Cha Cha Real Smooth

Cha Cha Real Smooth (Soundtrack from the Apple Original Film) is the soundtrack extended play that consisted of original score composed by Este Haim and Chris Stracey for the 2022 film of the same name directed by Cooper Raiff. The album was released on June 17, 2022 by Columbia Records (the same day as it limited theatrical and Apple TV+ release) featured nearly five tracks from their score. The initial film that had much of the score when premiered at the Sundance Film Festival being strip down from the film as Raiff wanted to do with the minimalistic approach on music, to match the diegetic music featured in the film. Being their maiden feature-length score for the duo, the music received positive critical response. Development The film marked both Haim and Stracey's feature-length scoring debut. Ro Donnelly, one of the producers had friendship with Stracey's wife, had discussed about the film in his house, when the duo were working on the score for Maid. Donnelly had sent the script for the film, and Stracey who watched and liked Raiff's previous venture Shithouse (2020) immediately agreed to score for the film. Both Haim and Stracey had inspired the musical works from Alex G as Shithouse incorporated the musician's works in the film, and Raiff also demanded incorporated Alex G's music. Since Haim, was also a fan of Alex G, she felt like "we're 100 percent on the same page, you’re speaking my language". Raiff sent them playlist of songs that drives the inspiration to the film and also noted on sonic sounds and instrumentation that he wanted to include or avoid in the film. The score is an amalgamation of organic and inorganic instruments. Haim used to listen to the song "In a Big Country" by Big Country, where they used the guitars sounding like bagpipes and they felt it as "a cool idea" on playing those instrument not knowing what they are hearing. Hence, in that approach, the duo made the organic instruments sound as inorganic in certain aspects. They also wanted to "hone on the emotional depth of Cooper's character, as well as to retain the fun in the film. She added that the ice pop scene was the hardest thing to score, as "We didn’t want to make it too lovey-dovey [because] at the same time, it’s a heartbreaking scene. You learn so much about Domino in that scene.