An absolute banger, ‘New Girl’ fuses the aggression of early pop-punk and skate-punk with the upstroke picking patterns of ska, creating a sound that is able to be skanked to, moshed to or skated to with equal enjoyment. The Suicide Machines’ ‘New Girl’ is the perfect example of this style. On the commercial front this meant the rise of the likes of No Doubt and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, but bubbling just under the surface of the underground, a more raw brand of ska-punk could be heard blasting out of the walkmans of skaters in the states. The ’90s were about a lot of things, but for a certain percentage of the world’s population the ’90s were about one thing and one thing only – ska, or more specifically the third wave of ska. Listen to it while you’re cruising through Burnside.
From the funk-fueled verses to the unorthodox lead guitar lines, obscure lyrical content, complete lack of a chorus and a bonkers breakdown at the backend, ‘Jerry Was a Racecar Driver’ is definitely the weirdest track included on the Tony Hawk Pro Skater soundtrack, but it’s also one of the best and it no doubt led to many kids picking up a bass whenever they weren’t skating. Truly one of the world’s most unique bands, funk-metallers Primus can be a bit of an acquired taste but thanks to their 1991 hit’s inclusion on Tony Hawk Pro Skater, a whole new generation got an introduction to Les Claypool’s trademark virtuoso basslines, with many acquiring a taste for the bizarro genius of Primus genre-melding sound in the process. The thrashy pace, urgent vocals and gritty production, made ‘Cyco Vision’ the perfect introductory track to Suicidal Tendencies and the absolute best choice for a scorching 2 min session run in the warehouse. ‘Cyco Vision’ and THPS changed that though, exposing the band’s music to a new generation of skate punks.
So despite Suicidal Tendencies having classic tracks like ‘Possessed to Skate’ and ‘Institutionalized’ in their canon, it’s probably safe to say that prior to the inclusion of their 1999 scorcher ‘Cyco Vision’ on the original Tony Hawk Pro Skater, a generation of potential fans probably wasn’t all that aware of their legacy. Their music, however, is a little more technical and trash-driven than the sounds that had taken over the Cali scene in the mid-late ’90s.
These hardcore punks from Venice, CA are often touted as skate punk genre originators – a moniker that seems to fit well, given their affiliation with both the notoriously violent punk scene and the street skate scene of early-mid ’80s California. You can’t make a skating game without including Suicidal Tendencies. Of course, I was going to put Dead Kennedys on a skate game soundtrack, that’s what I listened to skating! Shredding the streets of San Francisco to ‘Police Truck’ is one 1999’s greatest pleasures. That was the music that I heard hanging out in the skate park as a kid. As Tony Hawk himself told us back in March, “For me I was just trying to keep it authentic to my experience.
Released all the way back in 1979, ‘Police Truck’ is an all-time great punk track from a band that is synonymous with early street skate culture, and its inclusion as the lead track on the first game helped to introduce a generation of suburban kids to one of punk’s most important bands. There’s a reason this track was chosen to soundtrack the official trailer for the remake.
Tony Hawk Pro Skater ‘Police Truck’ – The Dead Kennedys A combination of new and classic alt-culture sounds ranging from the punk sounds of OGs like The Dead Kennedys, Suicidal Tendencies and Bad Religion, through to the skate punk and ska bands of the era like Lagwagon, Millencolin and Goldfinger, to hip-hop icons Naughty by Nature, to rap-rock gods Rage Against the Machine and even the iconic Anthrax/Public Enemy mosh-up ‘Bring the Noise’, the Tony Hawk Pro Skater soundtrack was a bridge between musical worlds, a multi-volume mixtape that defined an era and laid the foundation for the genre-hopping musical taste of a generation.īelow we’ve compiled a playlist of 10 tracks from across the first two Tony Hawk Pro Skater titles that helped change the soundtrack of our lives forever.
The music of the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series was, to borrow a slang term of the era, rather tight.