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Favorite licensed music discovered through a game

oh man, the tony hawk series pretty much opened me up to punk music. goldfinger, bad religion, the suicide machines, dead kennedy's, adolescents, i mean it introduced me to a whole genre of music i knew nothing about.
 
Everything in Hotline Miami

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKD-MVfC9Ag

a3142896863_2.jpg
 
Curufinwe said:
I only ever played the demo, but the song stuck in my head enough that 14 years later it's still one I go back and listen to. And I have never heard it outside of this skateboarding game from 2000 which doesn't exactly hold up. But the music does.
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Cornelius is pretty well-known, Curufinwe! You should look him up. He actually released his 1st new music in ages last year, but it's just jingles for N.H.K.. Still, he has a huge and wonderful archive of material.
 
Allen Poe said:
Off the cuff, I want to say alot of the music in The Saboteur, namely Koop. I remember walking in the brothel/strip club/whatever it was the first time and hearing Koop Island Blues playing over the speakers for the first time. I put the controller down and zoned out. I still play the album regularly.
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Saboteur was a big one for me too. Introduced me to Koop, and reminded me how much I love Nina Simone.

FIFA has had a bunch including
Tribalistas - Ja Sei Namorar
Ana Tijoux - 1977

But the biggest for me might be Little Big Planet. I love all of these:

Café Tacvba - Volver A Comenzar
The Go! Team - Get it Together
Toumani Diabeté's Symmetric Orchesta - Tapha Niang
Ananda Shankar - Dancing Drums

edit:
Also this was in a GT trailer once. Not sure it counts, but it's a fun song to drive to.
London Elektricity - Just One Second (Apex Remix)
 
The first time I ever finished Twisted Metal Black, I really enjoyed the song playing over the credits. When I saw that Paint It Black was a classic Rolling Stones tune, I felt shocked and ashamed with myself as a rock fan. :-P
 
Bravocado said:
The first time I ever finished Twisted Metal Black, I really enjoyed the song playing over the credits. When I saw that Paint It Black was a classic Rolling Stones tune, I felt shocked and ashamed with myself as a rock fan. :-P
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I'll admit to this, as well. =/ I was 16 in 2001.

Impeccable use of that song, though.
 
http://youtu.be/IozQ437Nn6c

Ray Lynch from GTAIV - not music I'd generally discover on my own, but I checked out the whole CD after listening to the song in the game - The Oh of Pleasure - and it's really good stuff. My fiancé loves it, too. It's really mellow electronics, but I dig it.
 
Bravocado said:
The first time I ever finished Twisted Metal Black, I really enjoyed the song playing over the credits. When I saw that Paint It Black was a classic Rolling Stones tune, I felt shocked and ashamed with myself as a rock fan. :-P
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Yep. Loved the way they integrated it into the main title theme. I am someone who usually hates licensed popular music in videogames. I prefer original scores but this was great usage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-LauOdux1E
 
I think Faunts in Mass Effect was my biggest discovery. Good band, although it was a little disappointing to find out that the M4 EP is really the only thing like that they've ever done.

WET was a disappointing game, but the soundtrack curation is great. Brasstronaut in particular is a good find from that game.
 
Damaniel said:
Coheed and Cambria from Rock Band. Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV: Volume One is an awesome album from beginning to end, but I had never even heard of it until then.
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Untracked said:
Finished Symphony by Hybrid from SSX Tricky, still one of my favourite tunes ever.
Really looking forward to their work on the Driveclub Soundtrack.
I love me some Hybrid beats, seriously cannot get enough.
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silver.tongue said:
Madeon - Finale:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0h2u87JwyA

Game - Playstation All-Stars Battle Royalle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDKXroc4Lsg
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All of these, and Cry of the Banshee from Brutal Legend. I already knew about the Go! Team before Little Big Planet, but they also deserve a mention.
 
Maps and Date With The Night in Rock Band got me into Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
As previously mentioned Sandpaper Kisses in Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit.
After hearing Avril Lavigne's Girlfriend constantly in Burnout Paradise it actually grew on me and I became more tolerant of the bratty pop kind of thing I guess.
Not directly in Portal but the version of Still Alive with Sara Quin doing vocals exposed me to Tegan and Sara.
 
What comes to mind:

"Not Your Kind of People" by Garbage (Metal Gear Solid 5)

"Live and Learn" by Crush 40 (Sonic Adventure 2)
 
wrong thread lol

But I have another one anyway:
Cypress Hill - Rock Superstar from that MTV Skateboarding game.
 
Guitar Hero and Rock Band 2 introduced me to Boston ("More than a feeling"), whose first album I loved. The others have good songs too, but their debut one is incredible.

RB2 also made me discover Fleetwood Mac ("Go your own way"), thanks to which Rumours is now one of my favorite albums ever. Of course, they have a lot of other fantastic ones, such as Future Games, Bare Trees and Behind the Mask, but I'll never forget which song was the one that I first heard. Man, that game has a killer soundtrack that I didn't know before playing it: "Shooting star" (Bad Company), "Pinball wizard" (The Who), "Rock'n me" (Steve Miller Band), "Carry on wayward son" (Kansas) -I've barely heard anything else by the last two bands, I should fix that soon- and "Everlong" (Foo Fighters), which at the time I didn't like and took me over 2 years to appreciate.

I also listened to the first two albums of Lynyrd Skynyrd thanks to "Free bird", which appeared on Rock Band 3. So I can honestly say these rhythm games influenced me the most, and helped me add some gems to my music collection.

Nerfgun said:
Lately:
Hotline Miami
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Hell yeah, Perturbator is awesome! "Miami disco" blew my mind, and made me hear the rest of his stuff.
 
Coppanuva said:
Also found some other nice songs from various GH and RB games.
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This. One example that immediately comes to mind is "YYZ" from Rush, which I think I first heard in Guitar Hero II. Now it's one of my favorite instrumentals of all time. I think Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" was in that same game, and that is another fantastic song.

Also, one of the radio stations in GTA IV had David Bowie's "Fascination" in it. I now own the man's entire '70s studio albums catalogue.
 
I had some appreciation for it before, but GTA Vice City (and Flashback from GTA III) got me way into 80s music.

As for individual tracks, all I can think of of right now is Stupid Grin from Saints Row The Third. Picked up Dragonette's first two albums on the back of it a few months ago. Enjoyed them both quite a bit.
 
Into Free - Dangan - (Dragon's Dogma)
Indestructable (Street Fighter IV)

But the sheer awesome of both songs was too much for the general populace, forcing Capcom to nerf the title updates (Dark Arisen and Super) accordingly.

EDIT: Oh, and Fly Me to the Moon (Bayonetta, although the game uses an exclusive cover of the classic song)

Otherwise I generally dislike the use of licensed music in my games, especially when it's just a bunch of contemporary rock dumped into sports/open-world/racing games. JSR/JGR and Wipeout were fine, though.
 
The game from PS1 named Skater, better days was an amazing track. Scarface the game allowed me to hear more songs from giorgio moroder.
 
I've had many tracks discovered through gaming.
These all I have actually bought since hearing them ingame:

Mirror's Edge had many good songs but I ended up buying these three
Solar Fields - Introduction
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqFLp0jI8lY
Solar Fields - Shard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94lp6XogKlk
Lisa Miskovsky - Still Alive
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TERyxFfMqDk

Portal 2's hidden room music struck a chord with me when I found it ingame.
The National - Exile Vilify
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-Vg2YS-sFE

FlatOut had an awesome intro song.
LAB - Beat The Boys
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqKKSTR6EEg

FlatOut 2 introduce me to these three:
Alkaline Trio - Mercy Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FljNILAozts
Rise Against - Give It All
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnIgeN09hvA
Yellowcard - Breathing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrAyqeh28YA

DiRT2 I played online way too many hours so these are ingrained in my brain. Although they were used only partially :/.
Elbow - Grounds For Divorce
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxczVhG0os8
Biffy Clyro - Mountains
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfzwM4pdyxU
Black Stone Cherry - Blind Man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO1_cpIIzXI
Rise Against - Injection
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1XKFYDpvA8

NFS - Underground 2 introduced me to this remix of the original:
Spider bait - Black petty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMQPsfThzzQ

NFS ProStreet was quite bland in the music department except this:
Yelle - A Cause Des Garçons (Riot In Belgium remix)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AEe0CdcEeA

NFS Undercover was a horrible game but I found these so it wasn't a total loss.
Underworld - To Heal (Sunshine Version)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T7csa11iUo
Mindless Self Indulgence - Never Wanted to Dance (Combichrist Electro Hurtz Mix)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK1r84Epg1o
Tyga - Diamond life (Feat. Patty Crash)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBG0pDpBOBs
 
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