“Bittersweet” – Hoodoo Gurus
(Words/music: Dave Faulkner, available on Mars Needs Guitars!, Elektra 1985)

Back in 2003, I attended the CMJ Music Marathon, the annual “college radio convention” in New York City that’s basically an excuse to see bands and drink free beers.  One of the few panels that I went to (most were either topics I wasn’t interested in or were far too early) was a panel discussion on music in video games.  At the time, video game music was somewhere between the 8-bit soundtracks embedded in my memory (I probably know the map music from Legend of Zelda better than any song I’ve heard more recently) and the Guitar Hero / Rock Band phenomenon of gaming as musical participation.  Some games – EA Sports games and Grand Theft Auto 3, off the top of my head – started using pop/rock songs in their soundtracks at the time, and game developers, marketers, and A&R people told the small crowd how video games were going to become as important as radio or music videos.  I mildly laughed at the idea then, but in retrospect only laugh at my skepticism now.

Thinking about it a little bit, video games are great vehicles for marketing music for a couple reasons.  First, video games create a captive audience that keeps returning.  We’re programmed to shift stations in the car or flip channels during commercials, but when playing a video game we’re sitting down in front of the TV (save for a bathroom break) for long periods of time.  Even though the soundtracks are swelling with each new game, there’s still a good degree of repeated songs with each repeated play.  Without realizing it, these songs are embedded in our consciousness.  This is where the second part of my theory comes in – when we hear these songs outside of the game, we start thinking about the video game again.  So if you hear a song from the newest edition of Madden football or GTA or Rock Band, it makes you think about the game (which, more often than not, is a pleasant thought).  Then, the positive opinion of the video game transfers to the out-of-context song; it has the power to turn good songs into something great, mediocre songs into something good, and even bad songs into tolerable to slightly favorable ones.

I don’t play a lot of video games anymore, but back around this time I was obsessed with EA’s MVP Baseball 2004 (The one with Albert Pujols on the front of it).  The songs in the game were heavy on early 2000’s alternative rock.  The “biggest” song in the game was the Von Bondies’ “C’mon, C’mon” and otherwise there were smaller, lesser known bands (Stellastar and Snow Patrol among others, with the latter finding success in the ensuing years).  One song, “Bittersweet,” was out of place simply by being the oldest song in the game and one of the few that wasn’t a bland modern punk song.  As I kept leading my New York Mets towards the World Series, “Bittersweet” (an appropriate description of being a Mets fan, by the way) was a welcome rest from the angrier songs in the game.  It’s a fine piece of mid-80s pop rock – some nice background vocals in the pre-chorus, just enough guitar to keep it interesting, and a simple melody that’s pleasant but not annoyingly catchy.  It wasn’t a song that I liked enough to find the album right away, but one that I’d nod along to (and sing along to the “don’t cry-e-ay” part) while adjusting my rosters.  At best, it sounds like something from the last Replacements album – a nice enough song, but nothing worth getting worked up over.

So a few years later, while watching VH-1 Classic late at night, I saw the horrendously dated video.  I was doing work on my couch, so my head was turned away from the screen until I realized that I was singing along.  I looked up and watched the rest of the video just to refresh my memory – I knew the song, and I knew it was from MVP Baseball, but I couldn’t remember the name of the song.  The marketing worked, but only half way – I thought fondly on the Hoodoo Gurus (who have a handful of equally pleasant singles that I have on a couple compilations), but that night I longed for those afternoons spent desperately trying to throw a no-hitter rather than a burning passion to buy their album.

That’s not to say I don’t like the song - it’s deceptively catchy and has a strong arrangement. Faulkner’s voice is uniquely gruff in a way that really just well with those backing vocals I love to sing.  Everything falls into place well - the way the chords change every measure, the way the acoustic guitar cuts right to the front of the arrangement.  But to be perfectly honest, I think the reason I like it (and ultimately hunted it down) was that I had heard it probably a hundred times while playing video games (also, having mostly mediocre songs surrounding it drove its stock higher).

More on Hoodoo Gurus: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm