X-Men: First Class

Henry Jackman, who had worked with Vaughn in Kick-Ass, composed the score. Following the James Bond influences on First Class, Jackman drew inspiration from John Barry's work in the said series, which he described as "extremely posh pop music". Jackman started his work with a "Superman-style theme", which is only featured in the final parts of the film as Vaughn thought it was too "successful and triumphant" for a disjointed and up-and-coming team. Therefore, Vaughn reworked a 'stretched' half time version of the theme into the remainder of the film. The themes for Magneto and Shaw have similarities to reflect their "perverted father-son" relationship, with even a seamless transition during the scene where Shaw is killed to represent Lensherr's full transformation into Magneto.

In a roundtable interview with multiple news outlets, Vaughn responded to a question about choosing "Love Love" by the British band Take That for the end-credits theme, explaining, "I bumped into [the band's lead singer] Gary [Barlow] in [Los Angeles], and we were just talking, and I said, 'Do you want to come and see a rough cut of it?’ And they came, and they wrote the song, and I listened to it, and I said, ‘I think it’ll be a hit’, and if we can do a video which gets girls more interested ... we might get them to come and watch it. So it’s pure commerce, to be blunt, and I want women to see this film."An instrumental of the song "Run (I'm a Natural Disaster)" by Gnarls Barkley is used in the 'mutant recruitment' scene.