Wotcha there Terms,

Just about to dig out some of the good old 1st Edition scenarios for my players and I got a thinking about what sort of music styles the Sixth World has created. I noticed how there was quite a few references to certain popular bands - Maria Mercurail, Concrete Dreams, Jetblack - but there wasn't much to state their musical styles and influences. With the Cyberpunk-era assumption of heavy rock or street rappers mixed in with corporate classical and tribal folk there hasn't really been an overview since Shadowbeat.

So, just wondering what bands/singers/artists have you used and how would you describe their music?

I've been indulging in too much Irn-Bru and chocolate and thus came out with:

Neo-Emo or NEmo
Voidwave

NeuPunk, Gothic Western, Goblin Rock (2nd Wave), Azka...

I would guess that things have come full circle, and that barber shop quartets are hot right now, and Jazz is the music of Deus.

No, the music of Deus is, of course, dEUS.

The Renraku Arcology had a constantly playing soundtrack that was a cross between System Shock, Fallout 3 and Bioshock.

Well, cyberpunk has more or less always reflected the styles and music scenes of whatever decade it was created in, so I'd say the current musical trends in 2070 would be derivatives of:

EMO garbage.
R&B trash.
Commercial Rock refuse.

In the 80s, cyberpunk had a lot of new wave, early hip hop, and early electronica/industrial.

In the 90s cyberpunk moved on to more of a grunge, industrial, and big beat electronic feel (thank you Matrix and every cyberpunk movie from 1995).

The only real cyberpunk works in the recent 10 years (beyond the Matrix movies) haven't really used the current musical or stylistic trends like the works of the past. If we take a look at GiTS:SAC, we see a really bland, detached visual style to the characters and in the music. Maybe it's because the developers realized that today's styles and musical trends suck ass.

If today's musical trends boil down to emo (or what people call emo nowadays), r'n'b and commercial rock refuse, yes.
However, there's tons of interesting new stuff just outside of the mainstream, wether in electronic music or independent rock.
It's a bad decade for hiphop though.
But in general, Sturgeon's law applies as usual, which also means that 10% of everything isn't crud.


As far as using current musical styles in cyberpunk goes, the problem is if somebody could come up with something truly futuristic, it would be either unlistenable from today's perspective or somebody would already make it (or both).
New styles have to evolve on their own; you can't make them up from scratch.
Plus, it's terribly hard to describe music without proper references.

That's probably the reason why SR material always tended to take a contemporary style, throw some SR setting element in the mix and otherwise was mostly concerned with the attitude of the musicians.

Anyway, some sugestions what could play in the clubs of the 2070's outside of orxploitation :

- twelvetone music has finally made its way into the mainstream. Prepare for bleeding ears

- ethnic influences have always been a staple of SR music; expect gamelans in your metal

- in general, musical production should become even more intuitive and affordable than in the recent years, due to synthlinks and the like (damn, what i'd give for the ability to control sound with my thoughts instead of those fudgy knobs and switches...)- which in turn could lead to the highly polished homerecording sound becoming the new underground and the more gritty, organic sound of traditional recording studios making its way into the mainstream again

- another big trend could be spirit music- a competent mage can summon task spirits that have absolutely amazing musical skills way beyond anything humanely possible (think of the scene in GATTACA with the piece that can only be played with 12 fingers, but more so), not to speak of the weird ideas a spirit could have.
Imagine what would happen if a high-force spirit designed entirely for making music would go free (run idea : "extract my formula from the record company")

- in electronic music, technomancers could finally live up to their name- reaching a much more intuitive understanding of synthesizers or even developing virtual instruments as Complex Forms.
Plus, threading the Edit CF up to 10 makes sample-based music a cakewalk

- furthermore, intelectual property rights for most of contemporary music would probably have run out by 2070, providing a vast reportoire of free samples, "open source" compositions and therefore a gigantic 20th century rehash

-also remember that musical trends develop in cycles; there may very well be a lot of bands that rip off styles from the 2050s (or finally play that awful 50s crap the way it should be played, depending on perspective).

Country music. still a classic.

other than that. well, a guy from New york summed it up pretty damn well in the 1980:
Next phase , new wave, dance craze, anyways
Hot funk, cool punk, even if it's old junk,

It's still rock an' roll to me.

That's why I was positive that the musical and stylistic tastes of cyberpunk movies was exactly like that of the 80s or 90s when they came out. They really follow what is mainstream at the time. As much as I don't like to admit it, in 207X SR4, there is Neo-Emo whiners using their synthlink to musically cry into their glass of milk. There is ambient Post-Rocker using the Corp owned music automats described in the "life on the Edge" chapter of SR4 BBB to make 20 minute long progressive build songs that climax into nothing. There are Troll and Ork Nordic Metalists who have AR driven electric guitars that don't rely on strings, but rather finger placement in the ARO projection along the neck and the flailing of fingers to generate monster thrash riffs. And yes, there is the the long list of untalented ork rappers who use remixes and rehashes of Jet Black's and maria Mercurials chart topping numbers from 20 years ago to make their drek even remotely listenable.

Take todays trends and apply shadowrun. Bam, you have 2070

Most of the Japan corps in the UCAS, especially in the City State of Seattle, (circa 2056; all of this in our game, official I have no idea about) went heavy into "Muzaked" Grunge rock and equally Muzaked Country & Western. As a result C&R had a big surge and Grunge is catching on. "Cybercized Punk" is still the sound of the street bands, and Thrash Metal (especially Troll Thrash Metal) is still the loudest and most aggressive sound on the scene. Jazz is also experiencing a renaissance and R&B is gaining some acceptance among those who don't want to add cyber mods to be able to hear normally by the time they're 30.


Isshia

Cool going people, lets keep it up. Anything else out there?

aside from both types of music - Country and Western that is (heh, that'll never die). Just gotta love the troll line dancing clubs and those Las Vegas Elvis conventions.

They say trolls have that distinctive speech pattern because of the shape of their teeth but I wonder if you got a troll othradonture work, with those deep chests if you'd get a Toby Keith/Trace Atkins like baritone

Baritone may be relatvely high-pitched for your average troll, but certainly possible.
Hm...a troll version of Barry White seems intriguing in a totally wrong way.

An interesting career opportunity for Bubba the love troll.

I really like that idea. or for the more prejudiced a great troll singer hiding his race-only on vocals and highly teched out vids, never live,

Imagine a trolling a brawl screaming 'not the face, not the face"

For live performances, throw in a metahuman biodrone lip-syncing to the troll who performs backstage while being jumped into the drone.

Or take the idoru approach.
This concept would work best in Japan, anyway.

Rock and Roll in 2070 is exactly like this. And if it's not then it should be.

I prefer power metal that does not involve ZZ-Top or Prince extras. Something like Luna Mortis or Dragonforce.

Heh, funnily enough I've already thought of that one, but the title "Bubba the Luuuuurve Troll" is a definate winner for orkploitation! Nice one Rasumichin.

On another note, if musical styles go around in cycles and we're to take the fads of the 20th century and apply them in a new way to the 21st era, then logically speaking, shouldn't the 2070's be ripe for a resurgence in...

yep, you've guessed it...

DISCO!

thank you very much..now I have "Boogie Shoes" stuck in my head!

Disco Dunkelzahn
Disco Inferno
I will Survive
The Hustle
All take on new meanings.

Heh, its my pleasure kanislatrans - all in a day's GMing. Now, can you imagine troll line-dancing Elvis impersonators, or an elven Travolta in the white suit funking out, or perhaps bare-hairy-chested dwarfs with huge medallions strutting down around the Arcology to Stayin' Alive

a one, a two, a...

Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah, Stayin' alive, Stayin' alive!

now I've got the image of a troll in a white polyesyer lounge suit bopping along the dance floor stuck in my head.

and I thought elves doing country line dances was bad