Licensed music usage

[elmuerte]

There are quite a bunch of movies with awesome usage of licensed music, i.e. non-original music. For example The Watchmen has some great usage.

But what about games? I know of one example. Prey's usage of Don't Fear the Reaper.

 

 

It may not do much for you, but for me it was a great experience. Are there others?

[Architecture]

[Ucantalas]

Sadly it seems that licensing music in games is used for little more than radio stations in most games.

[tegan]

 

Saints Row The Third (and IV) has some amazing use of licensed music throughout, but this is just such a great character moment.

[tegan]

Oh, and:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUffPtS3-7A

[N1njaSquirrel]

  On 6/5/2014 at 10:21 PM, tegan said:

 

Saints Row The Third (and IV) has some amazing use of licensed music throughout, but this is just such a great character moment.

 

This was the most memorable part of SR3 for me. I also loved when they played the same song in the ending credits with a medley of all the voice actors singing over the same song at the same time. I then felt instantly sorry for the person who played Pierce, as it meant he had to do that bit like.... 8 times and try to sound like he was enjoying it.

[N1njaSquirrel]

A bit lame, but the Hotline Miami sound track is pretty much all songs that were already released but no one had heard of the artists. M|O|O|N's Hydrogen is such a great song, and the game without the music would not be the same game.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0ILqWcd214

 

Also I'm pretty sure that Jonathan Coulton's song 'Re: Your Brains' is an easter egg in L4D2. Apart from that I've got nothing that really springs to mind.

[tegan]

  On 6/5/2014 at 11:10 PM, N1njaSquirrel said:

A bit lame, but the Hotline Miami sound track is pretty much all songs that were already released but no one had heard of the artists.

 

See also: the Jet Set Radio franchise.

[Gormongous]

  On 6/5/2014 at 11:12 PM, tegan said:

See also: the Jet Set Radio franchise.

 

That's a nice pull. I always think it's weird but also great to be reminded that Cibo Matto was/is a real band and not just the worst track on Jet Set Radio Future.

[N1njaSquirrel]

  On 6/5/2014 at 11:12 PM, tegan said:

See also: the Jet Set Radio franchise.

 

Fuck. Yes. I was going to mention it, but as most of it's done by The Latch Brothers a.k.a The Beastie Boys, and they seem to only be on the JSRF OST, I chose to ignore it. Although saying that, this song hits the nostalgia zone hard:

 

 

Seriously Sega, re-release fucking JSRF already. I don't care if you don't have the OST rights anymore, JSR was still awesome even when missing 30% (?) of the sound track.

[dium]

  On 6/5/2014 at 11:14 PM, Gormongous said:

the worst track on Jet Set Radio Future.

 

WHAT

 

You misspelt "best".

[Gormongous]

  On 6/6/2014 at 12:20 AM, dium said:

WHAT

 

You misspelt "best".

 

I like you, Dium. Don't make me call you names.

[Dinosaursssssss]

 

Like so much of Bulletstorm, it's kind of a dumb gag but it made me giggle.

[Gamemore]

If I remember correctly, while falling into the general radio stations category, Mafia 2 had several instances where a certain song was scripted to come on at specific points in the story but you could always just change the station or get out of your car if you thought the creators had shitty taste.

[heybeardo]

The Vietnam expansion for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 had some awesome licensed music that would play when you were riding in vehicles. This was a multiplayer only expansion as well.

[Gormongous]

  On 6/6/2014 at 8:20 AM, heybeardo said:

The Vietnam expansion for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 had some awesome licensed music that would play when you were riding in vehicles. This was a multiplayer only expansion as well.

 

This was true in the original Battlefield: Vietnam, too. What an amazing memory for me to have played it at a LAN party where each team had spontaneously adopted a certain song as their own. I remember hiking through the brush, in a deep and lush valley, and panicking as I heard the enemy coming. I knew them by their war cry...

 

 a well a everybody's heard about the bird, b-b-b-bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word, a well a bird, bird, bird, the bird is the word, a well a bird, bird, bird, well the bird is the word, a well a bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word

 

And then I was dead because a jeep ran me over

[Spenny]

  On 6/5/2014 at 10:01 PM, Ucantalas said:

Sadly it seems that licensing music in games is used for little more than radio stations in most games.

 

This is not really a bad thing though. I think the Hotline Miami and Jet Set Radio are examples of how the music can add to the tone and world of a game. I think a good set of radio stations with well selected music are no exception. Compare the radio stations of GTA IV, featuring New York hardcore and hip-hop, to say Sleeping Dogs' with Chinese music and Hong Kong hip-hop, both have music choices which add to their world building.

[Nappi]

Yeah, the curated radio stations in games like GTA and Sleeping Dogs are basically the best thing. You learn to appreciate them a lot more when they are gone: In the dystopian present of Watch Dogs you are forced to create your own playlist or else listen to your stolen mp3s on shuffle.

[tegan]

It's funny how Tony Hawk's Pro Skater ended up doing the JSRF thing of perfectly encompassing a certain place and time with its music selection (Dead Kennedys yeeeeaaaaah), but at the time they were probably just picking stuff that was popular in the current skater culture.

[Ben X]

Full Throttle! Licensed an entire album from the Gone Jackals to retro-create a Queen-style rock band soundtrack:

 

 

EDIT: while fact-checking Queen soundtracks, I discovered that "a rearrangement of an excerpt from Michael Kamen's score for Highlander (specifically, the beginning of the track "The Quickening") was used as the theme music for New Line Cinema's logo indent in the late 1990s and early 2000s"!

 

http://youtu.be/BOteOb3zZqM

[elmuerte]

Just recalled. Spec Ops had a lot of great usage of licensed music. Sadly I cannot find examples. But in a lot of cases where some licensed music is being played it's describing the situation currently going on, or the stuff that will be going down.

[chummer]

Saint's Row III also had 'Power' playing as you parachuted onto a penthouse. Pretty good.

 

I didn't hear it during my playthrough because I like to play fps games with non-diegetic music turned off, but there was that scene in Far Cry 3 with the Skrilex and the weed and the flamethrower.

 

Lastly, while I thought it was kind of lazy to pick songs from three different decades when trying to evoke a specifically 50's America vibe, Fallout 3's radio stuff had great tunes.

[tegan]

  On 6/6/2014 at 9:02 PM, SgtWhistlebotom said:

Saint's Row III also had 'Power' playing as you parachuted onto a penthouse. Pretty good.

 

Also, "Holdin' Out For a Hero" in the final mission.