What's the deal with the music for the Barbarian movie?

Question

I found a YouTube video that has the creepy background music in the movie Barbarian. There is no doubt that is the music used in the movie - in fact, most of the comments on the video mention that it is the music in Barbarian. According to YouTube, the song is titled "Necro" and was done by an artist named "A001" in 2016.

Then I found an article that discusses the music in Barbarian (and other 2022 horror movies), and it claims that the music was done by composer Anna Drubich, who had "just 21 days to write" the music.

Then I found another YouTube video that features some of Anna Drubich's Barbarian music, and it sounds exactly like A001's "Necro" song.

I can only see 2 possibilities:

1. Anna Drubich wrote the "Necro" song 6 years ago and released it under the alias "A001". But then why would the article say she only had 21 days to write it?
2. Anna Drubich ripped off A001's song.

Is there any other explanation I'm missing?

Answer 1

I just found an interview with Barbarian director Zach Cregger where the interviewer also confused A001's "Necro" with the movie's score. But Cregger confirmed that the score, written by Anna Drubich, is not the same as A001's "Necro":

Cregger: I hired this woman, Anna Drubich, with three weeks to finish the movie. She came on very late in the process, and I basically needed her to pull a miracle out. And as far as I’m concerned, she did. To score an entire feature in three weeks’ time is unheard of.

Interviewer: Yeah, I loved the score, there were notes of ’80s synthwave at times...

Cregger: The song that you are referring to is actually a needle drop. It’s a song called “Necro”. I found it on Spotify by this British woman named A001, and I wrote the movie listening to that track a lot. Yeah, so when she walks down that dark hallway, and it’s just that BOOM...BOOM...BOOM, that pulsing synth, that’s a track, that’s not actually part of our score, but it works great.

The only thing I have found that indicates what the score actually sounds like is an article that claims "Anna Drubich’s score opens Barbarian". If that is true, then you can hear about 40 seconds of the score starting at 1:11 in this Barbarian Extended Preview video.

Answer 2

3. The video you are using for 'reference' is not licensed in any way, doesn't properly credit anything, has zero authority and is nothing more than a fan-compilation.

A soundtrack is all the music used in a movie. The score is what is written for it, anything previously recorded is then either 'featured' or 'incidental' music. Featured is if the characters can hear it, incidental if they can't.

The fan-edit does not credit anyone, either image or music, at all.
No conclusions can be drawn except they really have no idea what they're doing.
The poster also has no idea what the 'fair use' clause means, or that specifically attempting to invoke it does not change its copyright status in the slightest. They also claim all rights are 20th Century Studios, which is also wrong. So, that's at least two things they got wrong already… I think this is past the point we stop considering them as any kind of accurate source.

If you look at the 'more info' you'll see there looks like there has been a retrospective right applied for the A001 track, Necro. This usually happens when a claim is made against a poster, but either the rights holder is willing to allow it to stay, or that a commercial deal has been done & any moneterisation re-assigned/distributed to the correct owners.