International music was chosen as the primary music style of Strange Days due to its variety of sounds and instruments. According to music supervisor Randy Gerston, who previously worked on True Lies, this type of music helped the film-makers create a futuristic atmosphere, noting that "the world is shrinking and people are getting acclimated to strange languages being part of the pop vernacular." Musicians featured on the soundtrack also included French duo Deep Forest, British trip hop artist Tricky, and British alternative rock band Skunk Anansie. The latter was encouraged to jam between takes at the film's New Year event so that Bigelow could record them live and give the rave a greater authenticity. Although the band would have a live sound on the film, they ultimately had to lip-sync. A soundtrack album was released shortly before the film's opening. In addition, 60,000 promotional CD-ROMs, which contained production material from the film and music clips from the soundtrack, was made available only through the "College Special" issue of Rolling Stone magazine that was sold at record stores.