free variable

Note to regular readers: I expect to dig myself out from under a mound of grading shortly, and regular blogging on non-mass-entertainment related topics will ensue. In the meantime, check out some crackpot comments — too few links to be spam, too little sense to be serious — here and here (scroll past legitimate comments).

Andrea’s cousins Tim and Luke introduced me to NCAA Football 06 last week. I didn’t play it, but I saw them play enough to note the licensed soundtrack, which includes “Debaser” by the Pixies, some track from the Pietasters’ “post-good” period (but still! The Pietasters! I saw them at the old 9:30 Club twice in 1994 alone!), Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, The Clash, and Guided By Voices.

Where was this selection of “EA Trax” when they were setting the playlist for Madden NFL 2005? Every down that I had to endure an aural crapfest of “Hoobastank” or “Franz Ferdinand” now stings all the more.

The moral of the story? If you’re old enough so that you probably should have outgrown ephemeral commercial music, you might fondly remember some of the songs in this game. Whether or not this is a good marketing move for EA remains to be seen — SI.com’s Stewart Mandel doesn’t think so.