Fly Me to the Tune
By buzz_clik 17 Comments
The end of Bayonetta is a lovely thing. No, I'm not talking about the fact that it keeps faking you out (although that's still neat) nor the protracted dance finale (also rates well on the neatometer). The bit I'm referring to is when the end credits roll. After all that bananas violence, having Brenda Lee coo her version of "Fly Me to the Moon" over stylised shots of Bayonetta's pole-twirling gave me a very Tarantino-esque moment.
There's definitely an art to choosing the perfect song to spice up your credits. Like choosing the next song in a mixtape, finding the right tune to capitalise on the ending to your project is a pretty vital thing to get right. You need to find something that embodies the tone of everything that came before, something that acts as the perfect punctuation mark to what you had to say. Also, it gives the audience a reason to hang around and schlep through a wall of text that they really don't have to hang around for. Obviously it's great when a song is specifically written for a game (yay, Portal) but when you find a pre-existing piece of music that slots into your project, that's a different kind of magic.
Mass Effect has one of the most fitting and memorable pieces of credits music I've heard in ages in Faunts' M4, Pt II. A sprawling and spacious song, its blending of bristling menace and ethereal melancholy brilliantly captures what Mass Effect was about. Amazing, considering it wasn't actually written for the game. Finishing Mass Effect and having the final credits wash over me goes down as one of my favourite gaming moments; the darkness of the room was dispelled by the pale glow of the scrolling text, the song was churning along and the feeling of complete satisfaction I had was indescribable. Whoever it was at BioWare responsible for plucking that song from obscurity deserves a pat on the back from everyone who ever finished that game.
Of course, it's not just video games that can have righteous final tune selection. Feeder's " Shatter", which plays over the end credits to Night Watch, is a perfect way to see out an adrenalised fantasy action flick. It also helps that it's a great pop rock song to boot. I was certainly a fan of the Welsh rockers before viewing Night Watch, but had never heard that song before, so its inclusion came as an added bonus to me. " The Hearts Filthy Lesson" by David Bowie was another great choice, as it snaked its way through the distressed crawl at the end of Seven.
Game or otherwise, feel free to remind me of other not-made-for-it-but-you'd-swear-it-was tunes that have served as great outros.