Bigger than MTV
MTV, dépassée par les jeux vidéo
Les jeux vidéos peuvent-ils sauver l’industrie musicale ?
Voilà de nombreuses années que l’industrie musicale est en crise. Internet ayant révolutionné les pratiques, le marché du disque « physique » est en chute libre depuis 2002 et les offres de streaming et de téléchargement légal qui se sont développées depuis compensent difficilement ce déclin. Et si la panacée pour les musiciens et producteurs musicaux venait d’une autre industrie, celle des jeux vidéo ?
Video games have not only helped the music industry survive, but thrive on entirely new levels,” Steve Schnur tells me. As the worldwide executive and president of music at game publisher EA, his team – many of whom have been professional musicians and singer/songwriters – work with some of the biggest music acts in the world, licensing music for video game series like Fifa, Madden NFL, Need for Speed and NHL.
2. Since the 90s, when licensed music became prevalent in games, series such as Tony Hawk’s
1. to thrive, thrived or throve, thrived or thriven prospérer, se développer / worldwide mondial / executive directeur général / publisher éditeur / songwriter compositeur / act ici, artiste, chanteur. 2. prevalent répandu / such as tel(les) que / Pro Skater, Grand Theft Auto and Wipeout have become just as well-known for their soundtracks as they are for their gameplay. For millions of people, video games have been a way to discover new favourite bands or dive into other musical genres. And because people discover this music while playing a game they love, they develop a strong emotional attachment to it.
NEW MARKETING TOOL
3. Video games are now an essential part of marketing plans for musicians and managers. The Fifa soundtracks, for instance, are viewed
soundtrack bande-son, musique / way façon, manière / band groupe / to dive into litt. plonger dans; ici, découvrir / while ici, tout en. 3. to be part of faire partie (intégrante) de / plan ici, stratégie / for instance par exemple / to view ici, considérer / as one of the foremost annual showcases for international artists today. “We often begin working on a soundtrack almost a year in advance, trying to identify new music we believe will define the sound of the coming season,” Schnur says.
4. “We knew that video games could become what MTV and commercial radio had once been in the 80s and 90s. Any given song in Fifa 19 – whether it’s a new track by an established act or the debut of an unknown artist – will be heard around the world nearly 1bn times.
foremost principal / showcase vitrine / almost presque, quasiment. 4. any given n'importe quel(le) / whether it's [...] qu'il s'agisse de [...] / track ici, titre, chanson / established ici, connu, célèbre / debut ici, premier titre / around ici, partout dans / nearly près de / bn = billion milliard /
Clearly, no medium in the history of recorded music can deliver such massive and instantaneous global exposure.”
5. While streaming is credited for helping to save the music industry from its stranglehold of illegal downloads and piracy, video games were helping it survive through the dark times of the late 00s. The Aerosmith-themed version of Guitar Hero made the band more money than any of their albums.
6. The heyday of music games like Guitar Hero has passed, but now games integrate with services like Spotify. Beat Fever is a mobile game helping to generate better engagement between players and musicians: players tap along to their favourite music and are then invited to stream the tracks in full on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. When Steve Aoki’s track Azukita was featured in the game for two weeks, its streams increased by 2.3m.
7. “If you want a really, really interesting, jetpropelled career as a composer you probably wouldn’t go into film anymore; you would go into video games,” says Charles Hazlewood, an international conductor and advocate for the wider appreciation of orchestral music.
VINYL RESURGENCE
8. The vinyl resurgence is also helping to create new opportunities for both video game composers and record labels. Data Discs is a record label to deliver ici, assurer, permettre / global mondial, international / exposure visibilité (fig.). 5. to credit sth with/for attribuer à qch le mérite de / stranglehold étouffement, suffocation, asphyxie (fig.); ici, menace / to survive through passer le cap de / dark times période difficile / late fin (des années). 6. heyday heure de gloire, apogée / to integrate with s'associer à, travailler avec / engagement interaction / to tap along to pianoter en rythme avec, battre la mesure de / to be featured apparaître, être intégré / to increase augmenter / by ici, de. 7. jet-propelled fulgurant / to go, went, gone into ici, se tourner vers / conductor chef d’orchestre / advocate défenseur / wide généralisé, répandu. 8. both à la fois (et) / record label maison de disques / solely dedicated to releasing video game music. Working alongside partners such as Sega, Capcom and Konami, they’ve remastered a variety of game soundtracks from their studio in London, including Streets of Rage, Shinobi, and Metal Slug. Their founder, Jamie Crook, tells me this is another way for composers to be paid for their work.
9. “There has been a shift where composers of indie games are retaining the rights to their music much more often, which is obviously a positive thing,” he says. “Publishers seeing that music isn’t a disposable commodity associated with the game in the background, but a valuable asset in its own right – that is satisfying.”
solely uniquement, exclusivement / to be dedicated to être dédié/consacré à/chargé de / to release lancer (sur le marché), commercialiser / alongside aux côtés de, avec / founder fondateur. 9. shift changement, évolution / where ici, en ce sens où / indie indépendant (des circuits habituels de distribution) / to retain conserver / obviously de toute évidence / disposable jetable, temporaire / commodity bien de consommation / in the background en toile de fond / valuable précieux, important / asset atout / in its own right à part entière. 10. It’s no longer rare to see some of the world’s biggest musicians composing music for video games. Trent Reznor, Paul McCartney, Amon Tobin, Hans Zimmer, Health, Neil Davidge, Skrillex, Solar Fields and many more have all done so. “I think, 10 years ago especially, making music for a video game wasn’t seen as a cool thing – but the whole perception has changed now. It’s a very creative form,” says Dwyer. “It’s seen as a new world to start diving into.” 10. no longer (ne) plus / so ici, cela / especially surtout / whole tout (entier) / perception ici, attitude / form ici, moyen d'expression (artistique).