I just wanna skate skate skate skate skate skate
Bladers gonna hate hate hate hate hate hate
Skate it off, skate it off

The Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 had a massive impact on my taste in music.

Need for Speed was that series for me. Pendulum, Justice, The Qemists, Junkie XL, Hyper, Madeon, Feed Me, Nine Inch Nails, Celldweller, The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers, Noisia, Haezer… Man NFS had some killer soundtracks.

So here I am.

Doing everything I can.

Holding on to what I am,

Pretending I’m a super man!

if I die before i wake… at least in heaven i can skate…

What’s so great about Taylor Swift? Everyone talks about how “great” Taylor Swift is. Taylor Swift isn’t so great. She never got her picture on a bubble gum card. Have you ever seen her picture on a bubble gum card? Hmmm? How can you say someone is great who’s never had their picture on a bubble gum card?

It has to start somewhere, it has to start sometime

What better place than here, what better time than now?

All hell can’t stop us now!

SKATE 2 had a totally banging soundtrack. No Swift. She has a terrible reach into the skate game history books.

I still play Tony hawk soundtracks on Spotify in my car

I still listen to the THUG soundtrack, shifting away from the NOFX/QOTS/Bad Religion/Social Distortion bands I was into when I played as a teen, towards other songs I overlooked:

• Stiff Little Fingers - Suspect Device

  • Literally written during and about the Troubeles in N Ireland, fantastic punk/protest song.
  • https://www.50thirdand3rd.com/stiff-little-fingers-suspect-device/
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on6DxBgfsDY

• Smoke Blow - Circle of Fear

  • My first foray into Kraut Rock. This whole German Angst album is pretty good.
  • https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=6ruaKlr3Pms

• Mastodon - Crusher Destroyer

  • Not their greatest song, but it defintely opened me up to their rest of their stuff.
  • https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=5m4-5WSkJDg (this song gets good for exactly 30 seconds at the 1:00 mark)

• Assorted Jelly Beans - Rebel Yell

  • This song used to irritate the hell out of me when I first heard it. Babyish, lazy, unfocused?

  • https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=iPRkURH8pCk

  • As I got older, I started to appreciate the creativity and the many mood shifts within it. I count at least 5 distinct shifts. It’s a patchwork of several different songs squashed together brilliantly.

  • Plus, try to match the tempo of the singer when he sings at 0:37:

    The spotlight’s shining, heard you had something to say
    The hourglass is pouring, your boring crowd fades away

    It’s harder than it sounds

Need for speed underground was the first game for me that made my head bop.

S-tier soundtrack on THPS2, hard agree OP

Excellent point.

starts listening the bomb rush cyberfunk ost and wonders what it would be like to switch the soundtrack for both games

How about need for speed most wanted 2005

Fully, a MASSIVE amount of what I’m into now came from Tony Hawk games and [adult swim] and the trajectory that put me on. [adult swim] was for sure the MTV of my generation.

By the time I was watching MTV, it was still some TRL and music vids, but also a big dose of Room Raiders, etc… And it eventually fell out of fashion. [AS] definitely had their finger on the pulse of what the cool cats were to tho. Such a hip scene. I still vividly recall a bump for Boondocks featuring Flying Lotus’ song Massage Situation that felt mind blowing.

Weird to think where I’d be without either.

If Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 was so good, why didn’t it feature any Taylor Swift music?

(massive /j I like both)