Six from Kermit (Off-Topic)

by Funkmon , Thursday, August 20, 2015, 18:29 (3470 days ago) @ Kermit

The found music in BioShock Infinite. “Tainted Love” in the bar was one freak-out moment. I mentioned my born-in-the-19th-century grandmother the other day, so I’ll elaborate a bit about how and why BioShock Infinite spoke to me personally. My grandmother was Elizabeth’s age, and learned to play piano at an early age, and learned a lot of songs her father wanted her to play that were already old when she was a young girl. I grew up hearing them. Like many people my age and younger, I knew the hits from REM, CCR, and Soft Cell like the back of my hand, and hearing them done in a different style I also knew well was surreal. That said, there probably weren’t as many gamers who knew the old songs in the game like I did. Hearing one of my favorite semi-contemporary songs, God Only Knows, was meant to be disorienting, but even the songs played when the game launched or while the game loaded worked like a time machine in my head and evoked a lot of my childhood by proxy through my grandmother’s music making.

I think you may be surprised at how well the music still communicates to people younger than you. A good number of those old songs were recognizable to me because we sang or heard them in school (like a bunch of Joplin stuff), or they've never fallen out of popularity, like Good Night Irene, and the modern songs that were covered are well known to people of all ages like you said. It was a game rated M and it was aimed at adults.

That said, I probably didn't have the visceral reaction you had. Hearing Fortunate Son for the first time as Bob Seger's cover (recorded a decade after Vietnam, and still well before I was born) is probably not like you hearing it when it was new and we were still drafting guys, and the old music didn't stir any childhood memories of my grandparents. It was more academic, like recognizing a tune, thinking, "oh, that's Indian Love Call." And moving on.

The music didn't do much for me in Bioshock Infinite as a result, just recognizing old music. It's really cool to hear how it changed the experience for you.