DIGITISER
  • MAIN PAGE
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Game Reviews
  • FAQ

12 VIDEO GAME MUSICAL ODDITIES

20/6/2016

28 Comments

 
Picture
If music is what feelings sound like, then the history of gaming is littered with the feeling of a digestively-challenged shrieking cat squatting above your head, while its warm diarrhoea drips into your ears.

Great songwriting and great video games rarely go hand in hand - as anybody who heard Paul McCartney's contribution to the Destiny soundtrack will attest. Here are another 12 times that the worlds of songwriting and video games collided - with varying results.
'COMPUTER GAMES' by Mi-Sex
You might not have heard this song by the New Zealand pop group Mi-Sex - or, indeed, the New Zealand pop group Mi-Sex - but it was a number one hit in Australia, and a Canadian number two (ha ha), in 1979.

It's the first documented song to mention video games, as far as our half-arsed research went anyway. It namedrops no fewer than three actual arcade games: Speed Freak, Star Fire, and Atari's Basketball... perhaps the three greatest games of all time.

Here's an interesting bit of trivia: the band took its name from the Ultravox song "My Sex". However, when you do an online search for "Mi-Sex", Google's autocomplete suggests "Michigan sex offenders".

SAMPLE LYRIC: "I fidget with the digit dots and cry an anxious tear/As the XU-1 connects the spot/But the matrix grid don't care..."
'VIDEO GAMES' by Ronnie Jones
American born, but based in Italy, Ronnie Jones was the presenter of the Italian pop music show Popcorn, from 1980 to 1985. The show's theme tune, Video Games, was a number 28 hit. In Italy.

Unlike Bowie, Prince and Corbett, Jones has yet to succumb to 2016's wholesale decimation of the music industry. Alive and well, he continues to tour sporadically with his band The Soul Syndicate (no connection to the video game series of the same name, probably). 
​
SAMPLE LYRIC: "Pinball hockey, tennis, ping pong/
Play them video games/Speedway/Starwars/Space Invaders/Love them just the same..."
'WAR HAS NEVER BEEN SO MUCH FUN' from Cannon Fodder
Despite its intended anti-war message, Sensible Software's Cannon Fodder caused something of a tabloid storm upon its release in 1993. It was slammed for its tongue-in-cheek attitude to warfare (it was unveiled to the press on Remembrance Sunday), its cover artwork (depicting a poppy), and this theme song.

You only have to look at the tabloid media's response to Matt "le" Blanc doing "donuts" near the Cenobite to realise that you don't mess with the poppy.

​Indeed, once he'd been whipped up into a righteous fury by The Daily Star, the game was described by no less a figure than Viscount Montgomery of Alamein as "monstrous".

SAMPLE LYRIC: "Go to your brother/K
ill him with your gun/Dying in the sun... So much fun!"
'HOLD MY HAND VERY TIGHTLY' by Whistlin' Rick Wilson
Inspired by the chart success of Rick Astley, Your Sinclair magazine made a bid for chart success of its own, sort of. In 1989, its cover tape consisted of this one-off 'single' by Whistlin' Rick Wilson - aka the magazine's own David Wilson. It even got a spin on Radio 1 courtesy of Phillip "Pip" Schofield, a man who these days is more typically found on morning telly telling viewers to check for lumps.

​Three decades later, the irritatingly catchy number has finally appeared in a game: it features as lift muzak in the sublime isometric adventure Lumo. A classic.

SAMPLE LYRIC: "
Hold my hand very tightly/Very tightly/Very tightly/Hold my hand very tightly/Ooo-ooo ooo-ooo-ooooooo..."
'VIDEO GAMES' - by The Toons
American radio personality Dr Demento was something of a connoisseur of the novelty song - and The Toons were regular contributors to his show, with tongue-in-cheek songs such as Punk Polka, and Looking At Girls.

​Which just goes to show how far we've come in the past 30 years, that in the early-80s video games were considered a suitable subject for novelty whimsy, much as people now write novelty songs about selfie sticks and Fitbits.

SAMPLE LYRIC: "All I wanna do is... Play play play play play play... Video games! Video games!"
'THEME FROM NIGHT TRAP' - by Blue Skyes
Digital Pictures' pioneering Mega CD "interactive movie" was plenty controversial enough, with its gritty and realistic depiction of slumber party girls being abducted by vampiric aliens.

Indeed, it was cited in the 1990 Congressional hearings into video game "nasties", despite featuring no nudity or graphic violence, and the player's actual role being to protect the females from the aforementioned space-slurpers.

Upon reflection, arguably the most offensive thing about it were the soft rock stylings of its theme song. Which, admittedly, does seem to allude to being abducted by a human sex pest.
 
SAMPLE LYRIC: "
Night Trap! That boy will find you! Night Trap! Watch out behind you! Night Trap!"
'COMPUTER GAMES' - by George Clinton
Computer Games is the title track of the debut solo album from "funk" icon George Clinton. Arguably the best proper song on this list, it nevertheless has the distinction of being about 'computer games' in name only... Witness the lyric below. 

SAMPLE LYRIC: "Hello, I'm the computer game Dracula/I like to suck necks."
'THE DK RAP' from Donkey Kong 64
Irritatingly catchy, the infamous DK Rap was written by Rare's Grant Kirkhope, and performed by George Andreas and Chris Sutherland, whoever they were.

The rap got a second outing in Super Smash Bros. Melee, where it was sung by one James W. Norwood Jr. Additionally, the use of the terribly naughty word "Hell" was replaced by "heck". 

SAMPLE LYRIC: "W-w-w-walnuts/Peanuts/Pineapple smells/Grapes/Melons/Oranges and coconut shells!"
'YOU ARE DEAD' from Total Distortion
This original, but otherwise unremarkable, FMV game nevertheless gave the games industry potentially its greatest ever game over screen: a mocking rock song, in which your feeble playing skills are shamed by a hideous, derisive, CGI demon.

Suffice to say, it got old fast, not least because the game was famed for its severe difficulty level.

SAMPLE LYRIC: "You are dead, dead, dead/
Your heart has stopped and your brain is cold/You are so so dead and now your body is starting to mould/You are so so dead/This dimension cuts like a knife!"
'A PIRATE I WAS MEANT TO BE' from The Curse of Monkey Island
The Curse of Monkey Island was the first instalment in the beloved point-and-click adventure series to feature voice acting - and LucasArts made the most of it with this deliberately annoying shanty.

Indeed, no simple theme song, it became part of the gameplay, with you - as Guybrush Threepwood - attempting to ruin a pirate singalong by introducing the word "orange" into the lyrics.

SAMPLE LYRICS: "We'll fight you in the harbour/We'llbattle you on land/When you meet singing pirates/They'll be more than you can stand."
THE CLAYFIGHTER THEME from Clayfighter
At the time Clayfighter was released, spoken words were rare in video games - and full on songs were virtually unheard of. Somehow, Interplay managed to obtrude one atop the title screen of its generally unloved, golem-based, beat 'em up.

Though inevitably the audio quality wasn't the best, given the available technology, it wouldn't have sounded out of place as the theme to a Saturday morning cartoon show.

SAMPLE LYRIC: "Clayfighter! Clay-clay-fighter! Come and fight them if you dare!"
'I AM THE WIND' from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
The jarringly mawkish, saccharine closing title theme to 1997's Castlevania: Symphony of the Night was co-written by Tony Hayes, who had previously written lyrics for the TV show Fame, The Pointer Sisters, Robert Palmer, Earth, Wind and Fire, and Kool & The Gang.

​With a CV like that, you can see why Konami approached him...

SAMPLE LYRIC: "
I face my destiny every day I live/And the best in me is all I have to give/Just like the sun/When my day's done/Sometimes I don't like the person I've become..."
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
11 LITERALLY CRAP STATUES
13 POCKET MONEY PRACTICAL JOKES THAT HARDLY EVER WORKED
10 BRILLIANTLY WRONG BOOTLEG DVD COVERS

28 Comments
Euphemia
20/6/2016 05:10:25 pm

I remember having my mind blown out of my arse by the intro screen of Kwik Snax on the Spectrum. A full band playing their instruments in time with the music, music which was actually pretty stellar by the standards of the day.

And I was 12 and admittedly very easy to impress.

Reply
David W
21/6/2016 11:13:04 am

It's still impressive, more so considering the hardware limitations.

The screen is very well laid out to avoid attribute clashes, even when animating. Small movements are carefully detailed to convince with a few pixels, such as hands moving correctly up or down the keyboard and guitar neck. Grand Dizzy's excellent body popping, being the only big animation, allows everything to run at 50hz for perfect synchronisation with the music.

Reply
FieryBirdyThing
20/6/2016 05:20:56 pm

George Andreas and Chris Sutherland were fellow Rare employees along with Grant Kirkhope. You have to hand it to Rare in how they'd use their own staff for voices and singing rather than get actual voice actors to do the job.

I don't know what George is up to these days, but I know Chris Sutherland is currently on the Playtonic team.

Reply
Matty link
20/6/2016 05:24:43 pm

I always remember John Foxx/Nation 12 doing the music for the Bitmap Brother's game God. It's on Spotify and everything ('Into The Wonderful')

Something I've never been able to stomach is songs in videogames with singing. It never works in a way that's hard to explain, just like cutscenes with real filmed actors. The earliest one I've managed to find was a coin-op game from the '80s, the absurdly-named Psycho Soldier.

https://youtu.be/SWbqQnDhsLQ

Reply
Nick the Gent link
20/6/2016 08:40:49 pm

One of the greatest intro sequences with that song - right up there with the Bitmaps' other classic, Speedball 2!

Reply
Stoo
20/6/2016 05:25:51 pm

There was that song by Yes at the end of Homeworld... actually fitted in pretty well.

Reply
Megalothorn
20/6/2016 07:04:07 pm

My first foray into "buying cool music to impress the babes" and "not listening to the ex-MFI compilation tapes my dad brought home" was a Lemmings single I special-ordered from Our Price.


Quoth the freestyler: "Concentrate! Don't let the go! / They fall off the ledge, out of control! / (Better watch out, there's a Lemming about!)"

It didn't chart but its lyrical performance of describing exactly what happens when you undertake an action and then singing back that action as plainly as possible made me THE IN-DEMAND HYPE-MAN I AM TODAY.

Reply
Acid Arrow
20/6/2016 07:52:18 pm

There's a video to go with the Cannon Fodder one that came on the CD32 version featuring the developers arsing about. It's a bit like Full Metal Jacket but more harrowing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQhLRr0HRGI

Reply
Nick the Gent link
20/6/2016 09:34:20 pm

See also the intro to Sensible World of Soccer - featuring "Goal Scoring Superstar Hero"!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvbdwhSyBKE

Reply
Chris
23/6/2016 10:01:31 am

There's also a live version: https://youtu.be/Q4w-0h_iKA8

Reply
Paul Jon Melon
20/6/2016 08:27:12 pm

Cripes, that Night Trap song! It's all coming back to me.

I have, of course, wasted my life.

There's a zany, wacky song at the end of pretty great but awkward fighter 'God Hand', which I thought was hilarious when I first heard it, mainly due to surprise.

Street Fighter IV had a good cheesy boyband song on its intro that the gave the game an identity, but the boo-hoo fighting game crowd weren't keen, and so all the updates reverted to generic lyricless stuff. BORING.

NIGHT TRAP!



Reply
Spiney O'Sullivan
21/6/2016 12:14:53 am

I join in with the rap that accompanies the character select screen of Street Fighter 3 every time.

Every. Time.

Reply
Paul Jon Melon
21/6/2016 12:24:45 pm

Haha! It's an important part of the experience! Though I'm still unsure of the words. Something about being 'messed up in traction'.

Pretty sure a song in Capcom vs. SNK 2 boasts of having "rhymes like Michael Jordan" but I may just be hearing what I want to hear.

Trucker Pete
20/6/2016 09:09:37 pm

I love Lou Reed. I love video games.

The Lou Reed song My Red Joystick is less than the sum of it's parts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zWwmfQvdCI

Reply
colincidence link
20/6/2016 09:43:06 pm

Just using this space to officially bagsy the 'Sega' version of 'Hey Ya'.

Reply
Starbuck
20/6/2016 09:45:32 pm

Mike Berry's Everyone's A Wally B-side single on the B-side of the Everyone's A Wally cassette. https://youtu.be/fNoqq9Vfc0g Why did you unintentionally have to put that back in my head?

Reply
Mr Biffo
20/6/2016 10:29:24 pm

Oh man! I'd forgotten about that. There's enough here for a follow-up article... More pliss!

Reply
Nick
20/6/2016 10:10:32 pm

Could you imagine a publisher in any medium doing these days what cannon fodder did back then with that release? Not a chance

Our capacity for faux or over the top outrage certainly seems to me to have increased tenfold over the past decade (one fold per year).

Reply
Mentski link
20/6/2016 10:33:45 pm

I think the Night Trap theme is at least 145% better when seen in context with the game - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCPL3DJ72tM

Reply
Chris
21/6/2016 09:44:13 am

More like this please!

Reply
Walter Peck
21/6/2016 10:23:31 am

Bomb the Bass - Megablast is the ultimate video game pop hit. Here's both the Amiga version and the actual released single version for your listening pleasure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w-tiRnac2k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgjNb-6EOYw

Reply
Beedle
21/6/2016 03:15:36 pm

Big shout out also to the Carrier Command soundtrack that came on a tape bundled with the game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUYKauCcutw

Used to play it alongside the Speccy version. I always lusted after the Amiga version but it bizarrely didn't even have its own music.

Reply
Kelvin Green link
21/6/2016 07:42:22 pm

My favourites:

The Great and Mighty Poo from Conker's Bad Fur Day (it's a bit rude):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w5neFPat1w

The World Warrior, one of those ill-advised early-90's computer game remixes, and probably the best/worst:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkUL9jqijRs

Reply
Stay
22/6/2016 12:11:39 am

Del the Funky Homosapien did this tune about video games from 2000 back when Sega was still a force gaming:

https://youtu.be/OSeO9vm8wVA

Also I remember Canibus had a tune on an EP that had a music sampled from Deus Ex but I can't remember the name of that.

Reply
Chris
23/6/2016 08:07:53 pm

I'm amazed nobody has mentioned Lana Del Rey's "Video Games", which is excellent but doesn't really have much to do with video games.

Eliza Doolittle has at least two songs which mention consoles. One mentions the Megadrive, another one mentions the SNES. The former is a song about shunning modern technology or something, the latter I don't remember anything else about.

You can do your own YouTube searches.

Reply
Chris
23/6/2016 08:15:51 pm

OK, I'll do *one* YouTube search for you, but this is it and you're on your own listening to the rest of Eliza Doolittle's back catalogue trying to figure out which song mentions the SNES.

https://youtu.be/-H6KTx3rDtQ
Skip to 1:08 if you don't want to listen to it all.

Reply
Chris
23/6/2016 08:26:45 pm

Seriously, this is the last time I do all your work for you.
https://youtu.be/NMJywBtM2fk
Around 2:45

Reply
Chris
27/6/2016 01:09:32 am

The lovely Béatrice Martin aka Cœur de Pirate did the music for Child of Light (possibly the greatest - or maybe only - side-scrolling RPG of all time). It's mostly instrumental, as befits video game music, however as the credits roll the song "Off To Sleep" is played.

There's a marvellous live performance of the song on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/67VcSxZgxfE

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    This section will not be visible in live published website. Below are your current settings:


    Current Number Of Columns are = 2

    Expand Posts Area =

    Gap/Space Between Posts = 12px

    Blog Post Style = card

    Use of custom card colors instead of default colors = 1

    Blog Post Card Background Color = current color

    Blog Post Card Shadow Color = current color

    Blog Post Card Border Color = current color

    Publish the website and visit your blog page to see the results

    Picture
    Support Me on Ko-fi
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    RSS Feed Widget
    Picture

    Picture
    Tweets by @mrbiffo
    Picture
    Follow us on The Facebook

    Picture

    Archives

    December 2022
    May 2022
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    November 2020
    September 2020
    July 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014


    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • MAIN PAGE
  • Features
  • Videos
  • Game Reviews
  • FAQ