Music in an Echo Chamber: Can custom soundtracks hurt variety?

If I might take a page out of the Beastie Boys’ book, then the intergalactic may as well be planetary where matters of music are concerned. What I mean by this is that for all we know now, our species might well be the only one out there making any music at all. Oh sure, birds have their chirps, just as whales’ have their Enya impressions, but if you really want to kick it to some Blackened Acapella Simpsonwave music, then the planet earth is the only place to be.

That, ladies and gentlemen is my very roundabout way of saying that music will move you, provided you aren’t an unfeeling serial killer, or an aspiring politician. Of course, no other medium better captures this inherent sense of ‘motion’ than does video gaming. Here, you don’t just feel the beat: you go fully hands-on with it. Take Rez for instance, a rhythm-based action title that introduced millions to the trippy thrill of ‘synesthesia’, a rather fancy name for “just like, totally connecting with the music maaan”, before throwing your arms about like a crack-addled window cleaner.

Beyond simply enhancing our music, gaming also does a damn good job of introducing us to it. After all, songs always sound better with an attendant story to tell, like the time you hit that human strike of pedestrians in GTA V, the Baker Street sax solo still ringing in your ears. Or how about Spec Ops: The Line, a game in which rock ‘n roll music somehow made going bonkers in the desert seem a sexy good time.

Most important of all however, are those songs that you might never, and I mean eeever have listened to, were it not for the sugared pill of software. I for one can’t tell you how many times I’ve stood at the helm of Ed Kenway’s Jackdaw, cycling through sea shanties like a scurvy-ridden Ipod Shuffle, or cried aloud as my car blew up midway through Willie Nelson’s Crazy. Just this week in fact, I made the long-overdue connection with 80s icons Judas Priest. As it turns out, all I’d ever needed to hear were the strains of Turbo Lover blasting out of a smart-mouthed robot car as it desperately evaded the police.

The game in question: Watch Dogs 2, a title that seems to be making every effort to amuse where its predecessor simply existed. Case in point: the game’s inclusion of a smart, Shazam-alike app that allows players to grab any piece of music from the world around them. Sounds good, right? After all, player choice can only be a boon, and curating your experience is what the modern world’s all about. Well, yes and no. Perhaps it’s the Agent Smith in me talking but I often find that too much freedom tends to overawe a player as much as empower them. When it comes to music, or more specifically soundtracks, this ability to pick and choose your tunes actually has the potential to take away from the aforementioned sense of discovery.

Sometimes, being subjected to something new is the only way to gain an appreciation for it. Think of it as a benevolent form of Stockholm syndrome, except with Pomeranian Acid Jazz subbed in for increasingly handsome freedom fighters. Of course, gamers have always had the option to just turn off the radio, or change the channel, but actually having to ‘collect’ your own songs still feels like a bit of a misstep for me. Not in its intent perhaps, but in the possible repercussions it entails. Ask yourself: would you have enjoyed the likes of GTA: Vice City anywhere near as much if the only songs you’d listened to were the those that grabbed you from the off, and then enticed you into collecting them? I mean, I love Bark at the Moon as much as the next man, but listening to it in every other car ride does seem a little extreme, even for a mass-murdering mobster with crab hands.

What I’m saying here is that curating your life may be all well and good, but just look at what it’s doing to your friends and relatives on Facebook. In reality, your Aunt Janice is a meth-huffing dishwasher from Salford, yet her profile reads like a well-to-do socialite. Billy meanwhile can’t land a date to save his life, yet there he is, pictured alongside a cadre of beautiful women. It’s all part and parcel of what’s often termed ‘the echo chamber’, a rigorously maintained bubble of reassurance and familiarity that all too often blinds people to sensible opinions outside their own. Just head over to Reddit/music to see where this sort of picket-line socialising gets us in the long haul.

Perhaps I’m  being a little premature here. Maybe Watch Dogs 2 will find clever ways to expose players to a wide array of music. Maybe the default soundtrack will be the greatest thing since some bright spark first introduced bread to a knife. I don’t know. I’m just speculating, and a bit of an idiot to boot. 

Enrich my Twitter echo chamber @GamingGoo or @VideoGamerCom. Say agreeable things or be smited!