Games making stars out of featured musical acts

by Dan Choi { Jan 27th 2006 at 4:36AM }

The AP is running a story on how video games are influencing the music sales and popularity of bands featured in games from Tony Hawk's American Wasteland to FIFA 2006, detailing how an unknown Ghanian reggae singer is now stocked on iTunes and is enjoying much greater success because his single "Run" was included in the latter game's soundtrack.

Video-game music isn't as prominent in the States as it is in Europe and Japan, but it's slowly finding its way, even if there have been a few setbacks in the recent past. Nevertheless, game music is selling, as Jon Kertzer, business development manager for MSN Music, says: "We're selling lots of Xbox music on the downloads site. There's lots of interest."

In the meantime, we're left to consider how successful music downloads will be when one-click purchases become easily accessible on the Xbox 360 and PS3. Oh, and if you've got "the right Latino hip-hop sound" (that kinda resembles that of the rapper Fat Joe), then get in touch with the folks making the third True Crime game. They're looking to sign someone like you.

[Thanks, Mike]

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Dan Choi @ Jan 27th 2006 5:09AM

Almost forgot: I wonder what Mozart would've thought of this new form of musical patronage... Happy 250th, Wolfgang!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5164428

Alan @ Jan 27th 2006 10:26AM

The only reason I ever heard about Story of the Year was from playing Need for Speed: Underground. "And the Hero Will Drown" is on the game and their first album (which I bought after playing the game for about a month) and is still in my regular rotation. Their newest CD is incredible if you like hard rock... but I owe it all to NFS:U

Jose @ Jan 27th 2006 11:57AM

If they want a good latino MC they need to look no forward than Immortal Technique. Then again, I don't know how willing he'd be to do it, but I couldn't think of anyone more hardcore.

jmkdsmboy @ Jan 27th 2006 4:14PM

I bought "Get Ready 2 Rokk" by Freezepop from the iTunes music store bc i heard it in guitar hero.

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