[Hip-Hop/Rap:] GTA – Little Bit of This (feat. Vince Staples)
And for the last time I ain’t on no conscious shit
I like big girls, fast whips, ass & tits,
Mansions of white women, might jack some shit
So stop actin’ like I’m a activist
House DJ and producer GTA has shown he can be versatile. With singles and remixes spanning several different genres, it comes to surprise that he can bring his unique sound to a hip-hop track. “Little Bit of This” features up and coming rapper Vince Staples rapping over an interesting beat with an almost Latin or Asian feel to it. Staples wordplay is just as interesting, “Been crazy come where you livin’ at/kick down the door/get down to get dough/and I ain’t come here for the chitty-chat” and the insanely catchy chorus solidifies the funky flow.
“Little Bit of This” has enjoyed some exposure being the “trailer” theme song for the Watch Dogs 2 video game, for Xbox One and Playstation 4. The soundtrack features a variety of music from many different genres and is as varied and inclusive as a GTA soundtrack.
Trap DJ Hoodboi has had success in his genre and through remixes of his and by others into Jersey House and club songs. “Closer” is an easily-missed gem that has some quality vocals and interesting melodies worth checking out. Particularly in the Rytmeklubben remix, there is a stark contrast of heavy bass and drops into trap snares with light bell noises and calming female vocals. Check the song out above, and for a more uptempo Jersey House remix check out DJ Hoodboi & Falcons remix of Ty Dolla $ign’s “Paranoid” below:
CiD is certainly an artist to be reckoned with. Having dropped numerous bangers on his own, and with fellow house giant “Kaskade,” I still have yet to find music from him that I don’t really like. “Love is Blind” is an awesome future bass-house track that pumps up the volume with slowed down vocal samples over futuristic and far out electro-synths. The result is a song with instruments you’d normally associate with a more chill, mellow house cut being used to create a floor-filling club banger. Check out other songs I’ve featured by CiD such as his collaboration with Kaskade in “Us” or one of his more recent house bangers “Sweet Memories”
[Dance House]
GTA & Wax Motif – Get It All
EDM producer GTA does it again, with help from house producer Wax Motif in “Get It All.” While the song doesn’t really do anything sonically that is very novel or unique, it’s combinations of melodies is soothing to the ear and you can’t help but bop to it. Check out a rap collab by GTA and rapper Vince Staples in “Little Bit of This.”
[Future Trap/Rap]
Ghost (feat. Vince Staples) [Major Lazer Remix] – With You
You can also check out a very cool Future EDM type track featuring Vince Staples in “Ghost” by With You above.
(Original production for PS2 game Harmonix’s FreQuency) Science Genius Girl
DJ Hero 2’s deadmau5 Megamix feat. Kaskade
Second Feature, DJ Tiesto’s Megamix in DJ Hero 2:
Freezepop’s popular music video for TENISU NO BOIFURENDO
As a gamer (when time permits) I can’t not highlight music inspired by, from and featured in video games. In fact, there are several games of days past that I can solely attribute to accentuating my love of EDM (electronic dance music) [for a list of good music video games check below].
SSX Tricky and more notably SSX 3 on GameCubefeatured a wide variety of artists including many British EDM acts as well as hip-hop. This game was the first to introduce me to artists such as, The X-Ecutioners, LCD SoundSystem, Audio Bullys and Jason Nevins’ remix of N.E.R.D.’s “Rockstar” with a soundtrack that featured a lot of electronic and UK house music.
Underground sleeper-favorite, blur, a racing game released by the makers of Geometry Wars on PS3 and Xbox 360, had an incredible EDM-filled soundtrack as well. The game sadly went under, probably due to a lack of a good marketing, but its concept was revolutionary, combining the weapon firing elements of Mario Kart with the sports-car inner-city racing thrills of Need For Speed Underground or Midnight Club, blur was way ahead of its time. Check out the blur soundtrack starting with Spank Rock’s “Bump (Best Fwends Remix)
Notables: Shades of Blue, Everyone Says Hi, Cherry Lips] For this feature I am highlighting a song out of the Playstation 2 series of music games, “FreQuency” and “Amplitude“. Revolutionary for their time, these games combined elements of rail shooters with music production, where the player would control tracks (such as bass, drums, vocals, FX, etc.) and by successfully tapping the notes the actual tracks would play and be added (or skip or get silenced if you mess up) as you successfully clear the stage. Someone playing S.C.G. by Freezepop in Rock Band
Freezepop was a well-known band through the games alone where they contributed some original music productions that could be called sci-fi techno, trance or just early EDM music. They also created another song called Super Sprode for Harmonix’s sequel to FreQuency, Amplitude, a fan/cult favorite music game that was way ahead of its time. With the song-creating elements of the first game and online interactivity Amplitude is known as one of the greatest music games of all time. There is currectly a KickStarter campain to create a sequel to Amplitude for PS4.
EDM giant deadmau5’s Megamix featuring House legend Kaskade
Next, from another popular, but also sadly defunct music game series, comes a stunningly-good megamix of songs by DJ Tiesto featured in the game DJ Hero 2, also produced by Activision. This game was very similar to their other music series, Guitar Hero but featured an actual turntable peripheral used to play the game, scratch and cut-up audio tracks. Though the game was immense fun, it’s very mainstream songlist, huge jump of difficulty from Hard to Expert (much harder than in GH) and lack of support for online play and DLC (though there was a lot of DLC upon first release) led to its eventual demise. DJ Hero by far however was not the first game to use a turntable peripheral, neither was Guitar Hero the first to use guitar add-ons. These medals below to Konami, Japanese video game publisher who’s BEMANI music video game series (started back in 1998) and the obsession of my life from about age 10-19 with their breakout series beatmania, it’s follower beatmania IIDX, and their most popular series to date, Dance Dance Revolution. Video Games with Popular or Prominent Soundtracks: The entire Dance Dance Revolution series Final Fantasy series (notably VII, IX, X, XI and XIII) Audition (Korean PC free-to-play music series) The entire beatmania IIDX series Guitar Hero (3, World Tour, 4) Pump It Up SSX Tricky, and SSX 3 Grand Theft Auto Series & Sleeping Dogs FIFA games and many other EA titles
![[Hip-Hop:] GTA – Little Bit of This (feat. Vince Staples) *from Watch Dogs 2 // [Dance/Trap:] Hoodboi – Closer (feat. ASTR) [Rytmeklubben Remix]](https://illuminousmusic.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/e3-2016-mce-teste-en-avant-premiere-watch-dogs-2.jpg?w=640)
![[Dance/Club House:] CiD – Love is Blind & GTA & Wax Motif – Get It All // [Future Trap/Rap:] With You – Ghost (ft. Vince Staples)](https://illuminousmusic.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/dt9cry.jpg?w=1200)
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