Most Popular Video Game Music and Composers Of All Time
Published on 20th February 2024 by Guy Lanham
With the video game industry now worth more than the music and film industry combined, it's no surprise that video game music is more popular than ever before. Video game music now has its own awards category at the BAFTAs, and some of the music industry's most celebrated icons, such as David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Florence and the Machine, Nine Inch Nails and even Michael Jackson have all composed music for video games.
With players racking up days and sometimes even weeks of gameplay on their favourite games, many of them are exposed to video game music more than any other form of music. Whether it's Nobuo Uematsu's scores for Final Fantasy or Koji Kondo's music in the Legend of Zelda, a lot of people have strong opinions about video game music - but which tracks are the biggest hit with music fans?
By analysing Spotify data for the most iconic pieces of video game music, we've put together our own top 20 music chart for the biggest video game tracks. Grab your headset, plug yourself in and get listening.
Legends Never Die Tops The Chart Creating £745,692 in Revenue
Interestingly, the top three most streamed video game tracks on Spotify are all from League of Legends, one of the most popular MOBA games ever released. The most popular track, Legends Never Die, has been streamed 219 million times, equating to £745k in revenue. It was written by the Riot Games Music Team and debuted at the League of Legends World Championship Finals opening in Beijing, essentially gaming's equivalent of the World Cup or Superbowl finals. If you want a better idea of just how big this performance was, you can check out the live footage. The final was watched by a huge crowd of 60 million people, showing the phenomenal popularity of the video game. And if you think that's impressive, the 2019 World Championship brought in more viewers than the 2021 Superbowl final - over 100 million in total, with peak concurrent views of 44 million.
Keen to capitalise on such a passionate fan base of gamers, Riot Games Music has even created a virtual K-Pop band, K/DA, using characters from League of Legends. We have not included K/DA in our top 20 table as we classed them as a band in their own right, but their most popular track POP/STARS has 185 million streams on Spotify in addition to a massive 417m views on YouTube, which has generated a massive £630k in revenue on Spotify. The song also reached #1 on the official Billboard World Digital Sales chart, beating two of the biggest K-pop groups in the world.
Minecraft and Undertale and Mass Effect make top 10 appearances
Undertale is a celebrated Indie RPGs classic, but its popularity extends way beyond an indie crowd. MEGALOVANIA from the game is the fourth-most popular video game track on Spotify, with a massive 74 million streams generating £253k in revenue.
It may be no surprise to hear that the music of Minecraft, one of the best-selling video games of all time, is just as popular as the game. Three tracks from Minecraft appeared in the top 20: Sweden, Minecraft and Subwoofer Lullaby. Minecraft's ambient score is the perfect soundtrack to relax to, whether you're working, studying, or spending time in the game. The track Vigil from Mass Effect also featured in the top 10, with over 61 million streams equating to £208k in revenue generated
Heavy metal music and sombre acoustic tracks
Game soundtracks cover a variety of different genres, but it doesn't get much heavier than the DOOM 2016 soundtrack written by Australian composer Mick Gordon. The tracks Rip and Tear, BFG division and At Doom’s Gate have racked up over 86 million streams in total, generating over £294k in revenue. From heavy metal guitar to sombre acoustic, Gustavo Santaolalla's music in The Last of Us also proved popular with gamers, with his tracksThe Last of Us and The Choice hitting 66 million combined streams, generating the equivalent of £225k in revenue.
Riot Games Music Team, including the writer of Britney and Justin Bieber hits, attract 5.6 monthly listeners on Spotify via Video Game Music
The worldwide appeal of League of Legends means Riot Games Music Team is the most popular group of video game musicians, with over 5.6m monthly listeners on Spotify alone. Riot Games Music Team is a collective of musicians, comprising the talent of in-house composers at Riot Games with its partners, such as DJ Justin Tranter, who has written songs for Britney Spears, Gwen Stefani, and Justin Bieber.
Toby Fox, composer and developer for Undertale was the second most popular video game composer on Spotify, with 1.7m monthly listeners. That's impressive when you consider Fox has only written music for a handful of other indie titles in addition to a couple of tracks for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Pokémon Sword and Shield. Martin Przybyłowicz has composed music for The Witcher series and most recently, Cyberpunk 2077, with the game's recent release landing Przybyłowicz a spot in the top three most listened to composers.
Some familiar names also appear further down on the list, including Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu (626k monthly listeners) and Halo composer Martin O'Donnell (687k monthly listeners). Given the vast number of Final Fantasy titles, it’s surprising to see Uematsu so low down on the list, but it makes sense when you consider a lot of his music was only uploaded to Spotify in 2019. This lack of visibility until recently means many of Uematsu's most streamed songs are arrangements of tracks from the game.
Michael Jackson, Paul Mccartney and David Bowie have all composed music for video games
Yup, some of the biggest celebrities in the world have composed music for video games, even Michael Jackson wrote a lot of music that appeared in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 on the Sega Megadrive. The chords that Jackson composed for the end credits in Sonic 3 are used in his track Stranger in Moscow.
One of the most exciting crossovers between real-world musicians and video games is the music Paul McCartney wrote for the game Destiny. In addition to the promotional song Hope for The Future, McCartney collaborated with Destiny composers Michael Salvatori and Martin O’Donnell to compose orchestral arrangements for most of the in-game music. The music was officially released as a soundtrack, Music of the Spheres. As equally impressive is Salvatori’s and McDonnel’s work on the Halo 2 soundtrack, which was produced by grammy-award winning musician Nile Rodgers. It features compositions from guitarists Steve Vai, John Mayer, as well as the rock bands Incubus, Hoobastank and Breaking Benjamin.
In recent years, bands and artists have started composing original music just for video games. Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding features original music from Bring Me The Horizon, CHVRCHES, Khalid and Major Lazer, while indie/neo-folk band Daughter wrote the score for 2017’s Life is Strange: Before the Storm. Equally, the Final Fantasy series is no stranger to collaborations with big names. Final Fantasy XIII’s soundtrack featured music from Leona Lewis, while the most recent entry, Final Fantasy XV, saw new music from Florence and the Machine and Afrojack among others.
As the video game industry and music industry continue to grow closer together, we can expect to see more games featuring big names in the future.
Ready to listen? Hook up Spotify on your PlayStation or Xbox and get going.
Methodology:
We compiled a list of the most recognisable and iconic video game composers that have written music for a variety of best-selling indie and AAA titles. The most popular tracks were decided by analysing the total number of individual track streams on Spotify from top 10 tracks, while the most popular video game composers were ranked according to their monthly listeners on Spotify. As many of the celebrities that have composed music for video games aren’t officially credited, we dived into an archive of old video game interviews that featured accredited sources or the artists themselves confirming their appearances in the game.