Music can greatly affect people's emotions. The most popular songs often focus on things that connect listeners with them. That’s why we often hear tracks about love and heartbreak, friendship, death, and nostalgia.

Regarding the latter, nostalgia can come in many forms. For so many, games can often be the best source as they can give people memories of something that they may have enjoyed when growing up or that they did when they had more free time.

What Artists Have Used Games As A Theme?

Given how games can come in many forms, there have been several ways in which they have been used within music. Lana Del Rey has used video games as a point of reference when releasing music, with a track titled on the entertainment activity. Alessia Cara released a song titled “Nintendo Game” in 2018. Unsurprisingly, it is based on one of the biggest and most successful video game companies in the world.

Buckner & Garcia perhaps tapped into the love and connection that resonated with gamers at the time to show how popular the entertainment form was when they released their track “Pac-Man Fever,” based on the hit arcade game that was taking the world by storm at the time.

Some artists have used casino games to create songs. Poker has been a popular choice, with artists like Kenny Rodgers (“The Gambler”), Aerosmith (“Deuces Are Wild”), Lady Gaga (“Poker Face”), and Beyonce (“Texas Hold ‘em”). The popularity of Queen Bey's song has led to many wanting to learn how to play Texas Hold'em, helping to further expand the popularity of this game.

It’s not just poker that has proven popular as a theme in the casino world. Blackjack has been sung about in the track titled with the same name by Ray Charles; he also had a song named “Losing hand” which was about a man who continued to lose at the tables. Elvis had a song based on Las Vegas’ casino scene called “Viva Las Vegas”.

Why Have So Many Artists Used Games?

As alluded to, games are something many of us can resonate and connect with. Almost everyone in the world will have played some form of game in their lives. While technology has changed how games are consumed today, they remain incredibly popular.

Findings suggest that approximately 3.32 billion play video games regularly. Since artists can potentially tap into an audience that accounts for almost half the world’s total population, it’s no surprise that it has become a much-used theme.

At the same time, games can be experienced in other forms besides entertainment. Many artists have used them when discussing romance. Relationships can often be viewed as games because of the difficulties that can be faced or the back-and-forth that can happen.

Music Is All About Connections

Music is all about connections. If people can’t resonate with the lyrics, they will find it hard to connect with the song that has been written emotionally. For artists, this could be a problem as it may mean that their release doesn’t go on to be a commercial success in the charts.

For this reason, it’s very easy to expect games to be used as a theme for artists in years to come. With technology playing a role in taking the industry further, this could help provide new content for musicians to use when writing songs on the theme in the future. Maybe there will be another instance whereby we see someone looking to capitalize on a game’s success as we did with Buckner and Garcia’s Pac-Man efforts.

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