General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Soundtrack (2019 TV series)

Soundtrack is an American romantic musical drama television series created by Joshua Safran, in which a group of interconnected people in contemporary Los Angeles tell their love stories by lip-syncing to existing popular songs. All ten episodes were released on Netflix on December 18, 2019, and the series was canceled after one season on January 31, 2020.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Format	Romantic musical drama; characters lip-sync to familiar hits rather than performing their own versions³
Creator	Joshua Safran, whose credits include Gossip Girl, Smash, and Quantico¹
Development	Ordered to pilot at Fox in January 2018 as Mixtape; Netflix gave a series order in July 2018 after Fox passed²
Release	All 10 episodes dropped on Netflix on December 18, 2019¹
Cancellation	Canceled after one season on January 31, 2020, about six weeks after release²
Reception	44% on Rotten Tomatoes (9 reviews), 58/100 on Metacritic (4 critics), 6.8/10 on IMDb⁴^•⁵^•⁶
Later streaming	Removed from Netflix on March 1, 2022; later available on Hulu and Disney+⁷^•⁴

Spoilers

Premise and format

The series follows a diverse, disparate group of people in Los Angeles whose love stories are connected through the music that lives inside their hearts and minds.¹ Its distinguishing device is that the characters do not sing their own songs or even their own arrangements: when something large happens in their lives, they lip-sync to a familiar recording of the original artist. The Guardian's Rebecca Nicholson wrote that this is initially jarring but settles in quickly, and that the show is uninterested in gritty realism, with party-goers joining in as backing dancers and characters drifting into dreamlike sequences.³ Each episode is called a "track", and most episodes end with a mashup of two songs announced on screen.³

Safran explained the concept by saying that when people hear a song in their head, they hear the original artist, not themselves singing it; "You hear Beyoncé, you hear Stevie Nicks. You do not hear yourself singing it. That was where the concept came from."⁸ He described the show as Paul Thomas Anderson meets This Is Us, and cited Pennies from Heaven, the 1978 BBC miniseries later adapted as a 1981 film with Steve Martin and Christopher Walken, as a key influence, along with a dash of Magnolia.³^•⁹ The licensed music ranged widely, from Whitney Houston, Dolly Parton, and Joni Mitchell to Demi Lovato, The Weeknd, Lily Allen, Chet Baker, Lauryn Hill, and St Vincent.³^•⁴

Cast and production

The central thread follows Sam (Paul James) and Nellie (Callie Hernandez), a songwriter single father and an aspiring artist.³^•⁵ The ensemble also included Jenna Dewan as Joanna Kassem, a former struggling dancer turned social worker, Marianne Jean-Baptiste as Annette Sands, Madeleine Stowe as Margot Weston, Campbell Scott as Frank, Jahmil French as Dante Mendoza, Megan Ferguson as Gigi Dumont, Christina Milian, Robbie Fairchild, and Isaiah Givens.¹^•⁹^•¹⁰

Safran wrote and executive produced, with Ali Krug as co-executive producer and Annapurna's Sue Naegle and Megan Ellison also executive producing. The series came from Annapurna Pictures in association with 20th Century Fox Television and Fox 21 Television Studios.¹ Some episodes were directed by Joe Swanberg, creator of the Netflix series Easy.³ Safran's writing method started from music: he made a playlist for every character before writing a word, found a song that felt like a story, and constructed the episodes around the songs.¹¹

Development history

The show began at Fox under the title Mixtape, which ordered it to pilot in January 2018. When Fox decided not to move forward, Netflix gave it a series order in July 2018, and it was later renamed Soundtrack.²^•⁷ Safran said he had originally planned 13 episodes; when the show moved to Netflix, three were cut and the story pushed together.⁸

Reception and cancellation

Critical response was mixed. On Rotten Tomatoes the season holds a 44% Tomatometer from 9 reviews against a 90% Popcornmeter audience score; Metacritic gave it a weighted average of 58 out of 100 from 4 critics, indicating mixed or average reviews.⁴^•⁵ The Guardian rated it 4/5, calling it bold, big, and unabashedly soapy; Variety's Caroline Framke called it a deeply frustrating entry to the genre, arguing the song selection was often nonsensical or cloyingly literal, while Vulture's Jen Chaney found the execution did not meet the premise's potential.⁵ TVLine readers gave the premiere an average grade of "B+".²

Netflix canceled the series on January 31, 2020, roughly six weeks after the December 18 release, with The Hollywood Reporter first reporting the news.²^•¹ Safran responded on Twitter that the team had "worked tirelessly on it" and "felt we'd made something unique, fresh, weird, and, well, great. And yet, it all but disappeared. Barely even got reviewed. I personally feel like it never came out." He noted that the sole season ends with a sense of closure.² An Independent feature cited Soundtrack among Netflix experiments released with little notice and canceled discreetly, and noted that per a Deadline report, positive reviews make Netflix more inclined to give a low-performing series a second season.¹²

Later availability

Although labeled a Netflix Original, the series was developed and distributed by 20th Television, which passed to Disney ownership; Netflix removed it globally on March 1, 2022 alongside other Disney-owned properties.⁷ It later became available to stream on Hulu and Disney+ by subscription.⁴^•¹³

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026