So sick of all the old timey music in Fallout games

[MyronMyronBabyMyron]

I was thinking the other day that what the Fallout series really needs is to get rid of all that gay old timey music. In Fallout 4 I wanna open up my pip boy and there should be a radio station that plays nothing but awesome Nu-metal. Fallout Brotherhood of Steel had a Nu-metal soundtrack and everyone knows that's the best game in the series. There should be a radio station that just play that one song that goes, LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR! LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR! LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR! Over and over again. That would be off the hook!

 

[Gizmojunk]

It would be off the hook. The hook is the 1950's prediction of the future.

While I agree that it's absurd to be playing the original 1950's tracks themselves; (that's a sad mistake by Bethesda), the music itself should always stay within the plausibly predictable realms of the 1950's pop culture.

 

[Ravager]

1950's? Fallout always had the atmosphere of futuristic, post apocalyptic 1960's/1970's taking place after 2077. Just look at the Corvega. It's a Cadillac. Also don't forget the fuzzy pictures of Elvis and as you know Elvis died in 1977. The dates 1977 and 2077 can't be a coincidence. If anything the world ended during the futuristic 70's. Maybe we will see some more proper misc for Fallout in the future, but I'd rather see Inon Zur punched with a power first for defiling the sacred music of the series. Mark Morgan needs to work on the new tracks. I am really happy with what he did for Wasteland 2 and music like that is always better then any old track. Um... unless it's some good old rock and roll!

 

[SnapSlav]

I personally dunno what the problem is. In FO3, the background music was so dry and annoying that it felt like the radio was a necessity, but FONV made the background music WONDERFULLY atmospheric, so the radio stayed as it should: optional. FO2 showcased very clearly that even the vaults had old records from the 50s, so having more of that on the radios is fine with me. What MATTERS is the ambient soundtrack. Keep it classy and yet enthralling, like the original's tracks. Then, I don't care if it's more Armstrong or more Slipknot on the radio, as long as its stays ON THE RADIO, and stays out of my awesome ambient soundtrack. =)

 

[MyronMyronBabyMyron]

I just feel like the only game in the series that did the soundtrack right was Brotherhood of Steel (aka the best game in the series). Fallout should have music like Korn and Slipknot! Old timey music is gay and lame. Also Fallout needs to get rid of all those crappy RPG elements, Fallout needs to be more like a post apocalyptic Call of Duty.

 

[PossibleCabbage]

I actually feel like "music that predates the era in which the apocalypse took place is the only music that survives" is accurate and somewhat prescient. It's just a function of storage format. Like if the bombs fell tomorrow, all the music we have on hard drives in MP3 or FLAC or whatever would be lost forever. It would be hard to find anything that plays CDs even, and tapes would likely be wiped blank. But Vinyl? Vinyl works by making a needle vibrate when it bounces off a rough surface. Those would probably still work 200 years from now if they were stored appropriately.

So it makes sense that the only music that would survive the apocalypse would be music that existed in formats obsolete before the apocalypse. I actually think "there's a radio station" is probably the single best innovation Bethesda had for Fallout. People are still going to enjoy music after the apocalypse, and it's not that hard to set up a broadcast (and a lot of pre-war radios will still work with minor repairs, since an AM antenna isn't that hard to build.)

 

[Vault Maker]

Some stuff.

Before any old-timers put down the gem polish to respond, a reminder: "Careful...he needs this."

 

[Lexx]

He is a troll, but he is still right (a little bit). This extreme focus on 50s music is super annoying. Before release of Fo3 I always imagined Fallout to go a tad more into the 80s direction, with stuff like Mad Max and such. This element is like totally ignored now, unless it's about cannibalistic raiders and their body parts all around...

 

[SnapSlav]

Yeah, some 80s stuff would be SUPER awesome, too.

Like I said, all I think that actually matters, as far as the overall soundtrack is concerned, is that it's kept to radios if it's a SONG, not left as the background music as you traverse the wastes. That would just break with the game's aesthetic. There was something genuinely terrifying about Necropolis JUST because of the music playing in the background. It was brilliantly designed to emphasize that the location was foreboding and dreadful. Likewise, reviving that music and playing it as you approach Nipton has the same effect: before you even see all the dead bodies, the place is unnerving you. There's a tension in the air that only music can pull off.

Now, that's not to say that plenty of other visual cues can't have same similar effects on the player, but they should all work in tandem with one another. Don't skip out on the music just because the visuals worked overtime to sell the setting. Worse, don't add music that COMPLETELY contradicts the setting you've arrived at. That was one of the major drawbacks of the implementation of a radio station in FO3 (and carried over into FONV): Come to a scary place that's supposed to intimidate you, while a bouncy tune is just playing in the background..... *shakes head*

 

[Gizmojunk]

Bethesda missed out on ~yet another wonderful opportunity. With their resources, they could have developed more with this alternate timeline idea, to include alternate celebrities... Like Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, or Cameo [or just Larry Blackmon] ~in the Fallout universe. They could have included their older works, and younger works in the game, and shown that people [musicians] did make a living as more than 1950's cover bands ~for the decades leading up to the great war.

Spoiler

 

[Moosick]

I think a mix of the original swing jazz and oldey country with some synthy, almost techno-ish rave sounds would be good. Thing is, even in 3, those sounds do make sense. They were records that survived, and reflected the world before the war, giving the people a sweet 'nostalgia' for the old world. It was pushed a little hard but it's appropriate.

As others have said, the Mad Max style sounds wouldn't be too bad. Maybe not so much the string sections, but some dramatic, repetitive electronic music is something I can see happening. Ring modulators, reverb pedals, etc are easy enough to build, and, what with plenty of speakers hanging around post-apocalypse in the Fallout world, I would expect some experimental artists to come out of it, especially something like Einstürzende Neubauten or Coil. I can imagine the MM-style raiders in 3 + NV listening to extremely abrasive, ritualistic drum/noise/punk musics.

 

[fred2]

Like the "pre-war" sequences, the use of 'old timely' songs in fallout 3 is intentional, its goal is to constantly evoke a time and place that are gone forever. Thematically speaking they try to evoke that nostalgia to a world that was "lost in the Cold War", by using music from prior by gone era, but at the same time easily recognizable iconic songs. Gameplay wise, they use neutral not too dominant songs that works with background music and provide a great contrast to combat and the visuals (especially songs with ironic lyrics).

Edited.

 

[Lexx]

extremely abrasive, ritualistic drum/noise/punk musics.

While we are at it, anyone got any music tips from that direction? Also tribalistic influences, lots of *real* drums (not electronic fake shit) and such?

 

[Moosick]

extremely abrasive, ritualistic drum/noise/punk musics.

While we are at it, anyone got any music tips from that direction? Also tribalistic influences, lots of *real* drums (not electronic fake shit) and such?

Boredoms (especially Boadrum)
NWW's Homotopy To Marie (cymbals+looped vocal tracks+noise)
Midori (japanese jazz/punk)
Early Swans (pounding industrial/noise rock/no-wave starring Nude Angry Man and Two Drummers At Once)
Sax Ruins (zeuhl/jazzcore on sax and drums)
Merzbow (Kibako, Door Open At 8am, 13 Japanese Birds)
Einstürzende Neubauten
W.A.S.T.E. (rhythmic noise/industrial)
Current 93 (fuck knows, but especially Dogs Blood Rising and Birth Canal Blues)

should get you started. Lots of very percussive/ritual works in their discographies.

Also THIS and THIS. If you want a copy of Period 2 just ask, as its presence is almost nonexistent online.

 

[Vault Maker]

While we are at it, anyone got any music tips from that direction? Also tribalistic influences, lots of *real* drums (not electronic fake shit) and such?

Early Swans

Tribes of Neurot, a side project of Neurosis (often said to be heavily influenced by the Swans). Especially early albums From Charon to Seoul, and Silver Blood Transmissions, and later album Meridian (in the middle is Grace...too bad there's vocals mixed in to many of the tracks). The *real* drumming is substantial. Some tracks by Neurosis proper are all/mostly instrumental, often with heavy emphasis on drums.

Some of Amber Asylum, which I found via the Van Buren demo. Sawyer said the 3 tracks on it were from a compilation called "Funeral Songs" issued by...Relapse Records? One track on the album (not in the demo) was Amber Asylum. For FO, particularly some tracks from Frozen In Amber, re-released by the Neurot Records label, run by...guess which band?

Now I guess I need to finally listen to the Swans.

 

[Moosick]

 

[The-Artist-64]

While we are at it, anyone got any music tips from that direction? Also tribalistic influences, lots of *real* drums (not electronic fake shit) and such?

Early Swans

Tribes of Neurot, a side project of Neurosis (often said to be heavily influenced by the Swans). Especially early albums From Charon to Seoul, and Silver Blood Transmissions, and later album Meridian (in the middle is Grace...too bad there's vocals mixed in to many of the tracks). The *real* drumming is substantial. Some tracks by Neurosis proper are all/mostly instrumental, often with heavy emphasis on drums.

Some of Amber Asylum, which I found via the Van Buren demo. Sawyer said the 3 tracks on it were from a compilation called "Funeral Songs" issued by...Relapse Records? One track on the album (not in the demo) was Amber Asylum. For FO, particularly some tracks from Frozen In Amber, re-released by the Neurot Records label, run by...guess which band?

Now I guess I need to finally listen to the Swans.

I actually loved the songs featured in the demo, very dark and fits the tone. I recently bought the Funeral Songs CD because of it, believe it or not.

 

[ChildServices]

To be honest, I think you could get away with having some late 60s early 70s rock in the radio playlist. I mean you already have factions in the post apocalypse which're very obviously inspired by 80s pop culture and not the 50s.

 

[The-Artist-64]

To be honest, I think you could get away with having some late 60s early 70s rock in the radio playlist. I mean you already have factions in the post apocalypse which're very obviously inspired by 80s pop culture and not the 50s.

Point is, Fallout isn't all 50s like Bethesda makes it out to be. In fact, we don't know what kind of music was popular before the war. I've always thought that it was songs like in the Fallout Tactics intro that were the mainstream thing, while the 1950s style of music was also fairly relevant. And, as with all times, you had some folks who liked the older songs. That's why we heard 'Maybe' on the record player. It's a different culture, clearly retro futuristic and very 1950s inspired but still very unique. We don't even know much about what it was like.

That's not to say I think we should hear rap. I mean, God no. Just maybe some more original songs, a variety. I myself am a huge fan of 50s culture, I'm immersed in it, but I don't think Fallout exactly fits the bill for that kind of stuff.

In my RP and soon to be story, Fallout: Fountain of Dreams, 60s surf rock was popular down south. I think that, since the Commonwealth system was implemented, the member states of each commonwealth became kind of secluded and had their own different cultures.

 

[SnapSlav]

Point is, Fallout isn't all 50s like Bethesda makes it out to be.

It's what the 50's THOUGHT the future would be, as well as what the 80's THOUGHT the future would be. It's neither 80's nor 50's, but does reflect and represent a lot of the popular/pulp fiction of the future from those times. It basically means, like you said, we have NO IDEA what their music was like just before the war, BUT... an earlier post referred to why some of the surviving music present in the games was 50's might be due to the physical format of the preserved music, itself. The King mentions that his gang was inspired by Elvis music, but could not share any with the Courier because the tapes had long since broken down. So clearly we may be able to assume that some cassettes made it some time after the Great War? But New Vegas is an exception when it comes to most Wasteland settlements, because it was sheltered from the nuclear blasts that struck most of the rest of the world, so some tapes surviving in a usable state until just prior to the 2280's in New Vegas doesn't mean that the same could be said of other places. But items found in vaults, perhaps? Beyond that, this also means that the vinyl records would have made it quite a while because they're physical blocks that held the music within their very shape. So, conceivably, music anywhere from the 30's to the 80's and possibly even 90's could be present in the time where the Fallout games takes place.

As far as the inspired music goes... that's the realm of the ambient tracks, which as I mentioned in my first posts here, are ALL that really matter. Whether they're reminiscent of Mark Morgan or Mark Morgan is once again tasked with the creation of the ambient tracks, either's fine. Just keep the radio songs on the radio.