First games to contain licensed music?

[Lady Jaye]

I wonder what were the first games to contain licensed music -- not MIDI (or chiptune)-produced cover but the actual original track with vocals. The earliest mention I found (via DP Zine #21) were Road Rash and Way of the Warrior, both released for the 3DO in 1994, but there might be earlier examples.

Does anyone know the answer?

[TonyTheTiger]

I don't know if you'd count it as "licensed" in the way you're thinking but the SNES Power Rangers game featured the title song, vocals included, which technically would have had some licensing language involved, even if it was in paired with the Power Rangers property itself.

[Lady Jaye]

That's interesting, but it still sounds like it came out of a chiptune, or did it actually sound like the original score?

You see, I actually meant full-blown song reproduction (and obviously, any CD-based system will be more likely to succeed there than cart-based consoles), but then again, what then passed for mind-blowing high fidelity might now sound overly compressed and of low quality, even on a CD system.

[dendawg]

Didn't the Journey arcade game have song snippets?

[Lady Jaye]

Oooh, didn't think of the Journey game! Good one! I think you may be right, unless there had been some even earlier, obscure efforts?

[Pr3tty F1y]

Didn't the Journey arcade game have song snippets?

Indeed it did. It had a mechanism that played a cassette tape recording of Separate Ways (see 1:33 in the video).

[Colorado Rockies]

Lion King on Snes had all 9 of the movies tracks. Elton John etc.

[Genesaturn]

Just to clarify...are you talking about the first game to use real songs? because the road rash soundtrack was a mesh of real songs from like sound garden and other bands..or are you talking the first game to have its own original soundtrack with singing and such?

[Lady Jaye]

Real songs, not a made-for-the-game soundtrack, or a cover (say by way of a console chiptune).

So, we can agree that it's probably Journey on the arcade side. But for consoles?

[tom]

I was going to say, surely some arcade game, not home console. Most firsts happened on arcades, many people seem to forget that.

How about Rockbuster Quest for Fame on PC perhaps (1994)?
Or real music digitized?

[Pr3tty F1y]

Real songs, not a made-for-the-game soundtrack, or a cover (say by way of a console chiptune).

So, we can agree that it's probably Journey on the arcade side. But for consoles?

In the end, this will probably be a let down (unless you want to focus on games released in the West).

My guess would be some Japanese PC Engine game (or pseudo-game) that probably had some random song that you've never heard by some equally unknown artist (at least to those outside of Japan). Other than the PCE/TG-16 CD, you're pretty much looking at the 3DO or Sega CD. It would be unlikely that the NeoGeo CD would have had licensed music.

[Lady Jaye]

Not a letdown, it was just something I was curious about, as I read old reviews of 3DO games.

And you're probably right about there being some J-pop artist taking claim to this "first".

[Aussie2B]

Well, Camp California for Turbo CD with its real Beach Boys music in 1993 was probably a fairly early console example.

[ccovell]

A 1988 song by Bomb The Bass was used in the 1989 Amiga game Xenon 2. It's tracked, but very similar. On non-CD (/tape) -based consoles you have no choice but to track it and use samples.

Original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgjNb-6EOYw

Amiga: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6jNosHmHG8


On the PCE-CD (1988), its very first CD game had a Japanese pop idol with her original songs in it:

No-Ri-Ko: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDgEM...tailpage#t=57s

[NayusDante]

If you're going to count chiptune as licensed music, then I would guess that the first console example would be Journey Escape for 2600. The only music in the game is a line from that infernal overplayed track "Don't Stop Believin'."

If you're talking redbook audio, direct reproduction of a licensed song, the first one I can think of is Sonic CD (J), so December 1993. I'm quoting Wikipedia on this one:

The Japanese soundtrack was composed by Naofumi Hataya & Masafumi Ogata, and featured songs by Keiko Utoku. The songs were entitled "Sonic - You Can Do Anything" (known also as "Toot Toot Sonic Warrior", composed by Masafumi Ogata) and "Cosmic Eternity - Believe in Yourself" (composed by Naofumi Hataya). The boss music for the Japanese version was also noted for sampling the song "Work That Sucker To Death" by '70s American artists Xavier, Bootsy Collins, and George Clinton.

I don't know if both songs were specifically composed for the game or also saw independent release, so again, this might be questionable. If you want to include games with lyrical songs written specifically for the game, I believe King's Quest VI beats Sonic CD by a few months with its 1993 CD edition. They even tried to get radio stations to play the song...

I'm sure there's something earlier though, just have to keep looking backwards from 1993. Personally, I'd define the criteria as a game (not non-game software) containing commercially licensed music not written specifically for it, reproduced in waveform rather than in sequenced format.

[NayusDante]

I can't identify either, but there is a vocal intro song for Heavy Nova, and also in Funky Horror Band, both released in 1991 on Mega CD.

[Kitsune Sniper]

... I'm sorry, but in my opinion, games on CD that had vocal songs composed specifically for them don't count. Are they really licensed if they were made for the game?

[dendawg]

Hmm...ya think maybe the Make My Video series for the Sega CD counts?

[Gamevet]

Didn't the Journey arcade game have song snippets?

Yeah, that was somewhere around 1983.

[ccovell]

OK, if samples from commercial music is out (Xenon II disqualified) then it falls exclusively to games with audio CDs or cassette tapes as background music.

Meaning:

1983 Journey (Arcade)
.
.
.

1988... Noriko Ogawa PCE-CD

Sonic CD just doesn't count as pre-existing commercial music and it's too late anyway.