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Looking for "Cyberpunk" music.
subedii
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Weird thread, but I'm in a weird mood.
Basically I want something to play games like Dystopia and Supreme Commander to (and some other stuff, a lot of game music isn't all that great to be honest). Best stuff I've been able to find so far is from the "Stand Alone Complex" series, I'll post a few examples to give you a rough idea what I'm looking for.
Really all of those are from the same vocal artist IIRC, and share a lot in terms of style. But basically if it sounds like it'd go with a heavy sci-fi / cyberpunk setting, I'd be interested. So any artist / album recommendations welcome.
Basically I want something to play games like Dystopia and Supreme Commander to (and some other stuff, a lot of game music isn't all that great to be honest). Best stuff I've been able to find so far is from the "Stand Alone Complex" series, I'll post a few examples to give you a rough idea what I'm looking for.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iz4tdfqEsBM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKHa6d9sdhk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO4AGB6-O9s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smhh1n3VEp8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKHa6d9sdhk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO4AGB6-O9s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smhh1n3VEp8
Really all of those are from the same vocal artist IIRC, and share a lot in terms of style. But basically if it sounds like it'd go with a heavy sci-fi / cyberpunk setting, I'd be interested. So any artist / album recommendations welcome.
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I'd link the Mindphaser video on youtube since it's the cyberpunk music video of the 90s, but Youtube went and copyright'd it.
Either way, the 1990s was a good decade for FLA. Millennium, Hard Wired, Tactical Neural Implant and Flavor of the Weak are great albums.
right now!
There are newer version you may enjoy more.
This is one of the greatest game songs ever.
I missed the sci-fi setting thing... I'll see if I can find something more appropriate.
Here we go.
EVE online music tracks that I like a lot:
Below the Asteroids
Smoke from down below:
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
http://www.ttlg.com/ss1/music/
http://www.sshock2.com/ss2mmdb/music.htm
From the TTLG Jukebox.
EDIT: Now that I look more carefully, these links are mostly dead. This site has some remixes of SS1:
http://www.chicajo.com/dl_direct/index.php
I thought it was pretty good for game music, personally, although it's a more western than anime cyberpunk.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Deus Ex soundtrack. Deus Ex: Invisible War soundtrack.
Mass Effect soundtrack.
Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries soundtrack.
The Matrix soundtracks have a few songs that would fit.
Starcraft Terran songs sort of fit.
Plus what some other people have suggested.
Guitar driven industrial worth looking at includes:
KMFDM - NIHIL is the album you've been looking for. Angst, Symbols and XTORT are also really good, so far as one is willing to consider KMFDM really good. They're sort of a little over the top sometimes. Okay, lots of the time. And everything beginning with the reunion and moving forward is pointless and should be ignored.
Godflesh - Streetcleaner, Hymns are both good albums. Streetcleaner is from '89, Hymns is from '01, both sound very similar.
Ministry - The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste is a great album and the best song on it is a complete and total ripoff of Big Black's song Racer X. Which is a song about the character from Speed Racer.
Now most industrial rock bands are going to sound more or less like one of those bands.
Non-guitar driven industrial splits into two vague groupings. There's stuff that sounds like it's from the 80s, and stuff that doesn't.
The finest examples of the classic industrial sound include:
Skinny Puppy - One of the most influential industrial bands ever, and a bunch of Canadians at that. Their last two albums have been a little schizophrenic and both sound a lot more modern. I really like Remission as a starting point, it's a classic and it's one of the more vicious industrial albums from the 80s.
Hocico - These guys do the classic Skinny Puppy sound on modern equipment, so it doesn't QUITE sound like the 80s but the same sensibilities are there all the same. Sangre Hirviente is a great album. It means Boiling Blood.
Front 242 - These guys have not updated their sound much since the 80s, but the thing is, they recorded a massively successful song called Headhunter back then and I think they're trying to make that happen again by holding as many variables static as possible. I don't know. Get the album with Headhunter on it, I can't remember which one it is.
Front Line Assembly - Not the same band as Front 242! Similar sound though. Tactical Neural Implant is a good album.
Neutronic - No lyrics. This is sometimes a blessing as industrial lyrics can be unbearably bad in some cases. Really aggressive, all drums, samples and a tiny bit of synthesizer here and there, but really good. Vs. Planet Earth is a great album.
Suicide Commando - Cheesy but classic. Stored Images is a decent album.
Now if you want the really synthy, really polished, ultra modern sound:
Combichrist - Really, really, really popular band recently. Get Your Body Beat was their breakthrough single, it's not bad. What The Fuck Is Wrong With You People is the album it's on.
Covenant - I hate a lot of their material, BUT, they recorded three of the best songs of the post-industrial genre: Call the Ships to Port, Like Tears in Rain, and Dead Stars. Tour de Force is a decent song, too. United States of Mind has 3 of those 4 songs on it.
VNV Nation - The ultimate in cheese. Worse than Covenant, even. I still really can't get over them though. Empires is a good album if you want to push the limits of maximum cheese, but Advance and Follow is as good a starting point as any. Futureperfect is also really good. So far as anything they've recorded can be considered good.
Some would also include Wumpscut here. I choose not to.
If you want more abstract, less explicitly industrial stuff, there are entire mountains of related artists who do not or no longer practice industrial in any really recognizable form. Some of the more abstract stuff I'd really push is Black Sun Empire (dark drum and bass), Aphex Twin (mostly ambient now, his industrial work was mostly crap), Autechre (Incunabula and Tri Repetae++ are golden albums), and anything by Gridlock.
Let me know if any of that turns your crank. At least some of it HAS to.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
In addition to his recommendations, I would like to suggest the album "The World is Gone" by the artists "Various Artists" (Sometimes called Various Productions). No, I'm not being an idiot, they're being weird or artistic or something.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiJNmD0-z6Q
At this point we're getting into experimental industrial and away from the more guitar-oriented/Jap-pop stuff you posted. However, I think it very much fits into the theme of "cyberpunk."
Not sure how close it is to your description of 'cyberpunk' (work blocks youtube
Danger - www.myspace.com/2emedanger
Justice - (Cross) and Across the Universe albums
NIN - Ghosts I-IV
Daft Punk - Homework and Alive 2007 albums
Boards of Canada - I only got the Dayvan Cowboy song on the playlist but they're all decent
Neotokyo, a HL2 mod, also has a great OST that you can buy for like 11 bucks, with 6 preview tracks on the site
http://www.neotokyohq.com/music.html
They're really good for a mod, professionally made
Negative Format - Solid, enjoyable synthwork. Perhaps not as dark as some similar material. Cipher Method was my favorite album, with Gradients being a close second.
mind.in.a.box - Edges towards synthpop at times. Each of their albums is set up to tell a continuing story about some kind of "hacker" figure. Perhaps cheesy there, but the music itself is similar to some of your YouTube links. Lost Alone was my favorite album, but I've enjoyed pretty much all of their material.
To add to Pheezer's post, if you end up liking VNV Nation, Assemblage 23 is usually considered to be fairly similar. Combichrist's frontman has two side projects: Icon of Coil (lighter, cleaner sound) and Panzer AG (strong military feel, perhaps similar to Funker Vogt in some ways).
Also, Real Synthetic Audio (synthetic.org) is a weekly webcast of industrial/synthpop/etc. music that would introduce you to quite a few different bands, most likely one of the quicker ways to see what you like/dislike. All previous shows are archived online.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Thanks for all your suggestions.
Pheezer, you've pretty much blown my mind. I've already found a couple of tracks from KMFDM that I like, but you're right, they can be pretty OTT a lot of the time. A lot of industrial seems to be "screaming into the mic" stuff, I can't say I've ever really been a fan of that kind of music. I'm not really looking for "dark" stuff in general.
I'd forgotten about the Matrix soundtrack until Tycho mentioned it, I'm sure there's a couple of tracks in there that would probably work.
The NeoTokyo tracks that MGS Demo linked are actually pretty close to the kind of stuff I was looking for, although maybe a bit too slow paced for an action game. But then again, the music was designed for games anyway, so maybe I just need to try it and see. Would certainly be worth picking up the album, they're pretty good for being mod guys.
Might try Juno reactor next and see. If anyone's got more recommendations, keep them coming, this is all good stuff.
Aphex Twin
Cut Copy
Flying Lotus
The Knife
Cyberpunk is really vague for music, but check what I posted
Sorry, but that's what cyberpunk is -- oppressive megacorps dominating everything and humanity scraping what it can out of the cracks between the corps.
GitS is more post-human/transhuman thriller with a light sprinkling of cyberpunk. Post-cyberpunk or something.
Punk is all about fighting the entrenched social systems; often because one doesn't understand or can't relate to them. The cyber just means this happens in (because of?) a high technology setting.
There has been no apocalypse. The world still moves forward. But it just does it at a stagger because of the concussion science gave it during that last bar brawl.
Cyberpunk is a transitory state. Society will figure out what it is doing in a few years, the rebellious attitudes of the citizenry will die down and things will go on at a more sedate pace.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
I'm fond of tricky, the chemical brothers, and the crystal method as well - all three have a LOT OF SINGLES you will recognize from movies and TV
more industrial ish stuff:
Rollins band
My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult
Nietzer ebb
Severed Heads
Einsturzende Neubauten
PIG
Neuromancer is a decent pop band with a strong (obviously) cyberpunk influnence. Specific songs I'd check out would be Berlin and Neogeisha
I feel like mentioning kraftwerk just to funny
also Ramstien is up this alley, but listen to a whole album, not just "du hast" or "moskow"
Straylight Run is band with NOTHING to do with cyberpunk other then a name.
On other pop:
I personally think that because of the tonal link with noir, and because of the link with urban dystopia, artists like lou reed, tom waits, and too many assorted jazz and blues artists to mention - the stuff I see myself scoring a noir movie with - can help build a cyberpunk soundtrack and mood.
Cyberpunk itself was being thought up to more proto-punk and punk - the dammed, iggy pop, GG Allen, the stranglers, the kinks, etc, and then, ironically, by the time it filtered out to bookshelves the bell curve on punk was on the way down.
I host a podcast about movies.
His name is Klayton Scott (used to be Scott Albert). You've heard his stuff in trailers and on tv and you have no idea who he is, but he's one of the best industrial artists out there. His s/t album is awesome, and his older stuff (Circle of Dust and Brainchild) is equally great, although it is Christian. He seems to have dropped the Christian ideals for some unknown reason but his music has always been really good. Give him a look.
Looks like I'm going to have to check out some of the stuff Pheez recommended too. I'm all over the industrial, but he's made me look like a neophyte. It's really too bad that you have to wade through a lot of garbage to find the real good industrial.
Man my playlist is going to expand something fierce if I actually manage to get hold of all the stuff I'm finding here.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
This is actually what I was going to recommend.
A lot of goa/psytrance fits cyberpunk well. Virtuosity (old, old movie) used Juno Reactor's "Samurai" track very well back in the mid-90's.
A couple of the tracks from the original post, though, remind me very much of a group called Hooverphonic, specifically their Blue Wonder Power Milk album. If that's what sound you're looking for, maybe check out that album.
If you're up for more techno stuff, I'd actually recommend some early BT, Ima or ESCM, more or less goes with that sound without being too heavy. Though if you're into heavier techno I can make a pretty exhaustive list of artists...
Always felt techno was the best cyberpunk sound, but I'm biased
Glad you like it.
You can get the s/t and remix albums from CDBaby.com. He's got another kind of B-Sides album on there that's mostly instrumental and pretty good as well. The guy can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned.
K.I.D.s.
INFANiTy World
Antidepressant O44
Also, it doesn't particularly fit your theme besides having a matching title but you might enjoy this too.
However, I will second The Knife and Crystal Castles.
The only other (obvious) answers I can think of are big Trip-Hop acts and Drum and Bass stuff.
I'd actually be interested in finding some stuff that's more slower and deliberate, and poppy at the same time. Stuff that's actually close to the anime soundtracks that have already been mentioned.
And to add another to the list, the Gasaraki Soundtrack will probably be hard to find, but it DEFINITELY fits the bill.
It's only like, the greatest industrial album ever.
Though its definately more... depressing than the stuff cited in the OP...
think they are technically Drum & Bass, but all instrumental and feels like listening to a soundtrack of a sci-fi movie at times.
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