Sleeping around

Like some people I know, music and videogames have fallen into bed together

So, here it is: I have a friend named Sonia*. She’s a psychology major, Asian, likes to go out. You can usually find her knocking back breakfast beers at the local cafe come 5 a.m. most weekends. With her designer fringe, shitty day job, Onitsuka sneakers and weekend drug habit, Sonia is your typical music scenester—a minor player on the fringes of the local music scene. Or, at least she was. That all changed the night she slept with Will.I.Am from the Black Eyed Peas…
     Well, to be honest, nothing really changed; Sonia simply became known as the girl who slept with Will.I.Am. Still, for better or worse, that was her claim to fame.
Of course, Sonia slept with Will.I.Am about three years ago when the Black Eyed Peas toured Australia for the first time. Back then, they were only starting to make inroads into the mainstream and were allowed to scoff drugs and bed the locals as much as they wanted to. They were merely ‘keeping it real’. There was no Fergie, no Justin Timberlake collaborations and no platinum plaques to speak of.
     These days, it’s hard to escape the group. They’re all over the radio, the television, the internet—wherever you choose to lurk. Mind you, that isn’t saying much. Hotdogs from Big Brother got his own television show. The Crazy Frog ringtone reached number one in the charts. And George W. Bush is the US President. Clearly, the level of competency required to reach mass media saturation or, for that matter, get elected to the highest office in politics, isn’t what it used to be. There is, it can be argued, little prestige in being the smartest person in a roomful of morons.
     So, how does one gauge success when someone as chronically untalented as Hotdogs or George W. Bush can be forced down our throats on a regular basis? Who are the true stars in the midst of this low rent approach to mass media notoriety? What is the next big arena?
     It would appear new parameters for defining success have had to be set. For the Black Eyed Peas, their status as ‘international superstars’ was confirmed when Electronic Arts chose the group to front their game Urbz: Sims in the City. An extension of E.A.’s flagship Sims series, the game not only uses the Peas’ music, it features the members as an integral part of the game play. As the blurb on the back of the box explains, ‘The Black Eyed Peas appear as themselves throughout the game, teaching players hip moves and unlocking special missions’… all while wearing pastel suits! (Strangely, it doesn’t mention this fact on the box.)
     Of course, using licensed music in a videogame is nothing new, especially when it comes to E.A. The company is more than happy to tell anyone who will listen that having a track featured in either their Madden or FIFA series can break an artist internationallly.
‘Before being featured on Madden 2003, the band (Good Charlotte) had sold 300,000 records in the US; afterwards it sold 3.5 million,’ boasts Simon Schnur, E.A.’s worldwide executive of music and media.
     And this isn’t an isolated example. Australian band, Jet, were able to conquer the US market via their inclusion in FIFA 2004. Radio stations initially refused to play their debut single, ‘Be My Girl’. But once people heard the track in the game, they began to call up and request it. Similarly, Lil Jon was able to hit the Australian Top 10 with a hip-hop track taken from Need for Speed: Underground. Public response forced Austereo to add it to rotation and the track steadily climbed the charts from there.
     Urbz: Sims in the City was something else entirely, though. It wasn’t just a matter of compiling a nice soundtrack to assist with the marketing. The entire game was based around the music, style and credibility of one group. As Schnur explains, 'Will.I.Am went back to the studio to custom mix the songs in "Simlish", the game’s original, quirky language. It’s the very first time a band has re-recorded their album in another language specifically for a game.’
     Essentially, Urbz was as much about selling the Black Eyed Peas and their latest album (from which the game’s songs were derived) as it was about the game itself. It was the missing link between the music and videogame industries and the logical progression to a cross-media orgy that has been brewing for some years.
     You see, it wasn’t the first game to attempt this; but it was the first to successfully integrate the two media after various failed experiments. Innocent or not, the idea of a Michael Jackson game in which you must rescue little children from the clutches of ‘Mr Big’ seems ill-conceived these days. As does the Aerosmith game where you ‘use music to defeat the evil New Order Nation’. Right…! And, while we’re at it, the less said about the Make My Video games released for the Mega CD (and starring the likes of INXS and Kriss Kross) the better.
     The thing is, store shelves are currently flooded with cheap cash-ins for the latest movie blockbuster. And while only the worst kind of drunken masochist would purchase Fantastic Four: The Game, there’s no denying these movie spin-offs sell by the truckload. The success of Urbz: Sims in the City would therefore suggest that store shelves lined with games ‘based on the album’ might not be as far-fetched as some imagine.
     Indeed, Electronic Arts is already moving to consolidate its position in this emerging area. ‘E.A. Tracks’ is an initiative of the company that aims to ‘formalise in-game music and set new industry standards for fair licensing, label cross-promotion and artist involvement’.
     Which means more games like Urbz—in which a prominent artist adds their likeness, music and style—are inevitable. No doubt Puffy, or Diddy as he prefers to be known these days, is chomping at the bit for a game based around him and his next opus. (He’s humble like that.)
     As for Sonia, she’ll forever be known as ‘The Girl who slept with Will.I.Am’. And we’re reminded of this fact, every time we turn on the radio or the television—or, more to the point, pop into EB Games—and see the Black Eyed Peas.

*Name changed to protect the innocent/guilty.

Words: Mikolai