While I have taken issue with certain titles and their “liberal” use of licensed music, it remains for many franchises as a necessary part of the industry….but does it have to? With the release of MadWorld on the Wii earlier this year, Naoto Tanaka proved that a licensed soundtrack can be completely eliminated with a little hard work. Composing all of the backing tracks in Japan, Tanaka was able to create interesting beats and melodies without having to rely on a licensing department to do all of the work of trying to find music that fits into the stylistic confines of the game. With a majority of the soundtrack residing securely in a hip-hop style, Tanaka stood back and picked a number of artists to contribute lyrics and rhymes to the game, making for quite an interesting collaboration.

Excerpt From ‘Ain’t That Funny’ - Sick YG

With the music complimenting the visceral nature of MadWorld, another case is made for the abandonment of licensed music all together (music games excluded of course). When I look at the album as a whole a certain personality is immediately identifiably within both the lyrics and stylistic choices that Tanaka made, something that seems completely absent in games that employ the use of licensed music. Sure, some of the tracks are nothing special and give me no reason to listen to them more then once, but it retains more character then the almost cookie cutter music choices made by most sports and driving games…coughmaddencough.

Excerpt from ‘You Don’t Know Me’ - Bandy Leggz

Much like I talked about in my segment on the Street Fighter HD remix, with the creation of this soundtrack there was a chance that something could have been lost in translation with the collaboration between east and west, but fortunately for us, it managed to turn out pretty damn well. All of the MC’s, with a majority being relatively unknown (I had to check out their other tracks on their myspace pages), managed to show off their skills without making it sound forced or artificial and in doing so avoiding the pitfalls that usually accompany licensed music. An MC going by the name of Ox takes up a majority of the tracks adding a needed component of consistency throughout.

Excerpt from ‘Soul’ - Ox

MadWorld proves once again that you don’t need licensed music to create a successful and well-received soundtrack. The risk that Tanaka took should be noticed by the game industry in how sound, as well as game design, can work as a collaboration between both eastern and western minds.

-Eric Wall

Tags: Hip-Hop, MadWorld, Music Monday, Naoto Tanaka, Wii

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