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FanGirl
Does anyone have any songs to recommend that really fit the tone of SR? Of course, anything that's sorta techno-ey and/or angsty would work, but you always want good quality music whenever you can help it. Here's my personal list of must-haves for a runner's mix; I give you the right to make fun of my personal taste.
  • "Woke Up This Morning," A3
    You may recognize this as the theme song from The Sopranos. IMO, it speaks to the frustrations simmering inside John Q. Runner and the actions he takes because of those frustrations. Or something like that. Anyway, I recommend that you put this one first on your list.
  • "Main Title (from The Matrix)," Don Davis
    I can hear you now: "Oh yeah, FanGirl, really clever allusion there. Linking the movie The Matrix to the SR Matrix is just such genius, you know. I couldn't possibly have made that connection on my own. sarcastic.gif " But I'm putting it on the list anyway, and not merely because of the allusion factor. I feel that this particular theme does a good job of capturing the expansive and breathtaking world that is the SR Matrix, in both its wonders and its dangers.
  • "Little Drop Of Poison," Tom Waits
    Tom Waits is frickin' awesome. That is all.
  • "Mack The Knife," Louis Armstrong and/or Bobby Darrin
    After all that angst and grit, you need a nice, fun song to round off your playlist. You need to sit back and enjoy a light-hearted take on the kind of criminal acts you yourself commit in order to survive in this crazy world. You need "Mack The Knife."
hyzmarca
You can never go wrong with hair metal and glam rock.

stevebugge
I'm gonna throw aplug for old Gangsta Rap too, actually if it weren't for the occasional ganger mission some of the old NWA cd's I got in 7th & 8th grade would have long ago been carted off to the used CD store.
John Campbell
#ifndef SRMUSIC_HTML
#define SRMUSIC_HTML
#include <srmusic.html>
#endif
hyzmarca
How about BOC's Godzilla slightly rewritten to conform to the exploits of Ghostwalker.
creatorlars
Throbbing Gristle
Einsteurzende Neubauten
Clock DVA

These are all bands that directly inspired/were inspired by the cyberpunk movement and the idea of electronically generated music affecting the mind.
Fix-it
Pink.
Floyd.

End Of Thread.
John Campbell
I... don't really see how that's a thread-ender. I mean, I like Floyd as much as anyone - they're second in number of tracks on my general playlist - but they're not really particularly Shadowrun.
stevebugge
Pink Floyd has a few tracks that thematically link to Shadowrun, but I think they don't really fit the style bill for the setting.

One thing I really liked was the jab SR took at pop music with the Matrix pop song on demand generating servers, just set your preferences and it creates a song based on formulas just for you. Sounds a lot like today's pop music, only without any people involved.
emo samurai
Information High from Macross Plus.
Vera Blue by Chemlab.
Stuff by Frontline Assembly. That's stuff in general, not a song.
ShadowDragon8685
Let's see...

Whenever I think of Shadowrun, I find it always particularly apprpriate to play Rob Zombie's Reload, from, you guessed it, The Matrix Reloaded.

But that may also be because I tend to concentrate on deckers and wire-fu gun-bunnies.

Other good songs from the various Matrix movies:

Matrix 1:
Clubbed to Death (You can't go wrong with this for a meeting with Mr. J.)
Deftones - My Own Summer (Nice general sprawl-in-summer music)
Look to your Owb for the Warning - unbeatable any time your runners find themselves by the old railroad tracks
Spybreak: When people start running up the walls and dodging bullets, you just have to pully out the lobby shoot-out music.
Dragula: Best if played during high-speed chases.
Rock is Dead - nice clubbin' music.

The Matrix Reloaded:
Prodigy & Tom Morello - One Man Army. Good for any time the players are facing large numbers of very homogenous enemies (like a Lone Star SWAT team rapelling down the sides of buildings, or corporate HTR team)

Rage Against the Machine - Calm Like a Bomb. Gotta love some hard rock that starts out as jazz. Good for any sort of techno-heavy scene with a gun-battle or a Matrix fight.
Marilyn Manson - This is the New Shit. Great for clubbin', great for wire-fu fistfights.
Juno Reactor and Don Davis - Mona Lisa Overdrive. Very long, moody theatrical piece. The mood, of course, is "Driving on a freeway with people chasing you".
POD - Sleeping Awake. Nice tune for melee fights, but there's better.
Rob Zombie - Reload. I just can't iterate it enough, this is the song to use while the players are in full VR.
Rob Dougan - Furious Angels. Another moody instrimental piece. More introspective here, this is a good song for betrayals.

The Matrix Revoloutions
Don Davis - Navras or Neodammerung. These are perfect for climactic "boss battles", or when the players wind up tangoing with K-E Firewatch. If you put this on, the players should be crapping their pants like it was CreepwoodRun.
Don Davis - Main Title. This is of course, the awesome, as Fangirl said above.
Why, Mr. Anderson? Nice song to set the players on-edge, good for narrative sequences where the players are watching things crumble, but they haven't been slagged yet.

I'll let others add their other songs, rather than giving you the highlights of me gigabytes of pirates mp3s. Suffice to say I prefer my Shadowrun with a healthy flavoring of The Matrix, but that's by far not all of it.
Platinum
Music thread here, here, here, here, here, broken here

What worked for me
Sisters of mercy
Frontline assembly
Delerium
Megadeth
FanGirl
Aw man, I love "Spybreak!" I've known the music for a long time, but I didn't know the title until just now. I just bought the song on iTunes, along with "Mona Lisa Overdrive" and "Navras." I would have bought more songs, but the cash on my giftcard ran out. frown.gif Thanks, ShadowDragon!
Thanee
Weird Al Yankovic - Trigger Happy rotfl.gif

You better ask yourself, do you feel lucky, punk?

(Ok, probably more DH than SR. wink.gif)

Bye
Thanee
Nightshade-
Korn
Die Krupps (Little known but great techno-metal group out of Germany but they are all from the U.S. and the lyrics are in english. Check some place like Amazon.com to find them. Should be cheap. "Ring of Steel" is a good albumn.)
Suicidal Tendencies
Metal Church
White Zombie
Rob Zombie
Ministry
Anthrax
Pantera
Maralyn Manson

Other bands that I don't like but would be good for background.
Slayer
Seplatura
Cradle of Filth
Neuclear Assault
Misfits
Ramones
Danzig
Exodus
Static X
Godsmack
Disturbed




Trax
O Fortuna
Mars, Bringer of War
Name of the Game
Heavy Metal
Drowning Pool- Bodies
Wlecome to the Jungle
Hell March
Hell March II
Highway to Hell
Kill Bill theme
Immigrant Song
Mission Impossible theme
March of Cambreadth
Duke Nuken theme
Kinslayer
Pistolero
Spybreak
Operation Mindcrime
Operation Mindcrime: The Mission
Rage Against the Machine Imperial March remix
Superbeast
Paint It Black
Smooth Criminal
Born to be wild
Magic Carpet Ride
Devil Man
More Human Than Human
Another One Bites The Dust
Blaze of Glory
Wanted Dead or Alive
Dale
I like the retro techno song Running Through the Tunnels from the Shadowrun soundtrack.
emo samurai
There was a Shadowrun soundtrack? If it's legal, can someone post it, please?
Trax
Officially Licensed
Title: The Shadowrun Concept Album
Artist: N/A
Release Date: N/A
Description: This little-known album was released exclusively in Germany and is full of Shadowrun gaming goodness. It contains 9 musical track that are divided up between 3 different concept sections -- "The Streets", "The Matrix", and "The Battle -- and the music is meant to express the feel of those particular concepts.
Index:
The Streets
Track 01 - "Dream of Electric Sheep"
Track 02 - "Cool Cruise"
Track 03 - "Seattle Override"
The Matrix
Track 04 - "Nods n Nerds"
Track 05 - "Silent Run"
Track 06 - "Interfaith"
The Battle
Track 07 - "Predator"
Track 08 - "Barrens (After Dark)"
Track 09 - "Lone Star Rising"
Download: N/A

Title: The Shadowrun Soundtrack
Artist: Alex Cremers
Release Date: N/A
Description: Found mostly at conventions, this is the "official" soundtrack of the Shadowrun world.
Index:
Track 01 - "Voices from the Past"
Track 02 - "Cityscape 2056"
Track 03 - "Native American Cruiser"
Track 04 - "The Otaku"
Track 05 - "An Eye for an Eye"
Track 06 - "Shadowrun"
Track 07 - "Corporate Anxiety"
Track 08 - "Foreshadows"
Track 09 - "Comes the Dawn"
Track 10 - "Physical Security"
Track 11 - "Into the Labyrinth"
Track 12 - "The Arena Conflict"
Track 13 - "Epilogue"
Download: N/A



Inspired by Shadowrun
Title: SRI - Black IC
SRI - Coming Home
SRI - Dante's Inferno
SRI - Path of the Bard
SRI - Tripping the Deck
SRI - Urban Shaman
Artist: Harmony Steel
Description: Once known as "Alarin", Harmony Steel has created several Shadowrun Inspired (SRI) works over the years. An avid roleplayer, musician, and artist, we have chronicled all of her available Shadowrun works for you here. To download an item, simple click on the name of the song. All files are in .mp3 format.
Website: www.harmonysteel.com
emo samurai
Where can I buy the second CD?
Trax
No idea
Kagetenshi
I still need to find and upload the rest (as well as providing a proper credit/cover page), but Ms. Steel has graciously given me permission to redistribute her Shadowrun-inspired works. You'll find them here.

~J
ShadowDragon8685
I was about to flip out because Harmonysteel was down for maintenance.


Kagentenshi, you are teh rock and win.

I'll just check the file sharing channels to see if the others are available. Arrrgh.
Shanshu Freeman
for a horror run (not Horror) I used Tricky - Excess
hyzmarca
There are some parts of Shadowrun that could benefit from some hardcore prohibition-era jazz.

Minnie The Moocher as the theme for a powerful Seductress Shaman, for example.
Kagetenshi
The rest of the SRI works are up at the link above (ok, for you sticklers out there they're actually transferring now, but if you click on the link any time after five minutes from now it should all be there), as well as some of her other works.

~J
Platinum
Sorry to dig up an old link, but I thought it would be better than creating a new one and sparking up a whole bunch of discussion we have hashed through many times. I just found this and I have been downloading the archives, and find them great for shadowrun atmosphere.

http://www.plastiksickness.com/
Trax
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
There are some parts of Shadowrun that could benefit from some hardcore prohibition-era jazz.

Minnie The Moocher as the theme for a powerful Seductress Shaman, for example.

Zoot Suit Riot from Cheery Poppin Daddies is pretty good.
FanGirl
rotfl.gif I like "Zoot Suit Riot" too, but implying that it's an example of "hardcore prohibition-era jazz" is like implying that Britney Spears is one of the great and innovative female musicians of our time.
Kremlin KOA
You mean she Isn't?

What's next? Telling me the tooth fairy isn't real?
MYST1C
Such a long thread about SR/cyberpunk music with so many bands mentioned - and the name Fear Factory hasn't appeared yet?!

(BTW: Die Krupps, meaning "The Krupps" in English, were originally founded in Germany as an industrial band in the early 80s. In the 90s they started to include more and more guitars in their style becoming Europe's prime Industrial Metal band. They disbanded in the late 90s as they thought to have reached a "stylistic dead end". The band was revived recently and now uses a more electronic, less metal, style again. My favorite Krupps song is "Fatherland" from the 1993 album "II - The Final Option").
Smilin_Jack
For some reason when SR and Music are brought up I think of the following bands:

General
Hewy Lewis & The News
Corey Hart
Orbital
Cyndi Lauper
Cruxshadows

Goblin Rock
Napalm Death
Tattered~Seraphim
My thursday group has an mp3 album we have playing in the background every session that has, amongst other thngs, the Queen of the Damned and Grosse Point Blank osts, Metallica. It's usually all music along that style.
Grinder
We play mostly Hardcore and Death Metal during our sessions. But Bands like Neurosis, Cult Of Luna etc. are also pretty good and make a decent atmosphere.
Dog
I've said it before and I'll probably say it again. Queensryche is Shadowrun. It's canon. wink.gif
Grinder
Or Mötley Crüe biggrin.gif
The ubbergeek
I like New Order in Shadowrun, for some reasons. Great retro beat.

If one like rap... how about the groovy french band IAM? Dey rawkz.

How about some sountracks? It's cliché, but Scarface had that thang for it.

Or, for a very high-tech game, one of the Ghost in the Shell ones.
Dale
Actually for some reason I've always associated Shadowrun with Motley Crue's "Kickstart my Heart"
Grinder
Scum - Gospels For The Sick
Turbonegro - Hobbit Motherfuckers (for the ever-rebellious Runners)
Fire Hawk
I've made up a couple of Cyberpunkish soundtracks (which I conveniently don't have access to at the moment), which featured the following:

* Love & Rockets (A few songs off of "Lift")
* Psykosonik (Their self-titled album had many gibsonesque lyrics)
* Songs from the two Mortal Kombat soundtracks (MK: Annihilation sucked, but that soundtrack kicked @$$.)
* KMFDM -Virus (as well as the two songs from the affore-mentioned soundtracks)
* Bono & The Edge - Jonny Goes To Hell For A Bottle Of Milk/Korova

I can also see where the Crüxshadows would work very well for that sort of ambience.

emo samurai
I have an idea for music: "Who Wants to Live Forever" by Queen for Harlequin and Ehran.

Who waaaaaaaantss.... to liiiiiiiiiive.... forevaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAARRR!!!!!

Apparently they do.
Calvin Hobbes
Warren Ellis operates the Apparat, and Superburst Mixtape before that. It's hard to imagine the author of Transmetropolitan wouldn't have a good clue about music in the Shadowrun setting.
emo samurai
I have that Highlander song stuck in my head. That is reason beyond reason to include Harlequin.
Wounded Ronin
All you need is 80s pop music. The Final Countdown just occured to me. That would be hysterical.
The ubbergeek
It GOT TO HAVE New Wave, of course. biggrin.gif It's making a come back of sort, so...
stevebugge
There are a few tracks off the Top Gun soundtrack that are fun to go with riggers, well ok it's pretty much all of the soundtrack.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092099/soundtrack
Witness
What, no Rolf Harris?
Just me? Oh ok.
Shrike30
Juno Reactor gets some pretty heavy play in my games. VAST as well.
emo samurai
Dude, I just found a song from the Casshern soundtrack, and it ROCKS. It's "Requiem" by "Back Horn," a J-rock band. It's from where Casshern fights the king of the robot army and loses. It rocks as much as that scene.
Telion
Can't forget the Maiden.
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