Opinion: Esports music sucks and I can’t stand it anymore

Taylor Cocke
Zedd's Ignite is one of the weaker tracks he's released over the years (Lolesports/Riot Games)
Zedd’s Ignite is one of the weaker tracks he’s released over the years (Lolesports/Riot Games)

Let’s be honest. Esports music sucks.

In between games at most esports events, they play some garbage house music. You’ve heard it. While the clock ticks down until the next match of the day, we’re often treated to the “best” electronic music that cheap internet music libraries have to offer.

Problem is, most of the time I just want to turn it off. As a self-professed Annoying Music Snob (AMS), I understand that my tastes are rather specific, but can we all agree that the vast majority of the stuff they play is actual, straight up trash?

I’ve always just accepted the idea that interstitial music was always going to be terrible. But then the ELeague Major had Metallica come on for a spot and provide music for a couple of breaks, and I had a thought that no one should have in the year 2017: “Thank the heavens for Metallica.”

Despite the fact that Metallica hasn’t put out a good album since the late 80’s (fight me on this), it was a nice break from the electronica doldrums. The AMS in me wanted to roll my eyes, but all the spot did was reminded me of my biggest pet peeve in esports right now.

I’m not going to claim that there’s no historical precedent for electronic music in esports. The two have gone hand in hand since the scene abandoned the DOOM-inspired butt rock (which was lovingly recreated and improved upon in 2016’s DOOM) of the 90’s and early 2000s. In context of esports as a whole, electronic music can make sense. We live in an age of technology, don’t we?

Ugh. Make it stop.

The need to produce events for cheap means that a lot of production companies rely on online music libraries. The LCS uses them, ESL uses them, everyone uses them. I know this because we have access to the same exact library for making up some of our text-on-screen videos that you see in our articles. The first time I threw together one of those videos, I popped over to the music library and immediately had flashbacks to breaks between NA LCS matches.

And that’s not great! We hear the same songs over and over again, and each time it gets more and more aggravating. It’s like the Season 2 League of Legends World Championship all over again, listening to the now-beloved Silver Scrapes on repeat. It’s like the days of radio and MTV and hearing the same damn song repeatedly until you can’t stand it, even if you loved it in the first place. It’s like the disastrous Deadmau5 set at The International 2015; it never seems to end.

On that note, Silver Scrapes is not a great song. It’s got a lot of historical importance and is important to League of Legends fans (and has an excellent rendition by friend of Yahoo Esports MarkZ), but as a song, it’s pretty bad. Sorry. Don’t yell at me.

Esports music has been so bad, I'm about to say something nice about Imagine Dragons (Lolesports/Riot Games)
Esports music has been so bad, I’m about to say something nice about Imagine Dragons (Lolesports/Riot Games)

It’s telling that Imagine Dragons’ (a band I do not like) performance at the 2014 League of Legends World Championship tournament is my favorite esports musical moment of all time. That bums me out.

I get that licensing can be complicated. And I know that buying the rights to songs can get really expensive, really fast. But someone, somewhere is going to have to decide that quality music taste is going to have to take precedent over a price point.

DreamHack Masters Las Vegas did things right. There, the interstitials were full of lounge and swing music. Remember the soundtrack from Fallout: New Vegas? It was basically that. And it was rad. It was fitting for the location of the tournament, gave breaks a nice and groovy feel, and was generally a pleasant listening experience.

And really, could the rights to those songs be that much more expensive than the trash EDM played at literally every single other tournament?

Point is, more esports tournament organizers need to learn from DreamHack’s example. I don’t mean they should all play slightly worse versions of Frank Sinatra standards, I mean they need to think about their audience and work to make their musical selections appropriate for the setting. Because I can’t take another minute of this ‘not quite good enough to be a club banger’ EDM stuff.

Get over your bad electronic music obsession, esports. Let’s move on. Hell, I’d even be happy to go back to the butt rock era. So come on, esports production folks. Make your friendly neighborhood AMS happy.


Follow Taylor Cocke on Twitter @taylorcocke for more questionable music opinions.