. . . an added cost of doing buisness: even the right song can become played out if there aren't enough alternatives to statisfy players. one of the most frustrating aspects of the original Crazy Taxi was that it featured only a handful of selections by the offspring. and while the tunes initially added to the gameplay, they tended to get old fast. "how many times did you play crazy taxi before you said, 'whoa! stop! turn the fucking offspring off. . . where are the music controls in this thing?" say dark music maven Trent Reznor of nine inch nails.
like a growing number of artists, reznor not only has contributed licensed music to video-game soundtracks, but has composed original scores. he recently collaborated with activision on its upcoming doom lll release and provided fresh music for the best-selling Quake series, a rather apropos pairing, as he admits playing quake actually led to his delaying an album. like other A-list acts, Reznor agreed to do the music only if he didn' t appear alongside other bands.
crafting original material rather than just providing existing sings is the approach that Reznor likes to take, but he feels he might do it differently next time. "if i were to do any more in an interactive situation, which i'd like to do, it would have to be a project that had the same mood and atmosphere [as quake] and wanted to invoke the same thing."
Many of Reznor's contempories not only see the value of such collaborations between musicians and game devolpers, but insist on actually making time for them as well. . . . |
