Pretty much 90% of my taste in music is harvested from ps1 and ps2 skateboard games like the Tony hawk series, grind session and thrasher skate and destroy.
In hindsight the Tony Hawk games often had a
really idiosyncratic song selection that still somehow always fit the vibe. You had the usual suspects in hip hop and punk rock but then you‘d get some Primus, the doors, frank sinatra, Johnny cash and even some Norwegian black metal in there. Iirc Tony himself had a lot of involvement in the track lists. Dude’s a genuine music geek and he seems to be personal friends with like half of the bands on his games. What a legend.
Couple of honorable mentions:
I learned a lot great electronica acts through wipeout and especially REZ. Ken Ishii for the win:
I have no clue how this obscure remix that the abstract-pop giant Cornelius did for an even more obscure Japanese krautrock band, ended up on the grind session ost but I’m glad it did:
Yeah that game had so many bangers:
The soundtracks of the jet set radio games deserve their own thread imho. I love the bubbly turn of the millennium Sega vibes:
Also it’s kinda funny these two tracks that are very obviously about Nintendo characters were even used in a Sega game.
