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Music is a listening experience and needs to be a work of art.

Video game music is in a golden age.

The Grammy Awards have added a new category for original game music, and music festivals for the masses have begun to feature video game-themed music. In the pop music world, from Japanese Breakfast to Daughter, many independent musicians and bands have composed scores for video games. During the epidemic, like the popular rap song WAP or the popular British singer Dua Lipa's song,"Gather!" The idyllic soothing music of Animal Friends is mesmerizing.

Over time, game music is gradually becoming an important cultural connotation, integrated into people's daily life. So far, however, cultural products aimed at both music and game "double lovers" are rare.

Danny kelleher, founder of Laced Records, is trying to change that. Laced Records provides a wide range of music-related services to the gaming industry, including record production, sound design, and distribution, with its signature product being special edition vinyl records produced for game soundtracks. The overall goal of the company is to bridge the gap between music and games, so that more people realize that game music is also a real art.

Kelleher believes that music will become more important as games become more immersive. Like many players, Kelleher grew up playing games with his brother, Sonic, Iron Fist of Wrath and so on. He developed a strong interest in music and games. To this day, he remembers Iron Fist's varied soundtrack: "It's a mix of techno and techno elements, even a bit of jungle. "

Kelleher's aunt, caroline miller, is the boss of Indigo Pearl, a pr firm that deals with sony, ubisoft, Epic Games, Niantic and others. When Kelleher majored in public relations and marketing at the University of Westminster in England, he accepted his aunt's suggestion to join Indigo Pearl, where he spent his free time helping with public relations matters related to large game companies.

Kelleher, meanwhile, continued to pursue her musical dreams, managing artists, hosting live music shows at local clubs and university venues and hosting a music show at Smoke Radio at Westminster University. British singer-songwriter Lucy Rose was one of the show's early guests and went on to become a well-known indie musician, singing on albums by British rock band Bombay Bicycle Club.

After college, Kelleher spent time in both the music and gaming industries, working for Indigo Pearl for a few years before joining Charm Factory, a music PR agency that worked with artists from Polydor and Universal Records. Kelleher recalls that the music world was fun and cruel, with artists often having to work overtime and sometimes attend impromptu shows after work. "I've become close friends with artists I've worked with, only to see them exploited, exploited, and abandoned by record companies... and buried as soon as their first single doesn't work. "

Kelleher points out that many artists 'bleak experiences in the music industry are completely different from his experience working in the gaming industry. He felt that the game industry was more suitable for work, both commercially valuable and forward-looking, so he began to think about how to help artists enter the game industry as collaborators and create new sources of revenue for them, which is why he founded Laced Records. Today, the company has three main businesses: record production, music distribution and audio design.

In pursuit of perfection, gamers tend to be natural collectors. At the same time, with the rise of digital platforms, a new generation of players are more exposed to downloaded digital versions of games than offline stores, but hardcore players still have demand for physical products, and Laced Records hopes to meet their needs.

Kelleher, like many musicians, is obsessed with vinyl, and he considers Laced Records 'vinyl recordings "both a listening experience and a work of art." Companies tend to work closely with players to create artworks that extend naturally from the game world. In this way, Laced Records created striking, blood-red vinyl records for the anniversary edition of Doom and saw vinyl records for the soundtrack to Disc Room, an action-adventure game in which players dodge a series of spinning blades while solving puzzles.

Statistics show that about 50 percent of vinyl record buyers in the United States do not own a turntable, and gamers are no exception. Kelleher says customers often email customer service teams asking Laced Records for vinyl shelves. "Sometimes I always think, please, the music is beautiful, please play it at least once! Even if you use a friend's record player and hang it on the wall. "

For today's gamers, records are more like peripheral collectibles, and musical attributes tend to be overlooked.

The fantastic Blood Room collection In the music industry, distribution is not necessarily the most glamorous business, but it allows Kelleher to have a significant impact on the connection between the gaming and music worlds. "Many game companies are leaving money on the table by not registering their music with the Copyright Collectors Association…We launched our distribution business last year to help our customers get the revenue they deserve." I spend time talking to clients about the concept of music copyright, how it works, and offering to help them collect royalties. "In the music copyright space, composers usually retain a share of revenue as creators, so collecting royalties will not only bring extra revenue to game studios, but also benefit music artists.

In addition to its record business, Laced Records also provides sound design and composition services for game studios. According to kelleher, larger clients often invite star composers and singers to write music or sing for games, such as absolver, an action game that came out in 2017.

"A developer asked me if I could get RZA, a member of Wu-Tang Clan, to write music for the game because he loves kung fu. I replied as if I had his phone number-my colleague managed to find RZA's agent, who agreed immediately. Although not on a budget, he was invited into the studio to work with composer Austin Wintry on the Battle of the Chiefs song for the game. "

U.S. vinyl sales hit 41 million in 2022, surpassing CDs for the first time in 35 years, and many commentators point out that the music industry has a lot to learn from the gaming industry.

With the rise of the streaming economy, music artists 'incomes have plummeted, and more and more potential artists have had to accept oppressive contracts. At the same time, anyone can download digital music creation software like library band to record a song quickly, and the demand for artists and mature music products seems to be decreasing.

At the same time, the gaming industry is getting bigger and bigger. Kelleher believes that creating a game from scratch is very difficult, and the development threshold is relatively high, so that the future of the entire industry is guaranteed. "If people compare the cost of creating games to the cost of recording albums, there's an amazing gap between the two. Since manufacturers spend so much money to make a game, they must always think about how to make it back. Kelleher said.

There are also cultural differences between music and games. While the music industry has always tried to maintain order with the help of law in the face of emerging technological change, the gaming industry tends to quickly accept and profit from major changes. Kelleher points out that the two industries use freemium in very different ways. While streaming services such as Spotify offer paid content beyond basic subscriptions, the content is fairly limited. F2P games, by contrast, create a complete ecosystem of microtransactions, whether voluntary or guided, in which players can spend unlimited amounts.

Kelleher hopes video games and music can work more closely together for the future As a businessman whose career spans music and games, how does Kelleher see the future of both industries?

"In the future, more and more record labels will see games as platforms for artists to release new albums. There are already companies that use games to promote artists, and I believe we will see more and deeper collaborations, such as record labels releasing albums through games and perhaps even creating songs that are close to the game theme and aimed at attracting players. At the same time, I think indie games are going to be the stage for a whole bunch of indie musicians and emerging composers to shine. "

Last year, System Of A Down lead singer Serj Tankian debuted an original song in the rhythm shooter Heavy Metal: Hell Singer, and Justin Bieber collaborated with the tactical competitive mobile game Free Fire to sing a new song "Beautiful Love" in the game.

Kelleher believes high customization and flexibility are also key factors in determining the future of music and games. As technology advances, adaptive music (music that changes as the narrative changes) will become more complex and provide music artists with plenty of creative and realizable space. He mentioned the No Man Deep Space soundtrack, produced by post-rock band 65 Days of Static--like the game's expansive interstellar world, the soundtrack is procedurally generated, meaning each player will hear a completely different sound.

In addition to the songs for Free Fire, Justin Bieber has hosted virtual concerts on Fortnite and Wave, and Kelleher says players want more game music to offer this near-infinite adaptability. "A lot of young people want to hear music that's freer and more varied, and they'll just turn off the music in the game and listen to their favorite playlist through Spotify…It's a fairly complex field, but if all parties can work together, we might be able to somehow bring external music into the gaming experience and use technology to make music interactive and responsive to play." In fact, I've talked to a few people about it, but it's going to take a while before it rolls out. "

If external music is introduced into a flexible, immersive gaming environment, does the game provide an experience that is very close to the meta-universe? Kelleher bluntly pointed out that the daydreams of metaverse advocates are hard to come by. "Is everyone in the world going to hang around wearing helmets? It's impossible. Tech companies may have the ability to create metaverse worlds, but without gaming companies, they have a hard time making those worlds interesting. If tech companies want people to genuinely want to spend time in the metaverse, they must rely heavily on games. "

In any case, the worlds of music and games are likely to move closer to each other, and people like Kelleher who are proficient and able to explain the unique cultures and nuances of the two worlds will become increasingly important.

This article compiled from: www.nme.com/ features / gaming-features / boss-level-2023-danny-kelleher-3449915

Danny Kelleher has set music and gaming on a collision course

Written by Katherine Bassett

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