MIDI Week Singles: "If You Must" - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (GC)

"If You Must" from Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 on the GameCube, PlayStation 2, PC and a bunch of others (2001)
Composers: Del the Funky Homosapien
Album: Both Sides of the Brain
Label: Hieroglyphic Imperium Records
Publisher: Activision O2
Developer: Neversoft

I feel like it was (or still is?) pretty common for people playing games in the Tony Hawk Pro Skater franchise to be introduced to new music through the in-game soundtrack.  Before playing THPS3 on the GameCube back in 2003, I was only familiar with The Ramones' "Blitzkrieg Bop" and "Ace of Spades" by Motörhead.  I also was not really into hip hop (or was my general friend group at the time) so there really were few ways for me to have been introduced to Del the Funky Homosapien; I since become a fan of Guttermouth, KRS-One (It was a close toss up between "If You Must" and "Hush" for which song to feature today) Since the song does contain several words that would not fly with the ESRB ratings board, there was a skidding skateboard-type sound effect added to bleep out the questionable word(s), so before I listened to the song outside of the game, I had not heard it in its entirety; although the censored words to not fully detract from the overall song.

There was an official soundtrack to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, but none of the music from the game made it on that soundtrack.  Maybe there was an issue getting additional rights to the music?  I could speculate out the wazoo, but that's not going to get anyone anywhere.  This is why I had to pull the song straight from the Both Sides of the Brain album.

Now, whenever "If You Must" comes on on my iTunes, I immediately think of starting in either Suburbia or the Airport, dropping in and thinking about where I am going to go and what I am going to grind on/against.   Grinding up wooden ramps in order to grind off of some haunted house, or trying to get to baggage claim to rack up a stupidly high score by grinding off of everything in sight; that was my tactic anyway.  I think one of the things about this song that I fell in love with, was that the basic message was that basic hygiene is important and you are not a more manly man or a better person if you neglect yourself.  Self care is important people.

I really just like this song (and the entire Both Sides of the Brain album) and it seems to be general consensus that the games in the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series had a lot of great current and older music, which introduced a lot of gamers to songs and artists that they may have either already written off, or had never heard of in the first place.  We need a new THPS game.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Trapped in the Filth. . .