Video game soundtracks have come a long way since the simple blips and bleeps of old 8-bit consoles and are now a key part of the experience, often including a full orchestral score.
But some of the best video game soundtracks of all time are known for making excellent use of licensed songs from popular bands and artists.
Licensed video game soundtracks can either be used to immerse the player in the time and place that the game is set in or showcase up and coming artists, for whom getting featured on a big game could be their big break.
But which are the most popular licensed video game soundtracks when we look at the number of Spotify plays?
If we’re just looking solely at which game has had its songs played the most on Spotify, then there’s only one winner.
Grand Theft Auto V has seen its songs listened to over 15 billion times, but this isn’t quite fair, because the latest version of the game features a whopping 537 songs, way more than any other on our list.
For that reason, we’ve chosen to take an average number of plays for each song on the soundtrack, with fairly surprising results.
The Metal Gear Solid franchise isn’t one that you’d necessarily associate with a great soundtrack, but that all changed in the latest instalment, where dozens of cassette tapes featuring classic songs from the game's 80s setting are hidden around the map, including Take on Me by a-ha, Friday I’m In Love by the Cure and Maneater by Hall & Oates, with an average play count of 143,784,383 across 16 songs.
In second place was one of the first-ever games to use licensed music, Rock n’ Roll Racing for the SNES, followed by Rock Band 3, which had one of the best soundtracks of the many music games of the 2000s.
GAME:
Metal Gear Solid V:
The Phantom Pain
Average Plays: 143,784,383
Most Played Song:
Take on Me - a-ha
Total Plays: 2,300,550,135
GAME:
Rock n' Roll Racing
Average Plays: 136,460,467
Most Played Song:
Paranoid - Black Sabbath
Total Plays: 818,762,804
GAME:
Rock Band 3
Average Plays: 94,581,373
Most Played Song:
Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen
Total Plays: 7,850,253,989
|
Rank |
Game |
Year |
# of songs |
Total Plays |
Average plays |
Most Played Song |
|---|
But which are the most popular songs to be featured in video games? While there have been countless classic songs featured in games over the years, there was a clear winner here, with Queen’s iconic Bohemian Rhapsody, which featured in Rock Band 3, gaining over 1.2 billion listens.
This was followed by Toto’s Africa from GTA: Vice City (807m) and Sweet Child o’ Mine by Guns N’ Roses (767m), which was a playable song on Guitar Hero II.
Song/Artist:
Bohemian Rhapsody
- Queen
Total Plays: 1,239,822,734
Game Featured On:
Rock Band 3
Song/Artist:
Africa
- Toto
Total Plays: 807,641,998
Game Featured On:
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Song/Artist::
Sweet Child o' Mine
- Guns N' Roses
Total Plays: 767,559,404
Game Featured On:
Guitar Hero II
|
Rank |
Song |
Artist |
Game |
Plays |
|---|
We sourced a list of 50 video games known for their use of a licensed soundtrack, according to various list articles from the web, including:
https://www.criticalhit.net/gaming/the-10-best-licensed-soundtracks-in-video-games/
https://www.unilad.co.uk/gaming/five-incredible-licensed-soundtracks-in-video-games/
All Spotify play counts correct as of 06/07/2020. Note that not all songs from each soundtrack were available on Spotify.
Average plays per song were calculated by taking the total number of Spotify plays and dividing by the number of songs on each game’s soundtrack.
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