I'd say that Bethesda probably only used "Radioactive Dreams" as inspiration, but then there'd be more New Wave music...
A Thought About Some of the Radio Music
- Thread starter KingWhurlder
- Start date
PossibleCabbage
Vault 22 Survivor
A potentially interesting idea is that the music that survived the bombs was not the music played on the big popular music stations, which were centrally located in major metropolitan areas and thus got hit harder by the bombs but the less popular stations out in the boonies who were further from ground zero. So in each area, depending on what was popular there before the war, you might get a different smattering of music from place to place. So maybe you could just claim that "oldies music" was most of what survived on the eastern seaboard, but New Vegas had more of a classic country soundtrack because that's what happened to survive there.
So if you set a Fallout game in a different region, you could have more New Wave, or Punk, or whatever you thought was thematically appropriate for the setting. The text doesn't mention anything about copy-protection or DRM on holodiscs/tapes does it? Theoretically you could also claim that most pre-war holotapes/discs had suffered degradation and so aren't listenable anymore (like the Elvis music that the Kings cannot play for you) but music survives to the 2200s by virtue of people copying it onto blank holodiscs/tapes before it degraded too much. If the most popular or commercially viable music had copy-protection schemes on it, but the less high profile music did not (you can see this phenomenon on DVDs for example), then maybe we just lost the most popular music from the pre-war era that way.
Walpknut
This ghoul has seen it all
Except one of the main aspects of Bethesda's Fallouts is always finding Holotapes on every ruin, even if the ruin has no ceiling and the holotape is resting on a desk. The bombs as an explanation for the music is dumb, simple as that. If you want to use them bomb to explain it then there shouldn't be any holotapes in the game, period.
Dr Fallout
Centurion
I find it hard to believe that the bombs were such music critics.
There is no reason why the people in the wasteland now, would not make their own music. I mean, com on, no matter how bad the situation is, people always make music, with the most simple stuff that is available to them. And I am sure some people would find instruments here and there, learning eventually how to play them, and starting to make their own tunes. If only for fun. I know a few people who taught themself how to play a guitarr for example. Just by listening to songs and trying to play them. And from there, it's just another step to eventually make your own songs.
Irwin John Finster
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
This form of environmental storytelling - through audio logs and computer terminals, seems to have started with System Shock. It is great when it is an addition to traditional storytelling, but in Fallout 4 it feels like the main form of storytelling. Sometimes it doesn't even make sense why people would be recording themselves, but I let that slide if the game has such a great story that I feel immersed.
PossibleCabbage
Vault 22 Survivor
But "that many holotapes have degraded" does not mean that all holotapes have degraded. It's canonical that the Kings' recordings of Elvis are no longer listenable (so they sold them to some trader). You could fiat that there was a flaw in the specific encoding for some music on holotapes that left them especially susceptible to degradation in a way that writeable ones did not have.
Do we even necessarily know that the music they have in the wasteland comes from holotapes? They could theoretically be copied from vinyl and vinyl would survive the bombs (but newer music might not have been available in that format.)
The original music that people of the Wastes create will probably be very much influenced by the music that those folks grew up hearing, so if someone had been listening to "old timey" music their whole lives (since that's all that was available to you) then you probably would make music that sounds kind of like that.
Sure, I am not saying there are no influences. But after 200 years? I guess it would become less and less of a real impact. I mean, how much has 200 or almost 300 years old music an impact on people today? Definetly not in the way that like in Fallout.
I know, I know Fallout is its own setting, yada yada, bla bla ... however, this the world is frozen in the 50s is really geting a bit stale by now. But that's my opinion. I don't mind the influence. But this is also a perfect way to show that people actually also evolve. That they change. The Kings in NV or the Boomers are a relatively good example. Even if they don't make their own music. But it goes in the right direction I think. I just feel there is some inbalance, which is also true for New Vegas. There is sometimes to much stuff rooted in the "old world". It makes sense for a lot of things. But not for everything.
I mean the people in the Fallout world evolved at least in SOME directions apparantly, otherwise I would have to ask, where is all this bigotry against females and the racism that was so common during the 1950s. - Actually, having that in a Fallout game, would maybe lead to a very interesting moral dilema! But that would proably take some balls.
I know, I know Fallout is its own setting, yada yada, bla bla ... however, this the world is frozen in the 50s is really geting a bit stale by now. But that's my opinion. I don't mind the influence. But this is also a perfect way to show that people actually also evolve. That they change. The Kings in NV or the Boomers are a relatively good example. Even if they don't make their own music. But it goes in the right direction I think. I just feel there is some inbalance, which is also true for New Vegas. There is sometimes to much stuff rooted in the "old world". It makes sense for a lot of things. But not for everything.
I mean the people in the Fallout world evolved at least in SOME directions apparantly, otherwise I would have to ask, where is all this bigotry against females and the racism that was so common during the 1950s. - Actually, having that in a Fallout game, would maybe lead to a very interesting moral dilema! But that would proably take some balls.
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Irwin John Finster
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
I think Fallout's 1950s characteristics are based on the positive, idealized, stylized version of the 1950s rather than the negative aspects. It's a stylized "World of Tomorrow" as imagined by people living in that time period, rather than a realistic representation of that time period itself.
And yet, the Fallout 1 intro didn't shy away from showing soldiers executing people, to keep the peace in annexed Canada. The Fallout bible also mentions, troops used to secure the cities inside the US, and it seems their use for riot controll became also rather common. It would guess that the 2070 USA of Fallout became something that was very close to a fascist regime. But nothing of that was really shown in either Fallout 3 or Fallout 4, where both F1 and F2 had a much more nuanced view on the setting. At least those few informations that the game has shown to the player. This representation of the "world of tomorrow" and 50s future-dream-world is really just scratching on the surface.
With playing the old games I never had this feeling that the old world was always happy-happy-joy-joy. I always had the feeling the 2070 US was more like a less radical pre-war Nazi Germany.
With playing the old games I never had this feeling that the old world was always happy-happy-joy-joy. I always had the feeling the 2070 US was more like a less radical pre-war Nazi Germany.
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Dr Fallout
Centurion
While the Enclave were like Neo-Nazi tryhards.
Ben Soto
Professional Salt Shaker
My theory is that for whatever reason, 50s music became really popular with Americans during the build-up to the war, since it kinda showed a better version of the world that people were currently living in. Since all this old music was charting very highly, it became standard to have your song selection be mainly oldies. The reason there's no 2077-era music was, simply, there was just a lot more old music and simple probability gave us the impression that it just didn't survive. Heck, in the case of post-war stations, perhaps the oldies are just popular with wastelanders so they use those.