Fans of the Valve Corporation® game Team Fortress 2® may enjoy this song written by Brentalfloss. The music video for the song opens with the question: “What if Team Fortress 2® had a theme song?” What follows is a fun, country-song-themed romp through a Team Fortress 2® machinema. The lyrics playfully describe the benefits of each character class in the game including Snipers, Pyros, the Engineer, and Demoman.
What makes this video work?
Brentalfloss’s song demonstrates the potential for creating unique, new content that capitalizes on the brand recognition of well established aspects of popular culture. In this particular example, a clever/fun song about a well known multiplayer, FPS videogame. The song writer chose lyrics that describe aspects of the video game in a way that will feel familiar to individuals who play the game.
For brentalfloss, the potential gain in using this tactic is that the song may garner him additional attention, new fans, and music sales to new customers.
The approach of leveraging popular culture to gain a following has worked well for other artists. For example, Jonathan Coulton who wrote “Still Alive” (which was actually part of the Portal® video game soundtrack) and an acoustic cover of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s song “Baby Got Back.”
About brentalfloss
The official brentafloss website offers the following background information regarding the artist:
brentalfloss is a comedian, musician, and gamer. He first gained notoriety when he added lyrics to the title theme from Mega Man 3 and created the “With Lyrics” series on Youtube. He has since become a feature on ScrewAttack.com and grown a Youtube subscriber base of about 92,000. He lives in New York City and performs at music venues and gaming conventions all over North America. Also, his girlfriend’s AWESOME.
And yes, his name is officially uncapitalized. You can also make it all caps so it looks IMPORTANT. The uncapitalized thing makes English teachers upset, especially when sentences start with his name. brentalfloss don’t care.
The Team Fortress 2 Song! (via youtube.com)
