Seven artists over a few years, inspired by video games as a culture phenomenon. The overused and terrible term that is “video games” doesn’t carry a lot of sense today but during the 80s it meant the future. The dirty, rasterized future with dark video arcade, cigarettes, beers and people shouting. It was street. No parents playing Wii Sports or Kinectimals.
Black music has always been really good at capturing what’s going on and arcade cabinets hit the 80s hard. I counted a dozen R&B funk songs with “video games aesthetics” from 1980 to 1985.
Sampled by Daft.
That’s a lot, there isn’t a single music genre hitting on the computer entertainment like that.
Beyond the obvious will to cash in on a new trend, the themes brought by the arcade culture -obsession, high score, science fiction, humor- seem to have sparkled a lot of ideas within the US black music community and I can understand why: obsession? love and drugs (it’s the 80s, crack startin’), high score? Black people struggling and aiming for better lives (also, NBA spreadin’), science-fiction? Yeah, the 80s were like a bad science-fiction movie for all of them. Humor? That’s how black people deal with things since forever.
Black culture and video game culture were totally understanding each other. That’s why there’s about 2% of black people in the game industry today. /trollface
Wikipedia lists a few artists playing with the 80s game culture. None of the ones below are included. The Deele was part of the mix but because of copyrights I can’t put it on Soundcloud though it’s fine with YouTube. This world, man.
Enjoy.
The Deele – Video Villain, 1983
Street Beat album. The Deele is a funk band from Ohio which will give Kenneth Babyface Edmonds something to do after playing with Bootsy Collins and before becoming a hugely successful producer during the 90s. It’s totally my jam. F.U.N.K.
“Don’t hold back, don’t give me no slack, how are you gonna party with Donkey Kong on your back?”
The Chilly Kids – At the Ice Arcade, 1983
“Hey everybody! You’ve got it where? At the Ice Arcade!” Very early hip-hop band on Sugar Hill Records. They only released this single, which talks about not caring about anything but video games and rocking the Ice Arcade, scoring on all these cabinets. The music is probably composed by the Sugar Hill in-house band. Silly, very 80s.
“Don’t push us cuz we’re close to the edge, we’re trying not to loose our head!” *at the Ice Arcade*
The Gap Band – Video Junkie, 1985
From the Gap Band VI album. It starts like a Japanese classic music rip-off video game music straight from both the Genesis and the Super NES sound chips. Huge synth bass, atmospheric and anxious feeling (playing 80s games, you bet), hypnotic beat that’s the Gap Band in action right here.
“Every time I call her on the phone, that Space Invaders got my girl and gone.”
The end of the song is a nice jam. Bluesy guitar solo, distorted trumpet and sampling experiments, it feels like The Gap Band can just link the oldest form of US black music with the most recent in a song with cultural allusions to video games. In 1985. I love them.
George Clinton – Computer Games, 1982
“Hello! I am the computer game Dracula! I’d like to suck necks”. Pure and perfect P-funk jam with big slap bass, infectious fuzz guitar lick and blips and blobs. Also, Junie Morrison’s and Bernie Worrell’s keyboards controlled insanity.
Ozone – Video King, 1983
“People wonder where I get my speed, I tell ’em I, get another breakfast on the Centipede.”
From the Glasses album. Ozone is an early 80s Motown funk band with a heavy jazz tone (Jazzfunk, that’s it). This is their last album ever and they thought that would be cool to talk about being the Video King. Biggest name-dropping ever: Batman, Space Invaders, Centipede, Astro Blaster, Tron, Donkey Kong, Missile Combat, Frogger, Defender, Asteroids, ???, Zaxxon, Battlezone. And always this mix of synthetic sounds and live instruments. Also, humor.
Dazz Band – Joystick, 1983
From the album Joystick. You can’t represent Funk without a band from Ohio and here’s another one! Dazz Band and its heavy melodic bass lines. The lyrics mixing video game culture and sex are rather smart, considering what we sometimes hear these days:
I can prove that love
Is just live a video game
Just take control of the stick
Of the stick, of the stick
I’ll let you play your game
I know what you’re looking for
And all I want to do is score, yeah
I just want you to be mine
Just take control I’ll let you play me all the time
Take control of the stick
Of the stick, of the stick
Of the stick, of the joystick, baby
The creepy bridge with robotic voice makes me think about a final boss. Would the one you want to be with, be The Final Boss? I’ll let you answer that.
Klymaxx – Video Kid, 1984
“Hello baby, can I play games with youuu?”
From the Meeting in the Ladies Room album. All girl band playing some hard and tight funk. I saw them live a few years ago, they are bad and have irresistible grooves. I love this innocent and easy one. What not to love about a girl singing straight “I’m in love with the video kid”. My nerdy heart from the glory days of the Arcade feels it.
It’s also funny to realize that some of the synthesizers used in all these songs (totally unheard new sounds at that time like the Prophet 5, Oberheim OB-8, Moog or Jupiter8) use the same CPU as our beloved arcade machines, C64, Game Boy or Neo-Geo: the mighty Z80.
The relationship between funk and games goes further. Listen to this 1985 Stevie Wonder’s song and tell me you don’t hear some of the future Genesis tunes in every way. Or listen to Yuzo Koshiro loving him some Soul II Soul. Later on, Michael Jackson himself will get involved with Sonic and Space Channel 5. Funk is fun, fun is a heavy part of games if not the core and so Japanese composers naturally, rationally used its power from illegal James Brown samples in 90s arcade games (I can’t remember which ones, sorry) to Jet Set Radio soundtrack.
Going back to this mix, the 80s video game aesthetic -sharp, synthetic, weird sounds, silliness, anxiety feelings- is incorporated into the music, it’s not just some lyrics saying “I play videogames on the couch” as we have today.
Almost like a love declaration to the “video game” medium or at least acknowledgement of its legacy, early on.
As the medium is still fighting to be truly recognized as a cultural force in 2012, I think it’s cool to witness that it hasn’t always been the case.