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The Influence of Videogames in (sort of ) Popular Music

Andrewh
Thursday, June 18, 2009

Editor's Note: This isn't a collection of videogame music on YouTube but something far more subtle and interesting...if you have an ear for it. -Shoe


Brett Bates' piece about an art installation in San Fransisco has inspired me to finally get around to something I've been meaning to do for a while. There have been a million pieces about videogame music. This isn't one of those.

Instead, drawing on my semi-substantial knowledge of music, I've collected a series of tunes that reveal how ingrained videogames music (of the 8- and 16-bit variety) have permeated our culture and how -- and I have no idea if the following artists even realize it -- popular music draws from the distinct sounds of these early videogames.

 

Does It Offend You Yeah? - We Are Rockstars

First on the docket is UK band Does it Offend You Yeah? who go as far as to describe themselves as "an arcade machine thrown into a lake, a ZX Spectrum in a prison shower block (That soap on the floor...? It's a trap)". The description should be evident.

Ratatat - Seventeen Years

The theme to an unreleased Tetris release? I can't think of anything else.

The Unicorns - 2014

Excuse me while I go on my "The Unicorns are the best band ever" rant: blah blah broke up too early...what only one album! blah blah. I have no idea who made this video (knowing The Unicorns, it was probably them).

Xiu Xiu - Crank Heart

If Nintendo was run by poetic homosexuals and explored issues like abuse, AIDS, and repressed sexuality instead of saving princesses, sweet power-ups and repressed sexuality....

Squarepusher - Hello Meow

I am of the opinion that Tom Jenkinson is the sweetest bass player of all time. And that he played too much Dreamcast.

Chromeo - You're So Gangsta (shitty live version was all I could find)

With interweaving synth lines, the structure and composition could easily be mistaken for Capcom's best.

Fischerspooner - Emerge

Not even Georgians who had teenage affairs with Michael Stipe can avoid the influence of videogames.

Bonus Round

In the "semi-related to videogames but not quite" category: The Mobcast's own voice of God, Robert Ashley with I Come To Shanghai.

In the "actual videogame music but totally awesome" category: RAC's remix of A Link to the Past.

 
Tags: Music
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Comments (10)
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Brett Bates
June 19, 2009
Nice, Andrew. I've noticed the same thing in a lot of the music I listen to, too. Here are a few off the top of my head. Enjoy! Oh No - The Ride [url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s05-GXblvAI[/url] Patrick Wolf - Count of Casualty [url]http://hypem.com/track/834707/Patrick+Wolf+-+Count+Of+Casualty[/url] Passion Pit - Little Secrets [url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxL9Hod_qCY[/url]
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Lance Darnell
June 19, 2009
What a great piece, nice job Andrew!!!
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Rob Savillo
June 22, 2009
I'm surprised that there's no mention of [url=http://www.minibosses.com/]Minibosses[/url]!
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Matt Clinkscales
June 22, 2009
Don't forget Further Seems Forever's tribute to HALO with the song "On Legendary" from the album How to start a fire. http://www.last.fm/music/Further+Seems+Forever/_/On+Legendary
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Matt Clinkscales
June 22, 2009
Oh and don't forget HORSE the band
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Jasmine Maleficent Rea
June 22, 2009
Also, Del Tha Funkee Homosapien's track Proto Culture.
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Aaron Pickering
June 22, 2009
Great piece. The bands that were chosen are some of my favorites. My only problem with it is that I don't think that the music is so much inspired by 8 bit video games as much as it is inspired by the era in which 8 bit computing was born. Digital musical instruments were being developed in parallel with gaming consoles and everything else digital for that matter. However, these bands and especially the songs that you picked have clear links to the music in games that I grew up with and it is a lot of fun to try and get inside the mind of the musicians and figure out where they were pulling their inspiration from.
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Matthew Cole
June 22, 2009
This is a great collection of songs that, regardless of anything else about them, I'm somehow drawn to on a cellular level just due to their aesthetics. You're So Gangsta sounds like it fell out of Yuzo Koshiro's Walkman while he was working on Streets of Rage and Passion Pit (as Brett Bates mentioned in the comments) has basically been on repeat constantly in my car since the album came out. They've been getting lots of press lately, but [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHmYC8a_4cI]Helix Nebula[/url] by Anamanaguchi pushes all the right buttons for me (they supplement their raw chiptunes with a standard guitar/bass/drum three-piece) and [url=http://www.biglionmusic.com/music/arrangements/other-arrangements/thriller-vrc6-cover]virt's Thriller arrangement using the Castlevania III sounds[/url] made me appreciate the song even more.
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Travis Bolek
June 22, 2009
Great stuff there but you forgot Machinae Supremacy a Swedish power metal band heavily influenced by the Commodore 64 SID chip. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HdM8oArkHs
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Dirk
June 28, 2009
A bunch of other bands: Disrupt (German Dub producer, runs a label named Jahtari) Flying Lotus (Has a game on his website for one of his albums) Burial (has said that he used MGS samples in some of his songs) Harmonic 313 (video game on his website) MF Doom (or just Doom, he constantly references games in his rhymes) Genghis Tron (kinda self-explanatory) John Vanderslice (the podcast Pixel Revolt is named after his album, um, Pixel Revolt)

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