A Complete Unknown (soundtrack)

As the film documents Dylan's life, particularly revolving around the controversy on his shift to electric instruments, Mangold revealed that he had selected one-tenth of Dylan songs that had been recorded during this period for inclusion in the film.^[2] Producer Fred Berger accounted its number to 40, while the soundtrack album has 23 songs.^[3][4] The film's executive music producer Nicholai Baxter listened to most of Dylan's recordings with Chalamet and tried to select the appropriate sounds, while Dylan's manager Jeff Rosen provided an entire library of unreleased Dylan recordings.^[5] Chalamet is reported to have listened to 16 hours of Dylan's recordings in one day. Baxter found alternative versions of Dylan songs—"Blowin' in the Wind", "Girl from the North Country" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'"—from his first recordings in 1963. Most of the film's soundscape consists of acoustic folk sounds before its shift to electronic music in the final act.^[6]

Chalamet performed all the songs as heard in the film, as did the other principal cast members.^[3] Chalamet prepared himself by singing and playing guitars and harmonica when the film's production was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2023 Hollywood labor disputes.^[2][3] Initially, he had pre-recorded his vocals to play the role. However, he convinced Mangold and the rest of the production team to perform the songs live. Though initially hesitant, Mangold and the team were impressed with Chalamet's live performances, and relegating the pre-recorded vocals to use for the film's soundtrack.^[2]

The sound team—sound mixing engineer Tod A. Maitland, supervising music editor Ted Caplan, re-recording mixer Paul Massey, and supervising sound editor Donald Sylvester—used around 40 microphones which were period-appropriate,^[7] to which Maitland added: "the idea was to get a little bit different sound in each different venue by using practical microphones from the period. That helped create a nice tapestry of sounds. But [Chalamet] went 100% live. It was pretty amazing."^[2] Maitland and the recording team refrained the use of earpieces throughout the sessions.^[3] Caplan claimed that despite no full song performances, each song had been recorded as like a concert, which gave it as "a special live real magic".^[2]

On December 6, 2024, Chalamet's performance of "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Girl from the North Country"^[8] were released as singles from the album.^[9][10][11] The soundtrack was released through Columbia Records on December 20, five days prior to the film's release, with a 16-track vinyl LP which was released on January 24, 2025, and a 23-track CD set for February 28.^[12]