lost sound” as the score cues, but it’s almost too upbeat.
Some fans may not be thrilled with how much music is heard from specific episodes; some shows – quite pivotal ones in the Lost mythos, in fact – wind up represented by only one track or don’t appear at all, while others (I’m looking at you, Live Together, Die Alone) seem like most of the music written for them is here. It’s a nice listen from beginning to end, but with shows like this, Galactica and Doctor Who, the track listing seems like it’s bursting to expand beyond the running time of a single CD.
Those looking for songs featured in the show go away empty-handed again; I’m not saying that I don’t like having an entire CD of underscore, but with non-score material like Driveshaft, and prominently heard songs 
like Mama Cass Elliot’s “Make Your Own Kind Of Music,” you’d think someone would’ve put together an official “Songs heard on Lost” compilation by now.
It’s a tremendously enjoyable and relentlessly intense listen, and that’s why Lost Season 2 was one of my favorite soundtracks of 2006, hands-down.
- Main Title (0:17)
- Peace Through Superior Firepower (1:26)
- The Final Countdown (5:49)
- World’s Worst Landscaping (1:18)
- Mess It All Up (1:28)
- Hurley’s Handouts (4:42)
- Just Another Day On The Beach (2:49)
- Ana Cries (1:47)
- The Tribes Merge (2:05)
- The Gathering (4:19)
- Shannon’s Funeral (2:12)
- All’s Forgiven…Except Charlie (5:19)
- Charlie’s Dream (1:50)
- Charlie’s Temptation (0:51)
- A New Trade (2:40)
- Mapquest (0:38)
- Claire’s Escape (3:45)
- The Last To Know (2:22)
- Rose And Bernard (2:40)
- Toxic Avenger (0:41)
- I Crashed Your Plane, Brotha (1:46)
- Eko Blaster (1:44)
- The Hunt (3:57)
- McGale’s Navy (2:21)
- Bon Voyage, Traitor (5:30)
- End Title (0:32)
Released by: Varese Sarabande
Release date: 2006
Total running time: 64:48