Super Smash Covers!
Performance and audience engagement in Australian videogame music cover bands
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/prbt.34525Keywords:
Australian cover bands, Boss Fight, The Consouls, soundtrack, videogame musicAbstract
Videogame music has crossed the boundaries of the digital realm and is now performed and remixed in online spaces and live venues. This is due to the interactive nature of gameplay, which promotes the appropriation, rework and remix of game music by gaming audiences. This relationship with music reinforces the engagement of gaming communities with the experiences they have collectively shared in the videogame space and translates it into a new one. In Australia, few bands dedicate themselves solely to the performance of videogame music, partly due to copyright restrictions and niche performance spaces and events, with some bands performing as a professional endeavour and others as a side project. This article focuses on the case studies of Australian videogame music cover bands Boss Fight and The Consouls, whilst analysing the spaces in which they perform, and how real-life performances influence the experiences of videogame communities.
References
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Salen, Katie, and Eric Zimmerman. 2004. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Shaw, Adrienne. 2010. ‘What Is Video Game Culture? Cultural Studies and Game Studies’. Games and Culture 5/4: 403–24. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412009360414
—2011. ‘Do You Identify as a Gamer? Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Gamer Identity’. New Media & Society 14/1: 28–44.
Shuker, Roy. 2012. Understanding Popular Music Culture. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Spring, Katherine. 2008. ‘Pop Go the Warner Bros., et al.: Marketing Film Songs during the Coming of Sound’. Cinema Journal 48/1: 68–89. https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.0.0066
Tushnet, Rebecca. 2007. ‘Copyright Law, Fan Practices, and the Rights of the Author’. In Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World, ed. Jonathan Gray, Cornel Sandvoss and C. Lee Harrington, 60–74. New York: New York University Press.
Wall, Tim. 2003. Studying Popular Music Culture. London: SAGE Publications.
Whiteman, Natasha. 2008. ‘Homesick for Silent Hill: Modalities in Nostalgia in Fan Responses to Silent Hill 4: The Room’. In Playing the Past: History and Nostalgia in Video Games, ed. Laurie N. Taylor and Zach Whalen, 32–50. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
Bennett, Andrew. 1997. ‘Going Down the Pub!’: The Pub Rock Scene as a Resource for the Consumption of Popular Music’. Popular Music 16/1: 97–108. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143000000714
Boss Fight. 2011. ‘Boss Fight Plays Megaman’. Online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdwCKP5OWwQ&t=2s (accessed 10 September 2017).
—2012. ‘Post’. Online at https://www.facebook.com/Boss-Fight-300215303346383/ (accessed 20 August 2017).
Brand, Jeffrey, and Stewart Todhunter. 2015. Digital Australia 2016. Eveleigh, NSW: IGEA.
Buerkle, Robert. 2008. ‘Of Worlds and Avatars: A Playercentric Approach to Videogames’. Doctor of Philosophy, School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern Carolina.
Collins, Karen. 2008. Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory, and Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
—2013. Playing with Sound: A Theory of Interaction with Sound and Music in Video Games. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Diaz-Gasca, Sebastian. 2009. ‘Final Fantasy X: The Relationship between Narrative and Music in RPGs’. Bachelor of Popular Music with Honours, Queensland Conservatorium of Music, Griffith University.
—2015. ‘Music Beyond Gameplay: Motivators in the Consumption of Videogame Soundtracks’. Doctor of Philosophy, Queensland Conservatorium of Music, Griffith University.
Eladhari, Mirjam. 2007. ‘The Player’s Journey’. In The Player’s Realm, ed. J. Patrick Williams and Jonas Heide Smith, 171–87. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc.
Frith, Simon. 1996. Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Homan, Shane. 2004. ‘Introduction’. In Access All Eras: Tribute Bands and Global Pop Culture, 1–16. New York: Open University Press.
Jenkins, Henry. 2012. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203114339
Juul, Jesper. 2005. Half-real: Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Kania, Andrew. 2006. ‘Making Tracks: The Ontology of Rock Music’. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 64/4: 401–414. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-594X.2006.00219.x
Kärjä, Anti-Ville. 2008. ‘Marketing Music through Computer Games: The Case of Poets of the Fall and Max Payne 2’. In From Pac-Man to Pop Music: Interactive Audio in Games and New Media, ed. Karen Collins, 27–44. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Kline, Stephen, Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig De Peuter. 2003. Digital Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture, and Marketing. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Kohler, Chris. 2005. Power-up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc.
Lind, Stephanie. 2016. ‘Active Interfaces and Thematic Events in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’. In Music Video Games: Performance, Politics, and Play, 83–106. New York: Bloomsbury.
Lipscomb, Scott D., and Sean M. Zehnder. 2004. ‘Immersion in the Virtual Environment: The Effect of a Musical Score on the Video Gaming Experience’. Journal of Physiological Anthropology and Applied Human Science 23/6: 337–43. https://doi.org/10.2114/jpa.23.337
Mactavish, Andrew. 2002. ‘Technological Pleasure: The Performance and Narrative of Technology in Half-Life and Other High-Tech Computer Games’. In Screenplay: Cinema/Videogames/Interfaces, ed. Geoff King and Tanya Krzywinska, 33–49. London: Wallflower Press.
Marks, Aaron. 2001. The Complete Guide to Game Audio: For Composers, Musicians, Sound Designers, and Game Developers. Lawrence, KS: CMP Books.
Miller, Kiri. 2007. ‘Jacking the Dial: Radio, Race, and Place in Grand Theft Auto’. Ethnomusicology 51/3: 402–438.
Neil, John. 2004. ‘The Music Goes on and on and on … and on—Popular Music’s Affective Franchise’. In Access All Eras: Tribute Bands and Global Pop Culture, 83–102. New York: Open University Press.
Neumeyer, David. 2009. ‘Diegetic/Nondiegetic: A Theoretical Model’. Music and the Moving Image 2/1 (Spring): 26-39.
Newman, James. 2008. Playing with Videogames. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203892619
Payne, Matthew. 2008. ‘Playing the Déjà-New: “Plug it in and Play TV Games” and the Cultural Politics of Classic Gaming’. In Playing the Past: History and Nostalgia in Video Games, ed. Laurie N Taylor and Zach Whalen, 51–68. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
Plank, Dana M. 2016. ‘Mario Paint Composer and Musical (Re)Play on YouTube’. In Music Video Games: Performance, Politics, and Play, 43–82. New York: Bloomsbury.
Reading, Anna, and Colin Harvey. 2008. ‘Remembrance of Things Fast: Conceptualizing Nostalgic-Play in the Battlestar Galactica Video Game’. In Playing the Past: History and Nostalgia in Video Games, ed. Laurie N. Taylor and Zach Whalen, 164–82. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
Reynolds, Simon. 2011. Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to its Own Past. New York: Faber & Faber.
Salen, Katie, and Eric Zimmerman. 2004. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Shaw, Adrienne. 2010. ‘What Is Video Game Culture? Cultural Studies and Game Studies’. Games and Culture 5/4: 403–24. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412009360414
—2011. ‘Do You Identify as a Gamer? Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Gamer Identity’. New Media & Society 14/1: 28–44.
Shuker, Roy. 2012. Understanding Popular Music Culture. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Spring, Katherine. 2008. ‘Pop Go the Warner Bros., et al.: Marketing Film Songs during the Coming of Sound’. Cinema Journal 48/1: 68–89. https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.0.0066
Tushnet, Rebecca. 2007. ‘Copyright Law, Fan Practices, and the Rights of the Author’. In Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World, ed. Jonathan Gray, Cornel Sandvoss and C. Lee Harrington, 60–74. New York: New York University Press.
Wall, Tim. 2003. Studying Popular Music Culture. London: SAGE Publications.
Whiteman, Natasha. 2008. ‘Homesick for Silent Hill: Modalities in Nostalgia in Fan Responses to Silent Hill 4: The Room’. In Playing the Past: History and Nostalgia in Video Games, ed. Laurie N. Taylor and Zach Whalen, 32–50. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.
Published
2018-12-29
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Diaz-Gasca, S. (2018). Super Smash Covers! Performance and audience engagement in Australian videogame music cover bands. Perfect Beat, 19(1), 51-67. https://doi.org/10.1558/prbt.34525
