New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Music is important in and of itself - we listen to music when we feel happy, when we feel sad, when we are excited - basically, there are musicians and composers out there that provide the soundtrack to our lives.
The same can be said with other media too - movies and TV shows wouldn't be the same without the music. Whether it is the exciting chase scene accompaniment, a soaring romantic scene, or a heartbreaking moment, it is usually the music that really sets the mood.
Of course, movies and TV shows are not the only media that uses music. Who can forget the annoying catchy jingles used for radio and TV ads? It's a guarantee that you can remember at least a dozen from your childhood and some even from now, as well.
But let's not forget the impact and importance of music in gaming, too. The cacophony of the arcades in the 80s might have sounded chaotic, but they were the soundtrack of the gamer.
Today's gaming world features a wide-ranging combination of soaring orchestral sounds, bouncy pop tunes, and heavy metal riffs - but whether you are playing bingo online with Jackpot Joy or the latest console release, paying attention to the music will still help you know what is coming.
The Importance of Music in Gaming
When video games started moving out of the arcades and into people's homes, the 8-bit jingles that were ubiquitous didn't really fit with the more immersive experience that players could have. While early video game music was created by the programmers rather than by musicians (they had to fit any music and sounds into the space and memory available for the game), it was Nintendo who went out to find an actual sound designer for their games.
Super Smash Bros and the Legend of Zelda were the first games to feature more than the basic sounds and incidental music - and while these two were wildly different in their soundscapes, they represented a new wave of music in gaming (albeit still with that chiptune 8-bit feel).
Game designers started looking into ways to emphasize what the players were doing in the game. Their interaction with the game was a major part of the immersion, and the music needed to boost what was happening on the screen, making games more of an all-sensory experience.
As the game technology improved, so did the storage available. This meant that graphics of games could be improved, but so could the music. Games began to have realistic sound effects and more intricate musical scores, following the action on screen and drawing the player in to the drama and the excitement.
In the late 1980's, gaming developers started to hire real, young musicians to create soundtracks for their games - and what a difference this makes. If it wasn't for these pioneers, then the game soundtracks we know and love today would not exist.
When you play any type of AAA-rated game, the music is carefully selected to improve the game you are playing. The composition, the instruments, and the vocals are all constructed to immerse you even more fully in what you are doing - and any gamer worth their salt will be able to tell you that the most memorable and emotional scenes in games are only affected because of the music used.
Pop Music in Games
There are two ways to look at pop music in games. We could look at how game music has infiltrated the popular music scene, for example.
One of the best ways to see what this means is to look at songs and music that have been created specifically for use in games and have since become more. These tunes include basically the whole of the Minecraft soundtrack, for example, as well as the soaring symphonic Final Fantasy soundtrack which is regularly performed in front of an audience by the biggest orchestras in the world. Even more modern games have soundtracks that are eminently listenable outside of the game - in a couple of years' time, the Starfield soundtrack will be iconic, for example.
However, the real litmus test is when a pop song is featured in a game - and then cannot be heard in any other context. When an iconic song is brilliant in its own right, and then it is put into a game that you love to play, hearing it on the radio will transport you back to that scene or that level in the game.
Let's take a quick look at some of the best pop songs in gaming:
All I Want - The Offspring (Crazy Taxi)
It's Tricky - Run DMC (SSX Tricky)
Beyond the Sea - Bobby Darin (Bioshock)
I Stand Alone - Godsmack (Prince of Persia: The Warrior Within)
Paradise City - Guns 'n' Roses (Burnout: Paradise)
Seven Seas of Rhye - Queen (Borderlands 3)
Billie Jean - Michael Jackson (Grand Theft Auto: Vice City)
