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Angelique Syria
The year was 2005. iPods were the hot thing, YouTube had just been launched, Twitter didn't exist yet, and the words "podcast" and "social media" had only just been added to the dictionary. It was, in short, a great time to be a kid, as well as the nexus point of many of our modern everyday experiences, like being able to listen to music wherever you are, or watching videos of some guy at the zoo whenever you fancy.
To this day, it's tough to quantify exactly how much influence THUG2 had on my musical taste, but it was lot. I was of the age where I was basically a big ball of putty, ready to be moulded; all it took to get me into something was for it to be in front of my face for a few seconds. It was the era of Jackass, Bam Margera, pop punk and Avril Lavigne, and yes, I was the teen who had spike bracelets and massive, baggy jeans. We all make mistakes.
Baby teens don't tend to know much about music beyond what their parents listen to (or they didn't back then), which for me was classic bands like The Beatles and Fleetwood Mac for my mum, and dad-rock like Dire Straits and The Eagles for my dad. Nowadays, I'll mix in a healthy dose of the Mac, Sheryl Crow, Steely Dan, T-Rex, ABBA and Neil Young alongside much, much cooler stuff (don't worry, I still think Steely Dan are cool), but as a teen, there was nothing more embarrassing than acknowledging the things your parents enjoyed. Teens are awful. Sorry.
Instead, it was the extremely cool-for-its-time Tony Hawk's Underground 2 that coached me. Bands like Faith No More, Jimmy Eat World, and The Distillers became my musical blueprints, and because the worlds of rock and punk are incredibly incestuous, that took me to bands such as Queens of the Stone Age, The Strokes, The Offspring, and Eagles of Death Metal. Sprinkle in a bit of pop-punk-du-jour like Sum 41, All-American Rejects, Avril Lavigne, and Blink-182, and you have a pretty fully-formed taste in music there, kiddo.
(Also, shout out to my uncle, who pre-loaded my first-ever iPod with music from his teens and twenties, introducing me to other bands including Green Day, Weezer, Muse, and Rage Against the Machine. Probably inappropriate music for a young teen to be listening to, but that's why he's the cool uncle.)
I would later buy the soundtrack to Tony Hawk's American Wasteland without even playing the game, which probably makes me a poser, but listen: Tony Hawk soundtracks, most likely without intending it, were pretty much cheat sheets and starter packs for kids who didn't grow up in the '80s and '90s, but needed a crash course in everything they missed.
I ended up going to see many of the bands I just listed live, in a sticky-floored venue that had a thick haze of cigarette smoke (this was before the indoor smoking ban). I would come away from each gig with my clothes stinking of tobacco and ash, and my ears ringing with the warning peal of tinnitus. I wore these dubious honours like a badge of coolness, because once again, teens don't have fully-developed brains, and make bad decisions sometimes at the expense of their future, wiser selves.
But god, was it fun. And who could have predicted that a PSP game about skateboarding would directly lead to me stumbling into moshpits, being invited to dance on stage at Dropkick Murphys concerts, and forming a lifelong love for Queens of the Stone Age? So thank you, Tony Hawk and friends, for being surrogate older brothers for me. Sorry I never actually got into skateboarding, but at least we can share the music.
Formerly of Official Nintendo Magazine, GameSpot, and Xbox UK, you can now find Kate's writing all over the internet. Her latest projects include writing for Moonstone Island, a deckbuilding creature-collecting game, and [REDACTED], which is very [REDACTED]. Sometimes she writes things here, and sometimes they are about cows and crabs.
I gotta say, I adore your musical taste, Kate! Mine got shaped by Tony Hawk Pro Skater (1 and 2) and GTA (Vice City and San Andreas especially). I am very nostalgic for the early 2000s, stupid but fun times
I love that skating has come back over the last few years, that there are visibly more women involved, that it's at the flipping Olympics, that's all brilliant and fills my 90's reared heart with joy.
funny about Steely Dan, you could used to burn CDs onto the original xbox and listen to them them while playing quite a few games (maybe all?). But one of them I had was steely dan's first album from my dad's collection, no shame there I played so much THPS 1/2 to that (and other burned CDs), along with a million listen-thrus of their own soundtracks, man take me back
My interests were a mix of pop and indie until O heard the soundtrack to Wip3out in 1999 and it blew my mind. I heavily got into progressive trance and house because of that game and discovered tons of artists and DJs I still follow within that scene.
I enjoy this music more as the soundtrack to the THPS series than I do when I hear it on the radio. Same with the Offspring in Crazy Taxi and the Vice City songs. On their own the songs are ok, but they really give you a nice slice of that era and the feeling of smashing down a halfpipe.
We never give thug2 enough credit. People are always "pro skater 2/3 was the peak" but y'all seriously slept on the underground games. Thug2 has the best controls, gameplay, level design, writing is kinda horrible but it's a Tony hawk's game but jssjjzjzhzhzhzbbz everything else just so good
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