Dystopian music Options

[sunnyside]

There have been a bunch of threads on "Shadowrun music" however the tunes selected are, at least as far as I know, along the lines of punk/cyberpunk, Action/being a badass, or industrial/techno background.

However the dystopian aspect of SR is, I think, still an important element. Not only in the world around them, but to also remind the players they themselves aren't quite right.

Anyway songs that fit that theme could either be musically sounding, well, broken or somesuch. i.e.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6CbsM_scQA...feature=related
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da7ZN2Dxn-c...feature=related

And then there are those with dystopian lyrics. For example (and the song that inspired this thread from the dance/strip thread)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQZbv5rEhzU...feature=related]A lap dance is so much better when the stripper is crying ://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQZb...pper is crying

(As a side note I'm totally adding Uncle Limpy's Hump Palace, The Stinky Pinky, and the Gulp'n'guzzle Snooze'n'stop to my game somewhere).
Anyone else have any suggestions?

[Muspellsheimr]

I don't know if it qualifies as dystopian, but I would suggest listening to Gothic Horror. It fits quite well with the game, at least in my opinion.

http://www.myspace.com/noxarcana
http://www.myspace.com/midnightsyndicate

[Backgammon]

I don't think you can beat NIN if we're talking dystopian music. I mean, Year Zero is the story of a dystopia, and Industrial in general is like the soundtrack for cyberpunk IMO.

[TKDNinjaInBlack]

That's one of the reasons I keep bringing up industrial. It's abrasive and against the norm. As far as any kind of real lyrical music goes though, I generally prefer industrial downbeat for that walking the streets while it's raining cop movie/film noir/cyberpunk feel. Lyrics often take away from that. BGM needs to be fluid and just that, in the background. As soon as it becomes noticed, it's failed at it's job. Paint the picture without drawing attention to the paint brush.

[Beetle]

The Death Race soundtrack is great background music for SR. Hits the theme really well without a monotonous drum beat that is common with most SR music playlists. There is the occasional dialogue but, but it's fairly brief and only on a couple of the tracks.

In terms of music with lyrics go, check out VNV Nation. Dystopian Future Pop is pretty much their stock and trade.

[Coldhand Jake]

I recommend Akira Yamaoka's Silent Hill soundtracks for that discordant, disturbing sensation Sunnyside seems to be capturing in his first two links...

[Fabe]

The Death Race soundtrack is great background music for SR. Hits the theme really well without a monotonous drum beat that is common with most SR music playlists. There is the occasional dialogue but, but it's fairly brief and only on a couple of the tracks.

In terms of music with lyrics go, check out VNV Nation. Dystopian Future Pop is pretty much their stock and trade.

The original Death Race or the new one?

[Kyoto Kid]

...the opening movement (Introduction) of Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie
...Amen des étoiles, de la planète à l'anneau from Messiaen's Visions de l'Amen por deux pianos
...Quatuor pour la fin du Temps - Written when Messeain was in a German Prison Camp during WWII

[It trolls!]

I recommend Akira Yamaoka's Silent Hill soundtracks for that discordant, disturbing sensation Sunnyside seems to be capturing in his first two links...

I keep bringing them up in almost every SR music thread. Just listen to them - and not the few guitar pieces you can find in half a ton of AMVs. Stuff like Black Fairy, Terror in the Depth of the Fog or Betrayal (you can see, I like SH2 the most) is perfect to depict the dystopian elements in SR.
And if the SH soundtrack is not enough, Tim Hecker for example does a similar sound.

[Beetle]

The original Death Race or the new one?

The new one. I would have dropped in "2000" if I was going by the old one (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[CynthiaCM]

I've always felt that doom metal and black metal evoke a dystopian mood. Check out "God Hates the Dead" by Ancient and "Progenies of the Great Apocalypse" by Dimmu Borgir to see what I mean.

[sunnyside]

I like some of the tunes given as background when things are funky. Especially some of the silent hill stuff.

For the lyrically weird songs I think I'm sorta looking for stuff to set to playing while I go to do something else or talk with one player and keep the others interested, and, ideally, a little disturbed by the time I get back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jItz-uNjoZA and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFGC6S0AmXs are sorta getting there. In part because they're sorta happy underlying tunes.

[Naysayer]

Obital: The Box.

A solid 10/10 in both apm and dpm*.



*awesome per minute and dystopian per minute, if yer haddn' figgr'd.

[DV8]

Testify.

[Dumori]

The STALKER OST has some good tracks
http://www.stalker-game.com/en/?page=soundtrack
and
http://www.en.game-ost.ru/info.php?id=828

so dose this pre-mastering STALKER clear sky tracks
http://www.stalker.gameru.net/music/

[cyronc]

there are lots of dystopian/society criticicing tracks produced by breakcore and noiscore artists, even some nice political (most of them non-ragga dark sided) jungle tracks are out there to be found, and of course the free-tekno scene, which has the dystopian society theme in its roots

[Adarael]

It Trolls, it's not that you like SH2 the best...

It's that SH2's soundtrack IS the best. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) I have yet to meet anyone who seriously disagrees with that assessment.
Personally, I rank 4 at #2.

[sunnyside]

The STALKER OST has some good tracks
http://www.stalker-game.com/en/?page=soundtrack
and
http://www.en.game-ost.ru/info.php?id=828

so dose this pre-mastering STALKER clear sky tracks
http://www.stalker.gameru.net/music/

Pretty cool they let you just download the music. Some of those would serve as solid background. Actually I should probably look to soundtracks more, since many are created for what I want because they want that feel for their game.

Can you get a lot of game soundtracks free?

[Wesley Street]

If you want something besides the "bump-chick-bump-chick" techno and if you're going to go dystopian, go for the original masters of it.

From the 1984 soundtrack:

Oceania,'Tis For Thee
Sex Crime
Julia

[DV8]

One of the soundtracks I like as good background music to a dystopian, neo-tribal setting like you would find in the Puyallup, are the two Fallout soundtracks, which can easily be found for download online. If you dig dark ambient, then I suggest anything by Lustmord. For now, I'm downloading the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. tracks and I have good hopes that it'll meet my demands. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[A Lamer]

Well if you want film noir, nothing quite beats the Max Payne 2 main theme and the rest of the soundtrack for that matter. The main theme can be downloaded off their website but I don't know about the rest outside of the game itself.

Really digging the first two posts, stalker soundtrack and "The Box" though, that's definitely the music that goes along with my vision of dystopia, everything else is a tad too dreary. (or retro)

Edit: Actually I don't know how I or anyone else for that matter could forget the king of dystopian futures' theme.

[Dumori]

The orange box sound track is good fro combat and some are as good as the stalker ones for feel. But you have to buy it but i comes free with audio surf on steam and that is one fun game.

[trechriron]

I think Front 242 and Stabbing Westward have a good feel for Dystopian music.

The Soundtrack from Strange Days is outstanding.

I would have to dig deeper into my library to pull out more, but those two popped out off the top of my head (no, not LITERALLY (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) )

[DV8]

The Soundtrack from Strange Days is outstanding.

While I agree with you that the quality of the soundtrack is good, I find that music that has a lot of lyrics oftentimes is too intrusive to have it on in the background. It's why I'd rather go for scores instead of soundtracks, atmospheric music instead of regular music.

[DV8]

Oh, don't take me too seriously when I say this, but check out Billy Idol's Shock to the System videoclip. It's very Tetsua: Iron Man-ish. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)