Display MoreOur all-too-short summer may be coming to an end… so let's celebrate with a rock and roll show! This month's Wing Commander Cartoon Party is going to be a little different: we're going to play Beavis and Butthead and watch roughly two dozen music videos that are connected to our favorite franchise!
What will we be listening to? The Wing Commander III quotes file includes a 'Team Soundtrack' section which lists what artists the team was listened to while the game was developed in 1994.
TEAM SOUNDTRACK
Tori Amos ; Concrete Blonde; Nine Inch Niles ; Holzt ; Kodo Drummers ; Fabu ; Ryuichi Sakamoto; Nirvana; Machines of Loving Grace; Chick Corea; Poi Dog Pondering ; Vangelis; Sarah McLachlan; Seal; Carmina Burana; Melissa Ethridge; Arrested Development; Patty Larkin; Bunny Wailer; Dazed and Confused; Peter Gabriel; Flash Gordon; Cranberries ; Alice in Chains; John Williams; Siouxsie and the Banshees; Pat Benatar; Duran Duran; Bob Marley; Wagner; Miles Davis; Bill Evans; Indigo Girls; John Gorka; Orlando; Jimi Hendrix; STP; William OrbitWe decided to pick one music video for each act (where possible) with the requirement that it must have been made before Wing Commander III came out. Patterned came to the rescue and developed a list for us featuring 21 different music videos taken from the quotes file!
`Alice in Chains - I Stay Away
Arrested Development - Tennessee
Concrete Blonde - God is a Bullet
Cranberries - Zombie
Duran Duran - Come Undone
Indigo Girls - Closer to Fine
Machines of Loving Grace - Butterfly Wings
Melissa Ethridge - Come To My Window
Nine Inch Niles - Closer
Nirvana - Come As You Are
Pat Benatar - Love is a Battlefield
Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer
Poi Dog Pondering - Be the One
Queen - Flash
Ryuichi Sakamoto - Risky
Sarah McLachlan - Possession
Seal - Kiss from a Rose
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Cities in Dust
Stone Temple Pilots - Plush
Tori Amos - Cornflake Girl
Vangelis - Chariots of FireAnd we've topped that off with a few other related videos, detailed below (the last one is obvious).
Veruca Salt - Seether: This one speaks for itself! The Wing Commander IV PlayStation manual even includes a little reference to this song at the end of its 'hints' section…
Cuba - Cross the Line and Thievery Corporation - Lebanese Blonde: Cuba and Thievery Corporation are the groups responsible for the diegetic music in the Wing Commander movie that plays during any of the scenes in the rec room. Cross the Line is one of the actual tracks used in the movie!
Oingo Bongo - Private Life: Did you know that Oingo Boingo keyboardist Richard Gibbs was the original choice to score the Wing Commander movie? It's not known whenever he ever finished any work before he was replaced by David Arnold and Kevin Kiner.
The Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony: We're including this one because Chris Roberts used it to temp track the credits of the Wing Commander movie! Did he just love the song? Was he intentionally referencing the contemporaneous Cruel Intentions? You can decide!
Spoon - The Way We Get By: Here's a weird one you might not have known about: Spoon frontman Britt Daniel started his career… working on sound at Origin Systems! He was a sound designer on Super Wing Commander and Wing Commander III and also worked as a foley artist on the latter. Crazy! He went on to do sound effects and recording for Pacific Strike… which means there's a non-zero chance that he was responsible for the recording sessions for the unreleased talkie CD-ROM version. Huh!
Cobalt 60 - Prophecy: And of course how could we not include the official music video for Cobalt 60's Prophecy theme? This was released as a data track on the Wing Commander Prophecy OST CD. The quality is pretty low (it's web video from 1997!) but it's also pretty fascinating to see an early build of Wing Commander Prophecy in action. Check out those VDU images!
We've collected all the music videos in a YouTube playlist that we can all watch together.
So JOIN US on Saturday, August 15th at noon Eastern when we'll rock out with our Steltek guns out! Feel free to drop in and out (or just stop by to talk Wing Commander).
We've also uploaded a zip of all the music videos in case you'd like to arrange them some other way yourself. You can get that here.
How do we watch the shows together?
It's pretty low tech! Simply join the Wing Commander CIC Discord on Saturday and we will be chatting (in text) along with the shows in the main channel. Everyone who wants to join in should download their own copies from the CIC and we will count down to play them one at a time together starting with the short at noon EST on Saturday. Everyone is welcome and we encourage you to join in the conversation; sharing your thoughts helps make the experience better for everyone!
Will there be custom certificates made for the attendees this time?
Yes.
You can find certificates 1-10 here.
Are any of these music videos actual cartoons?
Honestly, who knows.
I love these events but want to do better long term planning. Do you have any others coming up?
We do! Here's the upcoming schedule. And if you have any idea for a future lineup, please feel free to suggest it on the forums!
- Marathon 14 - Video Shopping Network - September 18
- Marathon 15 - Odds and Ends - October 17
