What A Good Score! – #36: The Music of Red Dead Redemption II by Daniel Lanois and Various Artists

What A Good Score is a new series here at Off The Tracks – looking at movie soundtracks, the good, the band and the astounding…

I am not a gamer, not really; not ever. My interest in gaming was always fleeting — I gave it a nudge back in the C64 days, and that’s it. I owned a Playstation, and even a PS3, I’ve got a retro Nintendo and now and then I’ll play Dr. Mario or Pac-Man and that’s about it.

But I do like video game music, and just the very concept of it — I once went to a concert of video game musical scores performed by an orchestra, and despite recognising very little of the cues I absolutely loved it. From time to time, I find a video score worth owning. And there are several out there I’m sure to love, and maybe I’ll get to them one day too.

But a soundtrack album I adore is Daniel Lanois’ music created for Red Dead Redemption II. It’s one of three seperate soundtracks. There’s an actual game score, an EP of songs, and then this, a set of songs and instrumentals produced by Lanois. To be honest, his name (and sound) alone is the reason for my interest, but I also checked out the Red Dead game back when it was first released, and more recently my son has become obsessed with the game.

It’s a whole new benchmark in the storytelling within a game — and I can appreciate that. It is (almost) like watching a western movie.

There are some great guest vocalists — Willie Nelson, D’Angelo, Josh Homme, and Rhiannon Giddens among them. And there’s also some singing from Lanois, but importantly, a shitload of his guitar playing (and production).

I’ll buy the other (main) score when I find it, 100%. But I love this as an album, for it’s almost it’s own little movie or graphic novel — and I love that about certain approaches to the soundtrack (think: Prince’s Batman, which is less for the Tim Burton movie and maybe more for the movie playing in Prince’s head).

Movie scores are my favourite, sure, but I love finding out about books that have soundtracks, and certain video games, TV shows, short films, the works.

And I love taking those scores and making them part of the soundtrack to my life.