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Billboard's best video game songs ever
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Earlier this month, Rolling Stone put an interesting list about music in video games and by interesting, I mean a sad, patronizing attempt to gravy train the popularity of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and video games. I already offered my take on that sad list.
Now, Billboard has their own list of the '25 Best Video Game Songs Ever.' Basically, this list should've been called '25 Really Good Songs We Heard When Someone Played a Video Game.' A lot of the songs on this list are awesome but just like Rolling Stone's list, Billboard just relegates video games to a damn mp3 player and not the engaging interactive experiences that they really are. There isn't a single song or game that actually has an original composition. In fact, the introductory paragraph from Jeff Vrabel says that the songs picked 'somehow augment or accentuate game play in a way that an anonymous shreddy instrumental couldn't.'
Of course a rock song in a game called 'Rock Band' is going to accentuate gameplay. The whole point of the game is to perform a rock song!
Again, while I have nothing against the songs, they added nothing to the games itself. Does it matter that 'Ace of Spades' was on Tony Hawk 3 or not? Would 'GTA: Vice City' really had suffered if 'Billie Jean' wasn't on one of the radios? Absoluely not to both counts.
Now, would Sephiroth would've been the badass he was in Final Fantasy VII without the song 'One-Winged Angel'? No. Would 'Super Mario Bros' had be an as ubiquitous without the opening theme? Probably. It was an excellent game. 'Super Metroid' wouldn't have been the masterpiece that it was without its excellent score. Take away Yuzo Koshiro's score from the 'Streets of Rage' series and it would've been a middling brawler at best. The boss battles in 'Shadow of the Colossus' would've been fruitless if it had some Ashlee Simpson tunes instead of its epic, orchestrated score that changes in context as battles progresses.
Video games may have grown in popularity but the music has always been excellent. From 'The Legend of Zelda' series in its early NES days to underground hip-hop used in 'Jet Grind Radio', music has been an integral part to a game's design. And some very influential games have had some great scores that have elevated the experience of certain games and in some cases, are worth the price of admission alone. It's just sad when media outlets seem to blatantly ignore the works of some talented men and women just because they aren't an already popular musical act.
It's unfairly easy to put the blame Guitar Hero and Rock Band because they popularized the music genre for video games. All parties do deserve some credit for getting some great acts to have their music involved in a rising industry. But has it done it at the price of music composed specifically for games getting swept under the rug? I surely hope not.
Memo to all mainstream media: If video games are going to get attention from your outlet, do everyone a favor and actually play some. Use some actual intelligence, do some digging, and prove that you guys and gals have a clue on what your talking about. Nobody wants to see list like these again. Nobody wants to see an art magazone with the 'Top Ten Games with the Color Blue.' Or a fashion magazine's take on 'Stylish Character Clothing in Video Games.' It's enough when video game websites make list with the 'Biggest boobs in games' or 'the most badass weapons' but at least it's done by people who have actually played these games. Don't be lazy, mainstream media. Do your job and actually work on these lists.
And if you're not and just come off like stuck-up psuedo journalist, then please quit and stop. Video games have meant too much to too many people for writers like Jeff Vrabel to wipe their bums on a keyboard and give their 'list'.
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