Hello all. With the 10-year anniversary of Fallout: New Vegas, I wanted to share with you a project I have been working on for the past couple of years. I have been trying to collect the music of the Fallout series on the original records as a way to bring the games to life.
I've been working on other similar video game record collections, however, the Fallout series has proven to be a combination of both fascinating and frustrating in tracking down the original versions of the songs used in the game which run the gamut from shellac 78s, vinyl LPs and 45s to enormous 16 inch transcription discs, radio broadcasts, re-recordings, Snader Telescriptions, 8 tracks, and stock music. New Vegas runs the gamut from 1942-2009 and every decade and music format in between.
For those of you impatient with this wall of text to see another wall of text, but with far more pictures mostly alphabetized by artist, here's the link where I try to document every single record used in Fallout: New Vegas' various main radio stations, Radio New Vegas, Black Mountain Radio, and Mojave Music Radio.
http://imgur.com/a/vCoH9Y1
Important: Imgur may or many not prompt you to click on "Expand More Images"; the image album goes far beyond 10 pictures.
And of course we can't forget Mr. New Vegas aka Wayne Newton and perhaps his most famous single "Danke Schoen". Though some might say his voice is very different; many people confuse it with a woman's voice.
Breakdown by decade.
This is a continuation of my previous post on the 10 year anniversary of Fallout 3. http://www.reddit.com/Fallout/comments/9rkz6y/after_10_years_of_fallout_3_heres_my_mostly/
Compared the Fallout 3, finding the records for New Vegas was more difficult since many weren’t available as jukebox singles, only came on albums, were the wrong versions, or just more rare overall.
4 songs were re-recordings/obscure versions and very uncommon to find outside the game since radios do not use the more famous originals: “Heartaches by the Number”, “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie”, “Why Don’t You Do Right”, “Hangover Heart”. (Also an easy way to check if a Spotify or YouTube playlist compilation of the New Vegas soundtrack accurately uses the in-game versions) See also: “Jingle Jangle Jingle”.
New Vegas' soundtrack also tends to move forward in time with more records being first issued on the newly invented vinyl record instead of shellac 78s. More of them largely exist only on albums and weren't issued as singles.
Of course with albums comes cover art. While Fallout 3 had one song associated with a nudist film, a couple of pieces of album art for New Vegas feature a number of provocative poses even if it has nothing to do with the song itself, be warned that it is Sin City indeed.
Of course, people know the story of why Elvis was way too expensive to put in New Vegas. As for Rat Pack songs, there's one each for Sinatra and Dean Martin from their Capitol recording days. Sammy Davis Jr. would be a Decca records guy at the time (the label is much rarer to find in New Vegas compared to Fallout 3), but he is represented in the game as Tommy Torini.
1940s
- "Jingle Jangle Jingle" was recorded for Columbia Records in 1942, the same year as "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition". However, Fallout 76 actually uses the 1962 version of the song made after Kay Kyser retired, made with former members of his orchestra for Capitol Records. Weirdly, there are a couple of videos on youtube with the New Vegas logo for "Jingle Jangle Jingle" with millions of views that are using the wrong version of the song. It's not the in-game Columbia Records version, but taken from the same 1962 Capitol Records album that Fallout 76 uses. Though it hasn't been picked up by youtube's copyright ContentID program compared to the in-game version.
- "Stars of the Midnight Range" is another one of those darn 16 inch transcription discs. Imagine taking a record and enlarging it to the size of your car hubcap. Like Fallout 3's Bob Crosby songs, you need a turntable that can actually accommodate the increased size. Standard turntables will cause the record to overlap the tonearm itself. According to his autobiography, Johnny Bond recorded it in 1944. The same Soundies Inc. CD album reissue also provided "Headin' Down the Wrong Highway" used in Fallout 76 which is the only other "new" Soundies transcription song used after the dissolution of the archiving company after the death of the archivist.
- "It's a Sin" is the only RCA Victor song in New Vegas, similar to "Anything Goes" from Fallout 3. Eddy Arnold recorded it in 1946. It would take until Fallout 4 to more RCA Victor song to appear in Fallout. Probably unsurprisingly, there are quite a few songs that talk about sin in New Vegas.
- "Mad About the Boy" is another 16 inch transcription disc song. Helen Forrest recorded this Noel Coward standard in the 1949-1950 period with the rather impressively-named Carmen Dragon and his orchestra. Fallout being Fallout means that this transcription disc uses vertical grooves (up and down) instead of the more common lateral grooves (side to side). If you look very closely at the huge record sleeve, there are enormous letters that say "VERTICAL". In the days before stereo sound, the idea was that since transcription disc turntables used rubber idler wheels that horizontally rub to rotate the platter, this imparts noise in the playback since the needle also moves horizontally. Therefore the grooves should undulate up and down to avoid excess noise to get good mono playback. When stereo sound was perfected a decade or so later, grooves would move the needle up-down and left-right to get two discrete stereo channels. As such, since my cartridge is meant for lateral discs, I can't actually play this disc until I find a stereo cartridge for the tonearm, Fallout being Fallout.
1950s
- "Orange Colored Sky" doesn't actually appear in-game, though it was prominently used in a 2010 TV trailer for New Vegas. It sort of languished in obscurity with the other Fallout trailer song "Dear Hearts and Gentle People" until they finally made it into a Fallout game with 2015's Fallout 4. It was recorded by Nat King Cole in 1950 for Capitol Records. New Vegas would actually be the first in the series to start to use Capitol Records songs.
This is also the last shellac 78 used for New Vegas before the soundtrack transitions into the newer vinyl era.
- "Hangover Heart" also doesn't appear in-game. It only appears in the end credits for New Vegas, perhaps it was cut at the last minute? Also unusual is that Hank Thompson did record the song for commercial release on Capitol Records as well as for a transcription disc around 1951. However, the credits indicate the Soundies Inc. version would have been the one used, therefore the 16 inch transcription disc. Mercifully, it's a lateral cut so I can actually play it.
- "Why Don't You Do Right?" is sort of self-explanatory. New Vegas doesn't use either Peggy Lee's breakout Columbia Records recording from 1942, nor the brassier Capitol Records version from 1948 album complete with seductive cheesecake cover. The in-game version is taken directly from the soundtrack of a 1950 Snader Telescription, an early type of music video. Aside from a VHS, Laserdisc, and DVD version of the video, the exact recording of the song seems to have only been issued on Camay Records as Peggy Lee's Greatest. Unfortunately, the audio quality on the record isn't too great and omits a large part of the opening instrumental. The end credits for the song again do not cite Columbia Records nor Capitol Records, but a certain "Morley Music Co." and "Cassidy Music, LLC". Not entirely sure how Spotify would categorize it.
- And here’s the meme song of New Vegas, that persistent earworm that people keep singing: the man, the legend...Mr. Johnny Guitar. Apparently there's a bug that causes this song to play more often than usual, the same bug that affects the other meme song of New Vegas. This 1954 Peggy Lee song is the the title tune for the movie of the same name starring Joan Crawford. The movie wasn't spectacularly popular in the US at the time with poor reviews, so sales of the record didn't do well except in countries where the movie was popular overseas like Italy, France, and Iran. This is also the only Decca Records release used in New Vegas compared to the veritable flood in Fallout 3.
- "Something's Gotta Give" has a rather storied history. Evidently when Bing Crosby recorded it for his CBS radio show in 1955, it went directly into storage never to be heard again until it was digitized as part of a CD set for Mosaic Records in 2009. This so-called "Bing's basement" has yielded a number of lost recordings over the years ranging from the lost 1960 World Series film to the Kraft Music Hall radio version of "Accentuate the Positive" used in Fallout 4. Richard Kaplan, of Indigo Ranch fame, was responsible for the digitization project for Mosaic. If you've listened to punk and nu metal the likes of Korn, Vanilla Ice, Limp Bizkit, and Slipknot, you've listened to Indigo Ranch's recording studio in Malibu, California. So Bing Crosby enters the picture through reels of brittle, acetate magnetic recording tape. In a 2014 interview with TapeOp Magazine, Kaplan relayed some details of the process along with a rather graphic description of the tape reel snapping splices flying apart when being played. Incidentally, I got a hard copy of the Sept/Oct 2014 issue of the magazine, but the Bing Crosby stuff is briefly mentioned as an online-only bonus. Most of the paper Kaplan interview is dedicated to his work on Neil Young, Beatles, and punk rock sessions, go figure. Richard Kaplan would pass away shortly after this interview in November.
- "Love Me as Though There Were No Tomorrow" was written for the musical Strip for Action in 1956. It closed rather quickly before it went to Broadway as the title is exactly what it sounds like with many stockinged legs on the cover of the 7 inch Capitol Records EP, Nat "King" Cole Sings Songs from "Strip for Action". It was reissued on the compilation album This is Nat King Cole in 1957, presumably without nudity.
By the way there is an interesting Nat King Cole song that encapsulates the Fallout soundtrack called "Mr. Cole Won't Rock and Roll". It doesn't appear on the original 1966 release of the album Live at the Sands released after his death in 1965, but it does on the CD reissue.
1960s
- "Ain't That a Kick in the Head" is also pretty iconic and was featured in the film Ocean's 11 in 1960. Unusually for a Dean Martin Capitol Records 45, this is rather hard to find. It apparently failed to chart despite being in the movie. Probably because it didn't do too well, the budget compilation album company Pickwick reissued the song a lot on so-called "Greatest Hits" albums. The 1957 Pickwick album You Can't Love 'Em All is probably the earliest reissue and one of the most common. Though the end credits still credit Capitol Records for the song so they likely still retain the rights.
- "Blue Moon" is the only other Rat Pack song in New Vegas, this time by Frank Sinatra himself. It was taken from the 1961 Capitol Records album Sinatra's Swingin' Session!!! and doesn't appear to have been issued as a single though there are some obscure EP versions that cut down the album. This was his third to last studio album for Capitol Records, though it is a partial re-make of an album he had made previously for Columbia Records ten years ago when he was still a bobby-soxer heartthrob. By 1960, Sinatra would be rather preoccupied with launching his own record label, Reprise. Of course it didn't stop Capitol from releasing a number of compilation albums after his departure from the label.
- "Happy Times" is another Bert Weedon guitar instrumental. It was originally titled "China Doll" and released in on HMV (His Master's Voice) records in 1961. People of a certain age from the UK may recall when 45s came with knock-out centres lest they suffer from the record dinker tool to force them to fit in a jukebox.
1970s
- "Roundhouse Rock" was originally titled "Rockin' at the Roundhouse" for Fontana Records in 1970. Though its title is the least changed out of the Bert Weedon instrumentals used in New Vegas, it carries the most historical baggage. Basically, the Roundhouse refers to the concert venue in London which opened for the performing arts after being converted from a railway roundhouse in 1964. In 1970, Bert Weedon and other British rockabilly artists were performing a Rock Revival show in a landscape quickly changing to metal, punk rock, glam rock, acid rock etc. He wrote the song “Roundhouse Rock” for the occasion. The Roundhouse would later be known in the 70s for its early, debut performances of the Doors, Elton John, Rolling Stones, David Bowie, the Stranglers etc. Bert Weedon’s Rock Revival concert would fade into musical history. Bert Weedon himself wrote Play in a Day which was the British guitarist compendium to learn and play the guitar. Biographies of the Beatles, Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin etc. all cite Bert Weedon as the inspiration to pick up the guitar. Though it was issued as a single, "Rockin' at the Roundhouse" was also the title track for the album of the same name; you can take your pick of the sexy punk biker lady for Fontana Records or the Tom Selleck-moustached Bert Weedon on the cover for Contour Records.
- "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie" is also self-explanatory. New Vegas doesn't use the original 1941 recording of the Ink Spots using "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie". It was recorded in the same year as "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" on November 17, just before that "day which will live in infamy". The Talking Bass, Hoppy Jones, would die in 1944 from a cerebral hemorrhage. After many lineup changes due to the war and internal strife, the group would formally breakup in 1954. This did little to forestall the rise of various impostor groups recording under the Ink Spots name with the newly invented vinyl LP record, debuted in 1948. Lead singer, Bill Kenny would die in 1978. However, he apparently recorded a new album with a new backing studio group in stereo called If I Didn't Care, named after the group's first big hit. This was released in 1979, the year after his death. The various formats of the album vaguely insist it is previously released material or conveniently omits that it is re-recorded material on the LP release. This 1979 recording of "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie" is what Fallout: New Vegas uses in-game. In fact, it is the only Ink Spots recording used in Fallout that's not a Decca Records shellac 78 and credited to "Dominion Entertainment" instead of "Geffen Records" in the end credits of the games.
Meanwhile, director Ridley Scott was riding on a wave of fame after the release of Alien in 1979. To keep up his directing chops, he made a series of commercials for Chanel No. 5, the perfume. The first was the radically different Blue Sky commercial with a woman lounging by a pool with the tagline “Share the Fantasy”.
The second came out in 1982, known officially as “L'invitation au rêve - Le jardin”.
There are several different versions with dialog, but they all feature the same images of the mysterious woman and man and personal questions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx3Na_7inPI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_AHJ3miqLE
The curious thing about the commercial is that it uses the re-recording of “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire” from this very same album. The commercial garnered a feature in the December 14, 1982 issue of the New York Times, but it does not mention the discrepancy in the recordings. The recording proved so popular in France that it led to a reissue of the album in 1983 with a new cover evoking scenes from the commercial spot and sprinkling of piano present in the commercial, but not in the original 1979 album.
Later the same year in 1982, Ridley Scott would complete Blade Runner which featured similar imagery from the commercial and another Ink Spots song in the original trailer "If I Didn't Care". This was cut from the theatrical release and replaced with the soundalike "One More Kiss, Dear". The original Ink Spots tune is restored depending on which version of the movie you have.
For "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie", it's arguably one of Billy Kenny's last recordings before he died in 1978.
Again, you have to be careful with buying the Ink Spots on vinyl LPs. After the Ink Spots broke up, many impostor groups rand around recording under the Ink Spots name even if they didn't have any original members. At best for Ink Spots LPs you can have mono or fake stereo, but original recordings, the worst will have entirely new re-recordings with no original members. Most of the Ink Spots repertoire was originally recorded on mono shellac 78s and a couple of the songs used in Fallout never made the jump to vinyl. If you want to find vinyl compilation albums with the original versions you know and love from the games, try to find labels and the subsidiaries which hold the original rights like Decca, MCA, and Brunswick to reduce the chance of them being re-recordings.
Of course for "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie", it is taken from an album of re-recordings though with Bill Kenny as the original member. I've been able to confirm the following issues as having the New Vegas version of the song though it could be there are others especially on compilations with other artists. While all of the other Ink Spots songs used in Fallout are licensed from Decca/Geffen Records, the New Vegas end credits for this song mention a Dominion Entertainment which appears to be a K-Tel subsidiary which also provided the other oddball New Vegas song "Heartaches by the Number". I'm not sure how Spotify would categorize this.
- The Ink Spots originally recorded "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie" for Decca Records in 1941, but New Vegas does not use this version of the song.
- Bill Kenny did record "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie" for Mercury Records in 1962 for the album Bill Kenny Sings the Golden Hits of the Ink Spots, but this is a different version.
- If I Didn't Care (1979) is the first known issue of the New Vegas version of the song. It had a couple of issues in 1979 under the Columbia subsidiaries of CBS/51 West Records. Unfortunately, it's a rather vague title featuring the Ink Spots' best-selling song, muddling searches quite a bit. It features a fountain pen, an ink bottle and a rose on the cover. Depending on which format you find the album, it may or may not actually mention if it's re-recordings. The LP says it's full of "previously released material", but I have not managed to find an earlier issue of these recordings. The cover and the label mention a certain "Springboard International" and "Koala Record Company".
Here is the 8-track issue of the song in the most 70s way I can think of, with a space age Weltron and a lava lamp. Around the middle you get the dreaded fade-out and fade-in that people of a certain age may remember about the quirks of the 8-track format.
- Ink Spots Greatest Hits (1982) again has a rather vague title, but it was made by Era Records. I don't know why the cover art features a woman in a suggestive pose covered in stars if none of the titles reference this. I guess it was the 80s. The cover does mention that it's re-recordings by "Key Seven Music" and "Dominion Music Corporation".
- The World on Fire (I Don't Want to Set...) (1983) Again, the title is rather vague, but this is an unusual French issue under Carrere/Media Plus. The cover art features imagery from the Chanel No. 5 perfume commercial as mentioned above with the man and the tower looking on a man and a woman enjoying a chance meeting. The text boxes reference this with "Musique originale du spot TV" (Original music from the TV commercial) and "Nouveaux enregistrements" (New recordings). There also was a lead single 45 with the same cover art, but it only has the version of "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" from the commercial and "We Three (My Echo My Shadow and Me)". The cover mentions "Kilo Music Limited" and "Key Seven Music".
My copy actually appears to be signed by Harold Winley, Jim Nabbie, Sony Hatchett, and King Drake aka the Jim Nabbie's Ink Spots. There's an interesting article from the August 1, 1985 issue of South Florida Sun Sentinel about the Jim Nabbie's Ink Spots suing other Ink Spots groups for using the Ink Spots name. Whatever the case, they were not present at the original 1941 recording sessions for "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" and "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie", nor does it appear that Bill Kenny sang with the group at the 1978 recording session. Apparently they were based around the Florida area and I'd love to know the circumstances that led them to signing an Ink Spots record pressed in France.
One more note on this song: I haven't been able to find much about the recording of the album. There is some information about the album having being made in Nashville in some newspaper articles for the Vancouver Sun in 1982-1983 by Denny Boyd. It was brought forth by Bill Kenny's widow Audrey McBurney who apparently tried to sue the Chanel No. 5 perfume corporation for unauthorized use of the song from the album. Other newspaper articles from 1985-1992 either misidentify or correctly identify the version of the song used in the commercial.
http://imgur.com/a/5pgwPPE
Presumably there would be more information about the album in the court case if it still exists. I've tried to visit a couple of legal libraries over the years, but Canadian court cases and appeals are hard to get this side of the border and since it took place around 1982, it is before the 1985 digitization limit. The case was possibly dropped and settled out of court, but if there are any Canadian Fallout fans who have access to the legal archives in Vancouver, I'd greatly appreciate any help in this matter on Bill Kenny's last album.
1980s
The New Vegas version was recorded in 1980 for K-Tel Records in Nashville. The end credits of New Vegas for the song do not mention Columbia Records, the original label, like they do for "Big Iron" and "Jingle Jangle Jingle". Instead it's "Dominion Entertainment" again like for "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie". Dominion Entertainment also appears appears to be a K-Tel subsidiary I'm not sure how Spotify would categorize this.
Candlelite Records provided the earliest issue of the New Vegas version that I could find. There appears to have been an acquisition/lawsuit/bankruptcy between Candlelite and K-Tel in 1980 and 1984. However, they were multiple Candlelite compilations issued in 1983 which have the New Vegas version.
- The Top 100 Country Hits of All Time (1983) This is a long 5 LP set (or 3 8-track) Candlelite set. The minuscule asterisks mention this version of the song is a re-recording by the original artist provided by "Imperial Music".
- The 1950's Rock and Roll Music Collection - Looking Back (1983) This is part of a colorful Candlelite series, this one is yellow and features a woman precariously rocking back at a bowling alley. It's a 3 LP set with a large booklet featuring random 1950s trivia. The album mentions a random mix of original and re-recordings by the original artist, some provided by "Imperial Music".
- Country Music Cavalcade - Nashville Graffiti (1983) 3 LPs. This is a confusing issue for Candlelite Records. First, there is a nearly identical 1976 version of Nashville Graffiti which uses the CBS/Columbia Records version aka the original recording not used in New Vegas. Cavalcade is also a series with nearly identical covers which have different bylines like "Welcome to Candlelite Country" while emphasis should be placed on the Nashville Graffiti byline for the New Vegas version. The cover is a scribbly one-line type drawing with a man and woman singing next to a jukebox and a car near a diner. It mentions re-recordings from "Key Seven Music".
- Heat of the 50s (1987) This is a cassette released by Master Sound a subsidiary of the Mastertronic video game company from the UK. There's a long story about this release, but the intriguing thing is that it also has the version of "It's a Sin to Tell a Lie" from New Vegas as well which is extremely unusual. The cover features black and white clipart of a man dancing? The tape does mention re-recordings from "Kilo Music Limited".
- Those Fabulous 50s (1988) Another UK release from Ocean Records. The lamination is unfortunately peeling off from the cover which features a large closeup of a car. The label does mention re-recordings from "Kilo Music Limited".
- Hooked on Country (1990) Another UK release, this time a true-blue K-Tel record instead of one of its subsidiaries. It's a gatefold for a single LP with 50 non-stop country classics. Because it's non-stop, it's mostly one giant groove with no track separations, so cuing is a little difficult. The track credits are a bit of a mess with some tracks being re-recorded and some not. "Heartaches" is credited to a "S J Productions Inc." You can actually hear the New Vegas version of "Heartaches on this very old K-Tel TV commercial for the album.
There are likely other issues, but these are the ones I found so far with the New Vegas version. I also have a large number of "duds" from various countries which do not have the version featured in Fallout.
This is the last track used in New Vegas that was originally issued on vinyl before the soundtrack moves forward into the newer CD era.
1990s
Much of this information comes from the physical CDs themselves and their liner notes booklets. Surprisingly, the original CDs were among the hardest things to track down for New Vegas. Some people assume these songs were composed specifically for New Vegas mostly because they don't seem to exist outside of New Vegas. But these were songs composed by many talented musicians who are still working today. I will try to list instances where the song also appeared in media earlier than New Vegas.
You may recognize the other Dick Walter tracks on the Pure Big Band KPM CD set. "Hey, Hot Lips!" was used on the UK version of Whose Line is It Anyway? for the Narrate scenes back in the 1990s. The US version uses a slightly less sleazy version for its narrate scenes. "Hot Liquorice" was also used in 1998 X-Files "Triangle" episode and the Boggart scene coming from the gramophone Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
- "Goin' Under" (1997) is taken from the Bruton 2 CD set Nashville Timeline 1 and 2. It's an imitation of Hank Williams who is depicted on the cover art. While the liner notes mention the writers of the song Wayne Perry and Tommy Smith and extensive lyrics, it doesn't reveal the singer or the musicians playing. Just a biography of the writers, the names of the producers, and that it was recorded in Battery Studio in Nashville. If you remember the Disney movie Cars, this song actually plays very faintly at the beginning of the 2008 animated short "Toyko Mater" Unfortunately I can't find the English version of the short that didn't get copyright struck, but here's the official Dutch episode.
- "In the Shadow of the Valley", "Let's Ride into the Sunset Together", "Lone Star" (1998) were all taken from the same Sonoton CD Swingin' Out West. As for the cover art, it really pushes clip art and word art styles to the limit. On the Lost Weekend Swing Band's official website, they mention recording the album for Sonoton in 1998 and are still touring today. The liner notes are fairly detailed listing the writers and arrangers of each song. The personnel is clearly listed with the band's lineup in 1998 (the current touring lineup is a little different) though the vocals are just piled together in one credit line. The album was recorded at Bay Records in Berkeley, California, and it's a DDD CD to boot.
- "I'm Movin' Out" (1998) is taken from the Bruton CD Portrait of the 50s. Unlike the other Bruton CD, the writers, singers, and musicians are clearly documented for each track. "I'm Movin' Out" was written by the brothers Billy and Steven Roues and Gary Solomon with lead vocals by Billy Roues. There are detailed biographies, but no location on where it was recorded. If you recognize the dancing couple on the cover art, it's the same stock image used for the cover of the Cinemusic Dance Orchestra CD which provided archival recordings of the Jack Shaindlin songs "Let's Go Sunning" and "I'm Tickled Pink".
2000s
Here we are firmly in the CD era and some of Fallout's most modern songs. Some of these CDs would be issued on cardboard digipaks instead of plastic jewel cases.
- "I'm So Blue" (c. 2000) This actually comes from a multi-CD set released by Carlin over several years, Country Music 1, 2, 3, 4, (possibly a 5). "I'm So Blue" appears on both Country Music 3 - Songs/Line Dancing and Country Music 4 - Songs/Instrumentals. They appear to be ever so slightly different takes. Unfortunately, 3 and 4 don't have release dates, but 1 and 2 have dates of 1998 and 1999 respectively. The booklets both credit Martyn Laight and Katie Thompson as writers, but no further details on the musicians. However, the track was used in the 2000 film Remember the Titans when they are thrown out of the restaurant. It was also used in the 2008 Supernatural episode "Lazarus Rising".
- "Where Have You Been All My Life?" (2003) This comes from a Bruton CD Singers and Swingers. It's mentioned as the latest Hal David and John Cacavas album in the May 3, 2003 issue of Billboard magazine. The booklet is forthcoming with the vocalists, Jeff Hooper sang on this track, but only mentions a "Musician Fixer" and a Metro Voice Chorus. It was recorded at Battery Studios & Whitfield Street Studios in London. It actually shares an identical melody and arrangement with "Underneath the Mistletoe" found on the next Cacavas/David album the 2004 Bruton album In the Christmas Swing.
- "Sit and Dream" (2009) was released on a cardboard digipak as the Bruton CD Colourful Characters. The composer is listed as Laurie Stras and there are two male and female vocal versions. Laurie Stras coincidentally recorded for Obsidian Records singing early 16th and 17th century music. Unsurprisingly, she's a music professor in Southampton and mentioned Pete Thomas, the composer of the following track "Total Dreamer", sang the male vocal for her song. Apparently her young son is impressed with her getting a song in a video game though she wasn't notified.
TL;DR
Like all Fallout games, trying to track down the original releases and information about the songs in New Vegas was simultaneously interesting, rewarding, surprising, and very frustrating since so little information seems to exist about many of the songs outside of the game and the wide range of formats from shellac to vinyl to transcription discs to reel to reel tape to 8-tracks to cassettes to CDs. And yet after 10 years on the anniversary, it is still incomplete and I'm still looking.
Continued below...
Let me say up front, I know this is a rehash of old material, if not an actual repost. I am posting it because it’s been a few years since it last came up, and it’s very much worth repeating, and also introducing to newcomers to Reddit or the subreddit.
Some years ago when I was new to Reddit, a post came up in this subreddit which attempted to tally up “Reddit’s 200 Favorite Books.” Down the rabbit hole, I discovered that that (now lost to me) post was actually a repeat itself of an
earlier post by
raerth. This topic has come up a few times since then, every few years, as (I think) well it should. From what I can tell, it’s been a few years since the last refresher--but more to the point it's been
ten years since the original post! So, I thought it might be a good time to bring it to your attention. So, here we go!
The original list was compiled from various recommendation and “best books” threads now more than ten years old, which you will see if you click on the above link. There have of course continued to be new such posts in the interim, and so the list as I’m going to present it will have additional selections added to the end, based on some of the newer posts. You’ll see if you look at the next two links that the original poster didn’t want the list tampered with; out of respect for that, I’ll put a divider between the original 200 and the later additions. What I have NOT done is recompiled old and new posts together to produce an updated ranking; I just tacked new selections on at the end without ranking them into the original list. You should also know that the list is also available on Goodreads in two parts,
here (part one) and
here (part two).
Feel free to discuss anything you like about them—your experiences with these books, what you think belongs here and what doesn’t, etc. In the intervening years, has anyone read through the list, whether partially or completely? How did that work out?
I want to point out that clearly a few entries were given as joke entries on the posts from which the list was originally sourced, but with enough frequency that they were preserved here anyway; no need to point out that those selections aren’t serious. Also, a few entries made it on as a series, not an individual book, so the total number of books here is higher than expected.
I know this list is heavily white male authors. Feel free to discuss that too, but remember that that’s more a reflection on the state of publishing over the years than a reflection on any Redditor.
The original list of
Reddit’s 200 Favorite Books:
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams.
- 1984, George Orwell.
- Dune, Frank Herbert.
- Slaughterhouse 5, Kurt Vonnegut.
- Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card.
- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley.
- The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger.
- The Bible, Various.
- Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson.
- Harry Potter (Series), J.K. Rowling.
- Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein.
- Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!, Richard P. Feynman.
- To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee.
- The Foundation Saga (Series), Isaac Asimov.
- Neuromancer, William Gibson.
- Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson) (presumably just the first book, but could include the series).
- Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond.
- Catch-22, Joseph Heller.
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig.
- Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse.
- The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins.
- Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Douglas R. Hofstadter.
- Tao Te Ching, Lao Tse.
- House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski.
- The Giver, Lois Lowry.
- Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
- Animal Farm, George Orwell.
- A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn.
- The Lord of the Rings (Trilogy), J.R.R. Tolkien.
- Ishmael, Daniel Quinn.
- A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking.
- Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov.
- The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas.
- His Dark Materials (Trilogy), Philip Pullman.
- The Stranger, Albert Camus.
- Various books, Dr. Seuss (I can only assume the author got suggested more than any particular titles).
- The Road, Cormac McCarthy.
- Lord of the Flies, William Golding.
- The Monster at the End of This Book, Jon Stone and Michael Smollin.
- Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson.
- A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson.
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick.
- A Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
- The Art of War, Sun Tzu.
- How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie.
- Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keyes.
- The Hyperion Cantos, Dan Simmons.
- A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole.
- The Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, and Bill of Rights, Various.
- Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut (our first author to appear twice!).
- A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
- Odyssey, Homer.
- Farenheit 451, Ray Bradbury.
- A Song of Ice and Fire (Series), George R.R. Martin.
- The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald.
- The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (second repeat author!)
- Ringworld, Larry Niven.
- A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin (despite also being listed with its series).
- The Art of Deception, Kevin Mitnick.
- The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint Exupéry.
- Freakonomics, Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt.
- The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert A. Heinlein (#3 repeat! Okay, I’ll stop that now).
- The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan.
- Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad.
- The Forever War, Joe Haldeman.
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain.
- Lies My Teachers Told Me, James Loewen.
- Notes from Underground, Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
- Everybody Poops, Tarō Gomi.
- On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin.
- The Autobiography of Malcom X, Malcolm X with Alex Haley.
- John Dies at the End, David Wong.
- The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx.
- Contact, Carl Sagan.
- A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess.
- The Prince, Niccolò Macchiavelli.
- Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand.
- The Diamond Age, Neal Stephenson.
- War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy.
- The Stand, Stephen King.
- The Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac.
- The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien.
- Moby Dick, Herman Melville.
- The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera.
- Why People Believe Weird Things, Michael Shermer.
- Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky.
- Asimov’s Guide to the Bible, Isaac Asimov.
- The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway.
- Collapse, Jared Diamond.
- Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace.
- Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes.
- Chaos, James Gleick.
- American Gods, Neil Gaiman.
- Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein.
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, Mark Haddon.
- You Can Choose to be Happy, Tom G. Stevens.
- The Geography of Nowhere, James Howard Kunstler.
- All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque.
- Candide, Voltaire.
- Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler.
- The Girl Next Door, Jack Ketchum.
- In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan.
- The Dark Tower (Series), Stephen King.
- Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk.
- The Greatest Show on Earth, Richard Dawkins.
- The Making of a Radical, Scott Nearing.
- The Turner Diaries, Andrew MacDonald.
- The Scar, China Mieville.
- Steppenwolf, Hermann Hesse.
- Going Rogue, Sarah Palin.
- 120 Days of Sodom, Marquis de Sade.
- Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke.
- Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood.
- Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche.
- Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon.
- Naked Lunch, William Burroughs.
- Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke.
- Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck.
- The Book of Ler, M.A. Forster.
- The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, Carl Sagan.
- Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo.
- Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson.
- Watership Down, Richard Adams.
- Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut.
- Civilization and Capitalism, Fernand Braudel.
- Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, Chuck Klosterman.
- A Fire Upon the Deep, Vernor Vinge.
- The Saga of Seven Suns (Series), Kevin J. Anderson.
- The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck.
- American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis.
- The Mote in God’s Eye, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.
- The Chomsky Reader, Noam Chomsky.
- The Panda’s Thumb, Stephen Jay Gould.
- Flatland, Edwin Abbot.
- On the Road, Jack Kerouac.
- The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins.
- The Classical Style, Charles Rosen.
- Here Be Dragons, Sharon Kay Penman.
- An American Life, Ronald Reagan.
- Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, Carl Sagan.
- The Little Schemer, Daniel P. Friedman and Matthias Felleisen.
- Life in the Woods, Henry David Thoreau. (Yes, I know, this is the same as Walden, which is listed separately later. The error is in the original list.)
- Black Lamb, Grey Falcon, Rebecca West.
- Thus Spake Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche.
- Sandman (Comic Series), Neil Gaiman.
- The Game, Neil Strauss.
- Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.
- Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis.
- Walden, Henry David Thoreau.
- The Collapse of Complex Societies, Joseph Tainter.
- Cthulhu Mythos (Series), H.P. Lovecraft.
- The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester.
- The Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett.
- The Prince of Nothing, R. Scott Bakker.
- Perdido Street Station, China Mieville.
- Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl.
- The Wasteland, T.S. Eliot.
- The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini.
- Pi to 5 Million Places, Kick Books.
- The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker.
- The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin.
- Guts, Chuck Palahniuk.
- Fear and Trembling, Søren Kierkegaard.
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey.
- Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami.
- Ulysses, James Joyce.
- Macbeth, William Shakespeare.
- Basic Economics, Thomas Sowell.
- Atheism: The Case Against God, George H. Smith.
- The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood.
- For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway.
- Sophie’s World, Jostein Gaarder.
- Women, Charles Bukowski.
- Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson.
- We Need to Talk About Kevin, Lionel Shriver.
- How We Die, Sherwin B. Nuland.
- Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein.
- The Singularity is Near, Ray Kurzweil.
- The Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham.
- The Long Walk, Stephen King (as Richard Bachman).
- Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy.
- The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, Alan Watts.
- The Wheel of Time (Series), Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson.
- The Elegant Universe, Brian Green.
- A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth.
- Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe.
- King Lear, William Shakespeare.
- The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell.
- The Voyage of Argo: The Argonautica, Apollonius of Rhodes.
- The Baroque Cycle, Neal Stephenson.
- Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle.
- Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela.
- Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell.
- The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov.
- The Chrysalids, John Wyndham.
- The Occult, Colin Wilson.
- Cosmos, Carl Sagan.
- The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand.
- Hamlet, William Shakespeare.
- The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell.
The remainder of the list was added by me in 2016, mostly for my own use, but I’ve decided to include it here. I compiled it from several newer posts, as the original list is now ten years old. I do not, unfortunately, have links to those posts on hand. I also haven’t been as rigorous about it as
raerth was for the original list; these items aren’t ranked, and haven’t been placed among the original list entries. I simply pulled those popular books that hadn’t already been included in the original list, and tacked them on in no particular order. So, feel free to take or leave them as you see fit. (Apologies for the change in formatting here; it's due to a quirk of how numbered lists work on Reddit.)
201.
The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss.
202.
Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card.
203.
The Fault in Our Stars, John Green.
204.
The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut.
205.
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway.
206.
The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown.
207.
The Way of Kings, Brandon Sanderson.
208.
Never Let Me Go, Kazup Ishiguro.
209.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky.
210.
A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway.
211.
East of Eden, John Steinbeck.
212.
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens.
213.
The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien.
214.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson.
215.
The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner.
216.
Alive, Piers Paul Read.
217.
The Chronicles of Narnia (Series), C.S. Lewis.
218.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami.
219.
A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle.
220.
The Dresden Files (Series), Jim Butcher.
221.
The Shining, Stephen King.
222.
The Wise Man’s Fear, Patrick Rothfuss.
223.
Where the Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls.
224.
The Martian, Andy Weir.
225.
The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch.
226.
No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy.
227.
Neverwhere, Neal Gaiman.
228.
The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon.
229.
Ready Player One, Ernest Cline.
230.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde.
231.
As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner.
232.
Fifty Shades of Grey, E.L. James.
233.
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. le Guin.
234.
The Time Traveller’s Wife, Audrey Niffeneger.
235.
The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson.
236.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman.
237.
11/22/63, Stephen King.
238.
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens.
239.
Looking for Alaska, John Green.
240.
The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick.
241.
The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco.
242.
Children of the Mind, Orson Scott Card.
243.
Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell.
244.
The Once and Future King, T.H. White.
245.
Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
246.
The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett.
247.
Anathem, Neal Stephenson.
248.
The Book Thief, Markus Zusak.
249.
Salem’s Lot, Stephen King.
250.
Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami.
251.
The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon.
252.
Wanted, Patricia Potter.
253.
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy.
254.
A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving.
255.
1Q84, Haruki Murakami.
256.
Stardust, Neil Gaiman.
257.
All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy.
258.
The Night Angel Trilogy, Brent Weeks.
259.
Night, Elie Weisel.
260.
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen.
261.
A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini.
262.
If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler, Italo Calvino.
263.
Under the Dome, Stephen King.
264.
Old Man’s War, John Scalzi.
265.
The Trial, Franz Kafka.