All Hail Devo: How Mixtape's Soundtrack Made It May's Surprise Hit
Ignore the haters: American teens absolutely listened to The Jesus and Mary Chain in the '90s. That the music somehow isn't accurate is the most off-base criticism lobbed at Mixtape, Beethoven + Dinosaur's new game about a music-loving teen's "perfect" mixtape. Sure, the Scottish noise-mongers were far from the most popular band at the time, but they weren't that obscure; they were on major labels, their records were easily found at chain stores, they played the mainstage of Lollapalooza in 1992 (Pearl Jam actually had an earlier slot than them), and their 1994 song "Sometimes Always" hit the Billboard Hot 100 and got regular airplay on MTV. Hell, I spent the summer of 1993 listening to their Honey's Dead tape on repeat while playing Might and Magic II on the Genesis. Almost all of the bands in Mixtape are entirely believable playing on the stereo of a '90s high schooler, especially in the first half of the decade, when "alternative" was ascendant and before teen pop and nu metal took over the airwaves. Of course, Mixtape rarely goes with those bands' biggest songs or most recent hits. And that tells you a lot about the game's main character, Stacey Rockford. She's the kind of passionate, restless music fan who would know her favorite bands' deepest cuts. By the time we meet her, at the end of her senior year of high school, she probably would've long since moved away from reading Spin or Rolling Stone in favor of zines, Magnet, and the then-nascent web. She absolutely bought a whole bunch of tapes based on Sassy's Cute Band Alerts. She's a true searcher, not content to just listen to whatever the radio plays, and the result is a soundtrack that feels like a personally curated mixtape. And, well, that's what it is, although it wasn't curated by an entirely fictional American teenager in the '90s, but by the Australian musician and game developer Johnny Galvatron. Galvatron happily acknowledges that Mixtape's music is a direct reflection of his own personal tastes, both today and when he was a teenager. He makes no bones about what he calls its "undeniable rock 'n' roll core," and credits the game's first song as the key to the whole soundtrack, and the inspiration for Mixtape as a whole. Continue Reading at GameSpot
Ignore the haters: American teens absolutely listened to The Jesus and Mary Chain in the '90s. That the music somehow isn't accurate is the most off-base criticism lobbed at Mixtape, Beethoven + Dinosaur's new game about a music-loving teen's "perfect" mixtape. Sure, the Scottish noise-mongers were far from the most popular band at the time, but they weren't that obscure; they were on major labels, their records were easily found at chain stores, they played the mainstage of Lollapalooza in 1992 (Pearl Jam actually had an earlier slot than them), and their 1994 song "Sometimes Always" hit the Billboard Hot 100 and got regular airplay on MTV. Hell, I spent the summer of 1993 listening to their Honey's Dead tape on repeat while playing Might and Magic II on the Genesis. Almost all of the bands in Mixtape are entirely believable playing on the stereo of a '90s high schooler, especially in the first half of the decade, when "alternative" was ascendant and before teen pop and nu metal took over the airwaves. Of course, Mixtape rarely goes with those bands' biggest songs or most recent hits. And that tells you a lot about the game's main character, Stacey Rockford. She's the kind of passionate, restless music fan who would know her favorite bands' deepest cuts. By the time we meet her, at the end of her senior year of high school, she probably would've long since moved away from reading Spin or Rolling Stone in favor of zines, Magnet, and the then-nascent web. She absolutely bought a whole bunch of tapes based on Sassy's Cute Band Alerts. She's a true searcher, not content to just listen to whatever the radio plays, and the result is a soundtrack that feels like a personally curated mixtape. And, well, that's what it is, although it wasn't curated by an entirely fictional American teenager in the '90s, but by the Australian musician and game developer Johnny Galvatron. Galvatron happily acknowledges that Mixtape's music is a direct reflection of his own personal tastes, both today and when he was a teenager. He makes no bones about what he calls its "undeniable rock 'n' roll core," and credits the game's first song as the key to the whole soundtrack, and the inspiration for Mixtape as a whole. Continue Reading at GameSpot
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