MUSIC FROM SPACE: Silent Hill 3 - YOU'RE NOT HERE

Monday, September 21, 2009

When you play one of the Silent Hill games, you expect fog-shrouded streets, disturbingly Freudian monsters, a lot of talk about an ancient religion that never really seems to make sense... But you sure don't expect to hear a song like You're Not Here.

It happens like this. You leave Silent Hill 3 on the start-up screen while you go and let that cat out or whatever, and then suddenly you get a jolt as you hear this loud, hard-rocking yet melancholy song that sounds like the Pretenders in their prime. Composer Akira Yamaoka has always taken pains with the music of the Silent Hill games, but while it works very well in the games it's usually not something that stands on its own. You're Not Here does.

Here's the original clip that runs when you leave the game idling on the start-up screen. Those graphics actually hold up pretty well for a game that dates from the distant era when Bush was declaring "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq.



I'm not quite sure how it happened, if it was made by the game's producers or if this is some fan deal, but there is also a music video online where the game's teenage emo heroine, Heather, actually sings the song while fighting monsters and walking through hospitals made of meat. It doesn't quite work, partly because it seems weird for Heather to be singing in the middle of all that, and partly because that's an awfully big, grown-up song to be coming out of a girl who looks like she's ditching her driver's ed class. (That's actually Mary Elizabeth McGlynn on vocals, a talented voice actress who has played characters in just about every video game ever made, except for the Silent Hill series.)

Got a tip for Monsters and Rockets? Want to contribute to the site? Send us an email.

0 comments:

Post a Comment

About This Blog

"Science fiction plucks from within us our deepest fears and hopes, then shows them to us in rough disguise: the monster and the rocket." - W.H. Auden

Who is he, this one who is called "Greg Stacy"?

Greg Stacy began the MONSTERS AND ROCKETS blog in April of 2009. Prior to that, he was editor of the popular sci-fi/horror news website DARKWOLDS.COM. He has also written for LA WEEKLY, OC WEEKLY, UTNE READER and LOS ANGELES CITYBEAT. He always feels weird writing about himself in the third person.

  © Free Blogger Templates Nightingale by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP