Ever wonder why EA Sports makes such a big deal out of its soundtracks? Steve Schnur, head of all things musical at EA, recently took some time to explain it.
In an interview with Kotaku, Schnur said that as radio has become increasingly “consolidated,” it is no longer able to function as a useful tool for discovering new music. Claiming that radio and music television in the past decade have “failed kids,” Schnur said games could step into that role, introducing music to new audiences either through direct musical experience in games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero, or via “positive association” with music included with games like Madden NFL 09.
“We believe that hip-hop, rock, other forms of music… there’s no reason to put up walls between them,” he said. “Hip-hop artists love rock songs because of Madden and vice versa, when we don’t hear them separated out on the dial.”
That positive association works both ways, according to Schnur; while not every gamer is going to enjoy every song included with the Madden soundtrack, he added, “The goal was that after you played Madden in 2004, 2006, 2009… three months later when you hear that Trivium song, you’re gonna go, ‘Oh, Madden.'”
Starting with 4000 potential songs for the Madden 09 soundtrack, Schnur said it took him and two others working from January to May to get it cut down to the current list. “What a song has to do is, it has to serve the game – in the case of Madden, get you pumped up,” he said. “We have to… see how it fits within the game, and if that band could potentially have an impact on people going forward.”
The complete interview with EA’s Worldwide Executive of Music and Marketing is available here.
