WTF is wrong with game soundtracks?

[Navarone9942]

I've been listening to Fuse VGM Radio online for a while and keep hearing "Kick the rock! ...For Wild Canyon" from Sonic Adventure 2. The part that catches my attention is this
There you are, c'mere little thief
Think you can fly and get away quick, uh-uh
Give up the emerald or die, I don't love you

"Give up the emerald or die, I don't love you" ...um yeah I totally want my young child playing SA2 when its got lyrics like that. I'm not saying that the song is F'd up or that it makes your kids serial arsonists etc but come on!

Another one that gets me is Metropolis Street Racer with tracks like "Holding On", "Show Me Your Love" and "Llets Get It On Tonight", the last, if I remember correctly is a song about taking some red dress wearing babe back to your place, wining and dining her then banging her brains out, "Holding On" (to me) is a song about not letting the person you love leave and "Show Me Your Love" sounds like a euphemism for either a striptease or voyeurism...

So, yeah WTF is wrong with game soundtracks

 

[endtherapture]

The thing that threw me off about a game's soundtrack was hearing 30 Seconds To Mars at the end of Dragon Age.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the awesomeness.




See, I can make massive sweeping statements based around a couple of examples too!

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Ok, so either this is a shameless attention grab or the OP was marooned on an uninhabited with no access to any mass media for the past 20 years. Seriously, Sonic songs are so cheesy and tame even a Victorian era governess would think so.

Captcha: shaken not stirred
Now I really want a vodka-martini

 

[Baron von Blitztank]

Don't worry OP. For the one or two bad apples of gaming soundtracks there are entire orchards of awesomeness that have sprouted:

Spoiler: Behold a glimpse at the mighty trees!

I could throw in so many of these from Marvel VS Capcom 3...

 

[Terramax]

I read more disturbing poems and fairy tails than this.

What is wrong with you is a better question.

This.

Seriously, we get kids cartoons talking about death, and even films that insinuate sex. I just watched Bugsy Malone with my little sister, and the song Talula, whilst not in itself about sex, is quite implicit (as are some of the shots of the woman dancers and Jodie Foster.

Some parents let their kids listen to heavy metal at a young age, and it doesn't affect them in the slightest.

Anyway, I would do as the above and post some of my favourite game soundtracks, but that's not what this is about.

That being said, I will put it out there that very few video game soundtracks with English speaking lyrics are much more mature than the Sonic Adventure ones. Only 'You Were There' from the Ico OST springs to mind.

 

[hazabaza1]

To be honest, I never really understood what the guy was talking about in that game's soundtrack, apart from City Escape.
God damn I love City Escape.

 

[DoPo]

"Give up the emerald or die, I don't love you" ...um yeah I totally want my young child playing SA2 when its got lyrics like that. I'm not saying that the song is F'd up or that it makes your kids serial arsonists etc but come on!

I don't understand how that is unsuitable for children. There are cartoons more "violent" than that line, and I'm not talking about mature stuff - Loony Tunes and Tom & Jerry level cartoons.

"Holding On" (to me) is a song about not letting the person you love leave and "Show Me Your Love" sounds like a euphemism for either a striptease or voyeurism...

I can't speak of the other tracks, well frankly I haven't heard those two either, but why would it be unsuitable for children to hear "Holding On" if it is, indeed, about keeping your loved one? What is there to disturb the kids?

As for "Show Me Your Love" - yes, that is a fair assumption based on the title[footnote]Google showed me that too many people have wrote a song with he same name, so I don't know what the actual lyrics are[/footnote] but why do you think children will understand the euphemism? For all I know, it could be an euphemism for genitals. Or be about actual feelings. If it could be used for both, but children cannot get the "wrong" meaning, how is that unsuitable for them?

EDIT: To illustrate my last point (heh-heh - illustrate) think of "Show Me Your Love" - it can mean something unsuitable for children or not.

Spoiler: Just like this

Just like this

However children only see the dolphins there. Or usually at least.

 

[putowtin]

Some of my favourite music comes from game soundtracks:

and many, many more.


one lousy lyric doesn't change the great work that goes into most video game soundtracks.

 

[Lilani]

"Give up the emerald or die, I don't love you" ...um yeah I totally want my young child playing SA2 when its got lyrics like that. I'm not saying that the song is F'd up or that it makes your kids serial arsonists etc but come on!

I'm sorry, what about that is "f'd up?" Children's cartoons from the 1950s are more disturbing than that lyric. I've seen worse stuff come out of Dr. Seuss's stories.

I think you're looking way too hard for innuendos. Yes they're there, and a lot of them were probably intentional. But kids aren't going to know that. Hell, look at this scene from Freakazoid.


So really, if those songs disturb you, then you must either lead a very sheltered life or you try very very hard to seek out these things.

 

[DioWallachia]

Here is my solid counter argument:

 

[tooWhite2ball]

Some game soundtracks are odd, while others are completely in tune with a game's style. For example, it would be odd while playing Forza Motorsport 4 (a racing game) and hearing Beethoven as you're pushing speeds of 200mph. Most of the time when a song is put into a game, the style and bpm have a lot do to with the choice. Faster paced games like FPSs and Racers may want faster paced songs to get the player in the mood, while slower games like RPGs and some strategy based games may prefer slower tracks with a more 'epic' feel to them. With most sonic games nowadays, there's always some song with a catchy guitar riff here and there with cheesy lyrics thrown into it, and usually the choice is awesome and called for.

 

[Suicidejim]

I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the awesomeness.



See, I can make massive sweeping statements based around a couple of examples too!

Well, now I'm buying that game. It's like sex for my eardrums.

And I'm going to join in on the "Good game music" sharing with:



And the almighty:

 

[GigaHz]

I'm sorry to interrupt...

... but Crazy Bus had one of the greatest soundtracks of all time!


... of All TIME!

 

[ResonanceSD]

snip

1) Your kid won't be paying attention to the lyrics.

2) There are plenty of games with decent soundtracks.

 

[Korten12]

I know they're used a lot but still... Halo:

Spoiler

 

[Navarone9942]

I think some peeps have misunderstood what I was getting at. Metropolis Street Racer (hints in the title) is a Racing game that focuses on making the player feel great since they are winning a race and performing sweet drifts and sweet jumps and other ?sweet? car related things... not a romance game or a Japanese visual novel but a RACING game and after hearing the tracks on Fuse a number of times, don't seem to mesh well into a racing soundtrack. As for Sonic Adventure 2 and the ?Give up the emerald or die, I don't love you? line, its not really the tone of the song or even the style, its more the ?Baby's first Gangsta Rap? subtext given by the fact the line states ?hand it over or DIE? when its featured in a game that centers on a blue hedgehog and his neon woodland entourage that seems weird.

I didn't suggest that these songs would in anyway mess up anyones kids and know that people read books and manga, watch cartoons, films and play games these days that deal with far worse and or weird content more than any other time, I mean just look at Human Centipede and Texas Chainsaw. Its kinda like splicing Amy Smarts death in Mirrors into the middle of Tremors but with a more subtle effect.

I imagine that most if not all readers have seen episodes of Zero Punctuation and my point would be comparable to how Yahtzee lists several things out of context in Super Mario Galaxy and more specifically in Psychonauts, a brain harvesting dentist, telekinetic bears and roasted squirrel.

ps. Oh yeah as for stuff that does mess people up, I'll leave it with the fact the most people descibed Ted Bundy as a "nice guy" until cops began finding the bodies...

 

[ChupathingyX]

So uhhh, two games have lyrics that may be ever so slightly threatening to the weak mind of a child and now you declare that all game soundtracks have something wrong with them?

Okay, I'm just going to go back to listening to the awesomeness that is the Dynasty Warriors 4 soundtrack.

 

[MAUSZX]

Asura's Wrath has the best soundtracks I heard in so many years