What genre/band/song do you consider extremely shadowrun?

Is techno invariably tied with cyberpunk and therefore SR? Does the 80's pop style of SR, due to the date of its inception, still wear as well in the modern times?

The winning entry may be used as the soundtrack song for the Shadowrun Short Movie.

Frank Zappa- Willy the Pimp.

~J

alot of hard industrial, some techno, thrash metal, some norweigein metal, and some nu-metal like kittie are what I use to compare SR music, for SR music is supposed to generally be loud, thrashy and not caring of talent (kinda reminds me of the sex-pistols, but i see them as too british for SR, unless its a brit campaign)

It all depends on the situation that your are GMing.

For general SR feeling I like everything from the band Zeromancer. It is pretty cool, electronic and dark.

Absolutely perfect for everything involving some emotional theme is the group Deine Lakaien from Germany. My favourite song for scenes involving wild areas is "Into the Forest" from their album "Forest Enter Exit". The singer, Alexander Veljanov, is a master at creating melancholy.

Last week the team had to infiltrate a "facist-white-supremacy-all-metahumans-die"-policlub party to get the PDA of the security chief of the policlub. For that party I used music from the group "Feindflug", especially the tracks "Blutorgel" and "Stuka". Hard industrial combined with samples from Hitler's speeches.

For general club scenes I really like "The Ministry". Next week there will be a scene in the restaurant at the Space Needle in Seattle, which will involve some piano-sonata from Haydn. The robbery of the mask of the actor playing the phantom of the opera was underlined by Andrew Lloyd Webbers music.

I've found that I just can't go wrong with music from The Matrix, although it does encourage a wire-fu view of the SR world.

Which is fine by me.

IE: When someone is jacking into the Matrix, I can't help but play Rob Zombie's "Reload" from The Matrix Reloaded.

For a club, of course, I use Deftone's "My own Summer" and Marilyn Manson's "This is the New Shit."

Any time they're on foot in a city, of course, just calls for Rob D's "Clubbed to Death."

And so forth and so on. Not that that's ALL the music I use, but I like to use Matrix music to set the tone.

Gravity Kills

Let's see... if I just copy my SR Winamp playlist...

AC/DC - Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
AC/DC - Moneytalks
Adam Clayton - Mission Impossible
Brad Fiedel - Terminator 2 Chase Scene
Cowboy Bebop - Tank!
Face to Face - I Won't Lie Down
Fear Factory - Cyberdyne
Golden Earring - Twilight Zone
Graeme Norgate - Scrapyard
Gravity Kills - Not Enough
Hednoize - Loaded Gun
(hed)pe - Bartender
Hellsing - Alucard's Theme
Hellsing - Opening Theme
Hellsing - Pure Dead
Iron Maiden - Be Quick or be Dead
Juno Reactor - Burly Brawl
KMFDM - Ultra
KMFDM - Light
KMFDM - Virus
Marilyn Manson - Fight Song
Marilyn Manson - Astonishing Panorama Of The Endtimes
Marilyn Manson - Disposable Teens
Marilyn Manson - Dope Show
Marilyn Manson - Rock Is Dead
Megadeth - Insomnia
Monster Magnet - Power Trip
Overseer - Supermoves
Papa Roach - Blood Brothers
Perfect Dark - Chicago - Stealth
Perfect Dark - dD Extraction X
Powerman - Ultra Mega
Prodigy - Breathe
Project Majestic Mix - Underneath the Rotting Pizza
Project Pitchfork - Existence
Project Pitchfork - Alpha Omega
Project Pitchfork - We Are One
Propellerheads - Spybreak
Queensryche - Blood
Queensryche - Empire
Queensrÿche - Operation Mindcrime
Rammstein - Asche Zu Asche
Rammstein - Feuer Frei
Rob Zombie - Reload
Rob Zombie - Scum Of The Earth
Shinedown - 45
The Offspring - Come Out And Play
The Offspring - End of the Line
The Offspring - Genocide
The Offspring - Jennifer Lost The War
The Offspring - No Brakes
The Offspring - The Kids Aren't Alright
The Union Underground - Turn Me On Mr Deadman
Tomoyasu Hotei - Battle Without Honor or Humanity

Ishkur's guide to electronic music will take you all over the map. I think there's a copy of it floating around at http://www.ishkur.com/music/#

Funker Vogt,
Apoptygma Bezerk,
Rammstien,
Nightwish,
Stuff like that.

<== Back for a few hours til it's Army time again

my campaign is set in the Dirty South. I am thinking Johnny Cash and Leadbelly.

We do mixes of metal, techno, and industrial....some bands...

KMFDM
Chemical Brothers
Dust Brothers
Turmion Kätilöt(Finnish industrial metal)
Dimmu Borgir(I find the Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia album the best for SR)
Nightwish(for that epic feel)
Movie Soundtracks(Blade, etc.)
Cradle of Filth
Norwegian Black Metal(it's just evil sounding)

We also have been discussing a house rule with some humor for 'Cinematic Gameplay'. In the SR4 book they give some rules for the cinema action(small bonus dice for vivid descriptions of crazy attacks, target numbers of 4 instead of 5, etc). Of course you can add to this for the Hong Kong Cinema gameplay.

One funny rule I nicknamed 'The Techno Rule', where if your character has some sort of music player on him(like those suits with the built in speakers) and presses play resulting in techno music before and during the fight, you get bonus dice. Let's face it, in action movies, when the techno music starts, the bad guys get owned.

Any Machines of Loving Grace song. Terminal City, Suicide King, Richest Junkie Still Alive and Insurrection-X are very Shadowrunish.

Hmmm for the SR setting in general, ill have to go with New Model Army's Thunder and Consolation LP, Just seems to have the right dystopian feel for going round Redmond.

As for "on the job" the most appropriate i've found is the Red Alert 2 soundtrack.

and for when the shit hit-eth the fan-eth; Tomahawk - Mayday, Rob Zombie Demonoid phenomenon (poly 915 mix), Cubanate - Industry or Saliva - Click click Boom.

Echo what Sahandrian said about Tomoyasu Hotel's "Battle Without Honor or Humanity."

(Admittedly, I have not seen either of the "Kill Bill" films; however, Jaguar used that particular piece of music in a TV advertisement campaign awhile back, and that's where I first heard it.)

As far as other types are concerned, just about anything from the "James Bond" or "Mad Max" film franchises--particularly the instrumental stuff--would be useful for setting the mood for infiltration or extraction 'runs, or for when a 'run goes south, and a team is trying to get away.

For that matter, Lalo Schifrin's "Shifting Gears" would be PERFECT for a chase scene. For those of you who have seen the film, that's the proper title for the instrumental piece in which Detective Lieutenant Frank Bullitt (Steve McQueen), in a 1967 Ford Mustang GTA 390, and the two hitmen, in a 1967 Dodge Charger R/T 440, are taking turns chasing each other through the streets of San Francisco.

For setting the mood, almost anything from "Blade Runner" or the "Terminator" films would work.

And, IMHO, anything from "Mission: Impossible" (either from the two TV series or the film) would be suitable for meetings with the Johnson.

(And, no flames, please: I admit that I'm a bit of a square when it comes to my taste in music. )

--Foreigner

I would agree with the following list ofr a general Shadowrun feel:

Nightwish (once album especially, they're really on to something)
Collide (especially their remix albums)
Rammstein (though I've always thought their singer sounds like a nerd)
Juno Reactor
Hybrid
Delerium (if it's one of their better songs)
A lot of single Anime songs (GITS, Armitage)

I would say that if there were a formula, it would be to take a bass-driven techno beat, put some strings and horns over it, and throw in a metalrhythym guitar. Unfortunately, few techno songs fit the bill as most seem to be very trance in nature.

"I'd hope that a SR movie would sound more Bladerunner than XXX (Vin Diesel movie) just to be different."

The Vangelis heads more toward new age than I wanted to venture, but I echo the sentiment that straight up thrashing wouldn't be the proper route (I say that despite my dedication to the metal genre).

If I were to make a wishlist of aspects in a single song to represent Shadowrun in the movie would be:

1) something partially electronic (but not completely)

2) something with a slow and fast section

3) something with a wiz-band ending

4) something that is instrumental

Anyone with a song like that specifically, IM me.

I did find a website while searching around I found http://www.harmonysteel.com/index.shtml that featured some promising SR stuff. If I could have talked her into composin/performing an original piece with a little custom musical direction, I think it would have been perfect, but alas, she doesn't want to do it? (If one were feeling wicked, you could e-mail her and implore her to help her music enter digital immortality)

Anyone else know how to remix/write/perform music of the techno/metal/classical persuasion that would be required for this project?

I suppose it ought to matter where you're running.

If you're running in Ireland, pull out the dandelion-eater music--Clannad, U2, Teada, Altan, Chieftains....

Britain--Sex Pistols, etc.

NewFoundland--Great Big Sea, Bare Naked Ladies

Pull the music from the culture. I don't see why it always has to be techno/deathmetal/etc.

Or am I missing something?

Just to add my 2 . If your in a corp environ, play muzak.

you'll hate me for this but for a lot of stuff in corporate compunds I like so of the created pop noises- Britney Spears and Tatu for example- driving music but at the same time, not "real," artificial.

For wilderness, NAN and magical stuff, Celtic Rock like Mollyhawks and Clanand(check out the sound track from Last of the Mohicans)

For urban settings I prefer composers like James Horner's Aliens' themes., I don't want the players distracted by lyrics.

Well since no one has broached the obvious, I guess I will:

Stabbing Westward
Kidney Thieves
KMFDM
some Prodigy
Celldweller
Violent Work of Art
Crossbreed

I just "found" this band called Bionic Jive. The song "I shot Lucifer" is AWESOME for gunfights. The rest of their stuff is good action music too.

Other than that:

Fight Club Soundtrack
Chemical Brothers
Prodigy
Stabbing Westward
Gravity Kills
Vitro (for the laid back times)
RatM
Paul Okenfold stuff
Matrix Soundtrack

Love the Alien soundtracks! Perfect for bug situations. And fun for scaring the hell out of a new listener.
Scared the crap out a couple of friends of mine with the 3rd track from Aliens, 'Sub-Level 3'. I've got the timing down on it, and can make almost any first time listener jump out of their socks. Especially if you have a nice life-size relatively authentic looking face hugger plush to throw at them in the dark.

KMFDM remix of Genutortures - Sin City
Icon of Coil - Shallow Nation
Pride and Fall - December
Apoptygma Berzerk - Kathay's Song
Apoptygma Berzerk - Non-Stop Violence

I agree with other people's suggestions of EBM and industrial style music like Project Pitchfork ETC.

I think Metal works well for SR.

Marylin Manson's Dopehat remix on Smells like Children is a good background song for a club. Evanescene works well too.

Rob Zombie and Rammstein would be good choices too, Links 2...3...4, with it's march-like beat could be used as background for a Humanis Policlub meeting, and Zombie's Living Dead Girl makes good Stripclub music (I only mentioned this because I once had a dwarven striptease artist. I based her on a throw-away line in Terry Pratchett's Feet of Clay).

I'd steer away from Pop and such though, not only because it makes bad background music, but because it's almost universally crap.

Metallica's Black album is good too, I suppose. Wherever I Roam could be an Amerindian's theme.

Ooh! For an Irish or Boston run, how about Celtic punk from Flogging Molly?