Hacker News Reader

Comment by Ftuuky | Hacker News Reader

Me as a kid discovering Wipeout soundtrack was truly mind-bending: Photek, Future Sound of London, Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, Orbital and so many other gems in one go. It was overwhelmingly cool!

View on HN

I believe the Wipeout soundtrack was a introduction to 'real' electronic music to a lot of kids/teens at the time, including me.

The instrumental version of Firestarter is forever embedded in my memories ;-)

It was really amazing how pervasive this music was at the turn of the century, it really was everywhere. Games like Wipeout re-introduced a generation that just missed the tail end of rave culture to Big beat, Trance and Drum & Bass and it really felt like a pivotal cultural moment with how accessible these genres were becoming in the late 90s.

> how pervasive this music was at the turn of the century, it really was everywhere

Everywhere, except the United States.

I know, because I was a States-resident techno-head and I had to go "underground" to experience this stuff with others.

I don't know if it was the echoes of the disco backlash triggered by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco_Demolition_Night (one of my earliest memories), but electronic music was extremely niche in the US at least until Deadmau5 lit up the Jersey Shore circa 2010. And to this day, if you go to certain places like New Orleans, any request for anything electronic will have someone redirect you to the "gay district" (the cultural/musical co-delineation is oddly strict down there)

Very few games have made my heart pound like wipEout did, as the camera panned down and towards the racetrack as that song started. Occasionally I actually played well enough to do the music proud ;-)

Fun how that stuff works. A decade later, Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition is what got my friend group hooked on drum & bass as teens.

Once upon a time, I cranked up the Empirion remix of Firestarter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lEtgbT8v4k in my early 20's car with its low-key boombox while flying down a highway with my non-techno-appreciating friend in the car and I got to see the light go on in his face when he finally "got" it

And then what is invariably the next question: "Is... is there any other music like this?" Me: "Hmmmm, well, there's the rest of Prodigy, but maybe check out this album 'Vegas' by The Crystal Method, like maybe Cherry Twist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLkQ2eLrUMs or Vapor Trail https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNXLCDOC9NQ ... or hey how about Snapshot by Fluke https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOWB4sbZnrg ..."

Hooooooo boy.

Certainly one of my favorite experiences in life is sharing an appreciation for something and just watching as it happens in realtime. It's rare but wow. And now I have a 9 month old son so I get to do it all over again...

Thanks for that, never occurred to me to look for game soundtracks on Spotify until now, https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3E6gcAU0fyq74s3oUomwfo?si=...

I have Hotline Miami's soundtrack favourited for a specific stretch of highway.

I don’t know this game at all, but oh god this soundtrack is amazing! Listened to the first 3 songs so far. Thanks for sharing.

How did they fit so many songs on the 1990s media?

The game shipped on a CD. What's more, after the game booted, you could replace the game CD in the Playstation with your own music CD and the game would play the music from your CD, apply the environmental sound effects, etc.

But the Spotify soundtrack that was linked is 5 hours 27 minutes. Even with poor mp3 encoding, some space for code and data, it seems like an awful lot for one CD. Maybe they just had song excerpts?

The Spotify link is a compilation of all Wipeout soundtracks, not just the first one.

Here's a Youtube link to the original game's soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmkdRG7MQm4

PSX game soundtracks tended to be less than an hour total runtime. The Wip3out (Wipeout 3) soundtrack was amazing too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFkpcgMuotY

Oh I see - yeah like the other comment says, it's music from the 8 zillion other wipeout games as well. The original PSX game just had a CD's worth of CD audio on it.

Oh, I didn't know that! I just knew that you could boot the PS1 without a disc and then insert game discs to listen to their soundtracks (at least with some games).

Was this one of the playstation games where the soundtrack was something you could actually listen to if you put it in a CD player? I remember final fantasy 7 was like that

This comment thread and all the music in that playlist has triggered a massive rush of nostalgia, thanks for linking! I've realised how formative all the design and music I consumed at the turn of the millennium was. Design wise: The Designers Republic, Praystation, We Work For Them. Music wise: Photek, Dieselboy, Sasha, The Chemical Brothers. It really was a unique time, thanks for taking me for a trip down memory lane! :)

I'll still listen to a long Big Beat playlist when doing heavy coding. My go-to is still "Decksanddrumsandrockandroll" from Propellerheads.

Saved, thanks! For when you want to pretend that you're Neo in the original Matrix ;)

Thanks for that link! I just converted it to an Apple Music playlist as well: https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/wipeout-soundtracks-1995...

Thank you!

Thanks for that! I know what’s going on loop for the next few days (at least). Already had a fair few in my library but having the collection there as a playlist is awesome.

I loved that soundtrack too.

Fluke also used Wipeout imagery for their "Atom Bomb" video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHMzCpy0fXc

Wow the visual aesthetic of this video is almost exactly what I've been seeing the kids get into these days.

I never played wipeout but Tony hawks pro skater 1/2/3 had equally eye opening soundtracks for me in punk / rock / hip hop. I was always interested in EDM so now I feel like I missed out but will listen to it today at least!

If you stopped at 3, I suggest checking out the soundtracks for THPS 4, Underground 1 and Underground 2.

I didn’t really feel thps4, but I’ll try again. The tony hawks 1/2 remaster also has some good new tracks also.

I loved how accurate FSOL's music videos were. They had iPhones, iPads, iWatches, google maps, windows surfaces, everything down to a modern day T. The following was uploaded 2007, but I wonder if it was shot or made even earlier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_ZB6jgJMS8

Do you know any more about that video? I feel pretty certain FSOL didn't make it, it looks nothing like any of their others that I'm familiar with and the track wasn't released as a single (it was written for the game).

Yeah that's not FSOL hahaha. I mean the music is but that vid is so obviously not the business.

The only vid I ever knew of them having was this one, it was on a compilation VHS of music videos which had a pair of these prismatic glasses to wear while watching it so that every light source shimmered everywhere [1]. It looks like there's some more official ones they've done on search.

The whole proper electronic music scene was too busy throwing parties to do music videos. I think that was more of a eurodance thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfWMv8Y1V5E

Wow - I've never seen this video before, I wonder if they had input on the visuals or if it was left to the compilation creator. Here's the full tape https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO3rLAs5Ee4 https://archive.org/details/futureshock3vhs

Seeing Lifeforms on TV is my earliest memory of a CGI music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDSDeyfYJ5M

then they did videos for Cascade, Amoeba, Snake Hips pt 1+2, Smokin Japanese Babe, My Kingdom, We Have Explosive, maybe more.

I think most electronic tracks that charted in the 90s got a video? At least in the latter half.

Same with discovering that the in-game advertising for RedBull was actually for a real beverage

Where in game advertising felt real and sensible. Yet was low key

Then advertisers went bat shit insane

it was more like how kubrick made use of real branding in 2001 a space odyssey. it actually played a role in advancing an optimistic futurist aesthetic.

Or, perhaps it was the sweet spot. A few years earlier a 7up advert was the game¹, although to be fair it isn't that bad for a 90s platformer.

¹ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Spot

Cereal mascots also starred in one (starts with a surprise sound effect if you launch the emulator, keep volume low): https://archive.org/details/KELLOGG_201902

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chex_Quest

Pepsiman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsiman_(video_game)

David Perrys game. This one was good because the Brand let him do his own thing. His earlier Global Gladiators for McDonald was also good for same reason, but MCDonald hated it because it didnt feature creepy clown enough :) They insisted on brilliance of "Mac and Me" :-)

You cant hear about it from David himself in this podcast: "The Making of Earthworm Jim with David Perry - The Retro Hour EP319" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzETRBuzfWY

part about advert gaming is at https://youtu.be/UzETRBuzfWY?t=3820

IIRC that was WipeOut XL/2097 and 3 that had proper name-brand electronic music on it. The original one was all a guy called Cold Storage. Still excellent.

They must have been thinking of that yes, but the EU version of the first game did have a few other artists on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wipeout_(video_game)#Music

the in-house soundtrack from _Cold Storage_ is amazing as well. I love to listen to it to this day

And he's on Bandcamp! https://coldstorage.bandcamp.com/

Yes, his music is terrific. Great to put on your headphones and immerse yourself in the layers of sounds. Think my favourite track was called Messij or something.

Don't forget CoLD SToRAGE (Tim Wright)[1]

He did the actual in-game music of Wipeout and the non-Playstation versions of Wipeout 2097.

[1]http://www.coldstorage.org.uk/

I blame this soundtrack for piquing a curiosity in me for electronic music that I never really lost. Listening to Xpander (Edit) by Sasha for the first time as a 9 year old on the Wip3out soundtrack was an interesting experience!

Same here! I'd put the game disc into a CD player and listen to it quite often.

My current pseudo comes directly from the game! :)

I came here to say this and you beat me to it. Absolutely a formative experience for me. I may have to replay it soon.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com