Atari Music

Video game inspired mp3s after the jump.

A few years ago I picked up an Atari 2600 and a bunch of games at a thrift store. I never had an Atari as a kid. I always had to go to the neighbor's house to play his Atari, which was frustrating because he could give me a sound thrashing on pretty much every game. Finally, after much begging, I did get my own videogame system, but it was, dammit, Intellivision ("intelligent television"). 16 bits be dammed, it just didn't have the cool games, and instead of having the cool kids over to my house, I ended up stuck playing Poker and Golf with the adults in my family. Boring! That's my step-brother and I looking not-so-psyched about our new gift in the photo.

Finally getting my own 2600 proved to be cathartic, even if I did lose interest in most of the games rather quickly. Still, there's nothing like a lazy Sunday afternoon with the old-school Atari, and just the right music playing in the background. Music like this and this and this.

I enjoy the background music/video game combination so much that I decided to rename all of my cheesy Euro-disco and New Wave and Glam and Classic Rock. It is now, according to my iTunes, "Atari Music". Of course, I wasn't the first to think of this. Why, during the early 80s there was already such a genre...and it all revolved around quickie albums released to cash in on the booming video game craze. 

In 1982, the record label Kid Stuff started putting out records based on the most popular video games. The first three albums were for Atari's flagship games: Asteroids, Missile Command, and Yars Revenge. Each included an incredibly catchy theme song followed by a usually rather nonsensical adventure story. Thanks to the 365 Days Project for turning me onto this a few years ago.

Theme song mp3s
Atari Theme     Missile Command     Fly, Yar Warriors, Fly

Heck, while we're at it, let's do one of the stories (with the theme songs included).
"While on a routine mission, the Cosmic Space Patrol ship, Intrepid, is trapped in a time-warp and is rocketed into the past! It's up to Captain jim Stanton and his computer sidekick, Chip Brain, to find their way back to safety. Blast off for adventure with Atari's Asteroids!"

Asteroids adventure mp3s
Asteroids Theme (Got one!)   
Meet the Captain     Red Alert
Timewarp  (another Asteroids song, with a vinyl skip that provides the perfect compliment)
Earth 1983     Asteroid Fight

More nefarious is the promotional flexi-single for the video game company Data Age. Their games were incredibly lame and quickly forgotten (though they did make the classic Journey Escape game, featuring, yes, the band Journey), but this psychedelic mind-warp of a kiddie record, appropriately titled "Mindscape", deserves to be placed in a time capsule. I don't recommend trying to play a video game with this in the background. But it is good for other *ahem* recreational activities.

mp3: Mindscape

The Digital Press video game sounds database includes all of the above, as well as tons of sound effects clips from actual games, and a collection of recent electronic music inspired by classic video games (arcade and home).  And right here on the BoB you can find some Nintendo-inspired music.

While some were marketing silly stories and songs, a small company in California was trying to cash in with a video game record of their own - this one without music, or much of anything else.

Curtis Hoard, an "Atari champion finalist" (whatever that means), recorded Conquer the Video Craze, a spoken word album describing how to play the hot arcade games in detail. The excellent Dinosaur Gardens blog did a good job digging up a bit of information about this album, and also posted the whole thing for download. Go check it out, but in the meantime...

Here's an mp3 sample:  Cenitpede

Now, I've played this game maybe a thousand times, and still can't visualize what the heck Curtis Hoard is attempting to describe. "The centipede line always comes out from just under the foruth digit reading right to left, or the third digit reading left to right," which basically means, you know, at the top. I can't imagine trying to follow this record without having it on your walkman and standing right in front of the game - and there's no way you'd hear his soothing monotone over the racket of an arcade. 

It wasn't just the kiddies and cash-ins that embraced video games on vinyl. Of course, yes, there's Pac Man Fever, but there are also quite a few other examples of video game inspired pop songs. One of my all time favorites is by D.C. go-go pioneers Trouble Funk. Their truly inspired "Arcade Funk" mixes break-dance beats with arcade style - or break dance style with arcade beats, either works. And speaking of arcades, how about Black Randy and the Metrosquad's kinetic no-wave song "I Slept in an Arcade", as featured in the film Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains. Hmm, come to think of it, that may be a different kind of arcade. Whatever, it's a great song, and posting it gives me a good excuse to share this photo of Randy.

mp3s:  Arcade Funk     I Slept In An Arcade

But what about the Atari 2600? It didn't feel the musical love until recently, thanks to North Carolina rappers Little Brother, who made this Isley Brothers meets RZA schmoove groove in honor of the #1 classic home video system. Fuck Playstation and Dreamcast - Atari 2600 is for the children! Heck, this song alone makes this whole post worth reading through.

mp3: Atari 2600

But, really, no Atari lover can really hold a candle to this guy.

More Video Games on Beware of the Blog:
Commodore 64:   Music      System      Shatner
Mario Brothers:  Kill Warrio!     ACapella    Orchestral   
Video Game Field Recordings
And, of course, I am completely addicted to WFMU's own Asteroids machine. 

Juego Terminado!

Comments

[Emmett]

Peanut Butter Wolf released a 7" by "El Captain Funkaho" that is an homage to Atari 2600 that features a Black Sabbath sample. He does shout-outs to various Atari games. A great record!

[Tobbe]

Rymdkraft (a Swedish musician) produces music that can be described as "bit pop with 8-bit influences", meaning it's not solely chip, there's analogue synthesizers and stuff in the mix as well. Worth a listen!

http://www.rymdkraft.com/

[$mall ¢hange]

also check hrvaski's 'Marbles' on Planet Mu from a few years back, samples Marble Madness, one of my favorite track ball games of the early 80s.

And the cocoa brovas (aka Smif and Wesson) 'Super Brooklyn' which jacks the super mario bros theme to good effect.

Anyways great post! My girl scored that 'Conquer the Video Game Craze' LP a few years ago and believe me, I was mad jealous. I knew about it cos Kid Koala was scratching it when he was on my show a wee minute ago.

$¢

[MrDork]

You can't forget about the kings of video game music, Buckner & Garcia.

[Anon]

The Missle Command ditty sounds like another cameo for the venerable Casio VL-Tone.
http://www.synthmuseum.com/casio/casvltone01.html
Da?

[tofu]

and then, of course, there was Uncle Vic's "Space Invader"

also, there's the excellent band of 'droids from Cleveland: Missile Command

[Woody]

Ubu.com has Seth Price's "Video Game Soundtracks 1983-1987 (2001)" archived at:
http://www.ubu.com/sound/price.html (scroll down the page some)

also, the out-of-print 8-Bit Construction Set (Cory Arcangel/Paul B. Davis) "Atari vs Commodore" 12" is pretty damn hot. If you dub the last track of each side over to your old school computer tape drive, you can run an organ program and 303 emulator on your old atari and commodore platforms.
http://www.beigerecords.com/products/beg-004.html

[Liz B.]

Squeal - My head is gonna explode with all of this geekness! Thanks, Clinton!

Here's a real audio link to Captain Funkaho "My 2600"

[Michael]

Hey!, the neighbors with Ataris would always come over to my place to play Intellivision. Astrosmash over Asteroids any day.

[Henry Lowengard]

You can make fun of old-stlye games - I was never addicted to anythng but Klondike - but I really like this version of PONG: http://www.plasmapong.com/

[ResidentClinton]

Thanks for more video game music links, everyone. Just what I was hoping for. But that Captain Funkaho song is the HOTTEST! Thanks, Liz!

Oh, and I completely forgot about Astrosmash, that was indeed a fun game, but it still couldn't trump the overall coolness of a 2600 (at the time, anyway). That said, nothing can trump the arcade version of Asteroids.

[fatty jubbo]

I loved those Data Age games. If I remember right, they were quite cheap and the actual games were confusing and stupid. I loved searching out the retarded cheap games.

My father worked for Borroughs- a company that manufactured chips and circuit boards. When we finally got that 2600- we had access to all sorts of games because Borroughs manufactured the game chips. We had this bare circuit board cartridge that we would put the chips into and we had to pry the chips out with a butter knife when we wanted to play a different game.

[fatty jubbo]

I went searching for some actual atari music I never remember there being much in the way of music in most games- but I wanted to hear what sort of dumb melodies they came up with out of the rudimentary blips and bloops. Instead of trying to find mp3s, I downloaded a 2600 emulator. I need to stop here because I know it will eat up most of my time! but YIKES! I just found a 2600 game of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and it's as stupid yet amazing as you would expect!

[Dale Hazelton]

She Blinded Me with.....VIDEO GAMES!

http://blog.thomasdolby.com/?p=242

These guys say the have +60,000 musical selections sampled from Amiga so far. Enjoy!

http://amp.dascene.net/about.php

Oh, if you long to hear names like "Tandy" and "Unisonic", check out these Uber-Nerds and get yerself a new LCD watch:

http://www.pocketcalculatorshow.com/

[Steve PMX]

You aint the only one! Mike the 2600 King has been doing his thing for a while now along side his fellow crew members in the LitterThugs. Representing out of Minneapolis at the moment, Mike gives us these two tracks of pure genius. Nintendo Ghetto House: Sampling straight from the NES, Mike drops these club tracks feauting sampling from Castlevania and Mike Tyson's Punch Out. Enjoy.

http://twelvecarpileup.com/mp3s/Castlevania-P.mp3
http://twelvecarpileup.com/mp3s/PunchThatShitOut.mp3

from http://callmemickey.blogspot.com/2006/09/mike-2600-king.html

[Woody]

There's also the video by the group Golden Shower that takes a trip through Atari classics with an Atari-ish soundtrack:

http://www.newvenue.com/archives/feature44/

[mister caz]

wonderful. I paid a pretty penny for the Arcade Funk 12" back in the day.
or maybe it just seemed like a lot because I was.. always poor/always broke.

[Gavin]

Thanks for posting the song by Little Brother. I've never heard it before and it inspired me to put a video together for it. I've actually got the Atari symbol tattoed on my back!

http://www.13tongimp.com/index.php/archive/little-brother-atari-2600/

[David]

Speaking as an individual who bought both an Atari 5200 and a Vectrex unit at a videogame swap-meet a week ago, I thank you for this post.

[bloomboy]

hey you guys, atari mania gone loco!
this kid remixes authentic butoh video loops, bangrha dance and old timesy fiddle playing in realtime with old school atari games and a specially constructed 2600 games console! check it out
http://www.gabba.tv/taojoystick.html

[KGB]

This is an absolute treasure trove of music. I've saved all of it to my hard drive for posterity.

I find especially laughable the bit of multi-culti pablum in the Asteroids track about returning to 1983 Earth, "home to thousands of cultures, all equally valid." Yes indeed, all cultures are equal. And here I've been needlessly worried about these jihadists that want to slit my infidel neck. Silly me! I take it that in the Sunnyvale of 1983, ignorance was represented by a series of 1's and 0's.

[mandrixx]

if you wanna hear the tunes from the atari, amiga, C64 or PC in just a click without installing software, go to http://www.plopbox.net

it's an oldschool music archive and jukebox

enjoy!

[GamersInstinct]

Man those sounds brought back memories. I spent hours of my youthful life on those games.

[Washington State DUI]

I was a Yars Revenge junkie. Those sounds were classic clunky video game tones.

[Chadhulhu]

my god, this is awesome, and I thought I was the only one who bought those albums. The story sucked, but at least one song on each album made it worth while.