X Marks the Beat: Songs about Godzilla

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Godzilla

If I ran a game store I would play the song Godzilla by Blue Öyster Cult.

There is definitely room in my fictional game store for some classic rock and Blue Öyster Cult has just the song. Godzilla is about the titular King of Monsters himself. The song is rather sparse on lyrics but what you do get is a few iconic scene descriptions and a chant for Godzilla to depart the city. Just like the original Gojira movie was a warning about the perils of atomic weapons, so too does the song Godzilla close with a warning about the "folly of men". The song is a classic for good reason.

Godzilla was originally released on Blue Öyster Cult's 1977 album, Spectres. It has since been re-released on greatest hits albums and included in soundtracks and other music compilations.

Godzilla on Google Play

If I ran a game store ...

The music at my FLGS sucks. They either play the local rock radio station or they play Lord of the Rings or Star Wars soundtracks. There are people who write, play, and record music aimed at gamers, but the music remains obscure because the brick and mortar bastions of geek culture do not play them. I believe there is a catch 22 here with the obscurity causing stores to overlook it and since it is overlooked it is obscure. X Marks the Beat wishes to remedy this situation by providing a list of quality music that will appeal to the clientele of game stores. Herein is a list of songs about RPGs, video games, movies and TV shows, fandom, and more. The three primary tags used are FLGS to indicate songs that are appropriate for play in game stores, NSFW to indicate songs that are inappropriate for play in game stores but that target gamers, and IFFY to indicate songs that I think will appeal to gamers but are not about gamer topics per se.

X Marks the Beat updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and sometimes intermittently.

I maintain the playlist on Google Play Music. The playlist can be found here: FLGS.