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Portal Stories Mel Time and Time Again Lyrics

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Song in closing credits of the video game Portal

"Still Alive"
Song by Ellen McLain
from the album The Orange Box Soundtrack
Released December 21, 2007
Recorded 2007
Genre
  • Soundtrack
  • acoustic stone
  • video game music
Length ii:56
Label Valve
Songwriter(s) Jonathan Coulton

"Still Alive" is a song featured in the closing credits of the 2007 video game Portal. It was composed and bundled by Jonathan Coulton and was performed by Ellen McLain, who portrayed the Portal adversary and subject field of the song, GLaDOS. The vocal originated in a coming together between ii Valve developers and Coulton about him writing a vocal for the company, which Coulton accustomed every bit he was a fan of Valve's Half-Life serial, which is set in the same universe as Portal. The song was released on The Orange Box Soundtrack on Dec 21, 2007, forth with an exclusive vocal mix not heard in the game.[1]

The song is displayed on what appears to be a calculator panel, playing later on GLaDOS is defeated past protagonist Chell, with the lyrics revealing that GLaDOS is, in fact, "still live." The vocal received praise for its humor and the quality of its operation. It has been featured in multiple venues, including at the 2009 Press Start -Symphony of Games-, a yearly Japanese concert consequence to showcase the musical works of video games. It was also featured as a gratis downloadable song for the Stone Band series, originally released on April 1, 2008. A rerecorded version, with Sara Quin on atomic number 82 vocals, appears on Coulton's 2011 anthology Bogus Heart.

History and recording [edit]

Jonathan Coulton, the composer of "Still Alive"

The song "Nonetheless Alive" was written by Jonathan Coulton and performed by Ellen McLain for the 2007 video game Portal. McLain besides provides the voice for GLaDOS in this song, an artificial intelligence and the game's antagonist.[2] "Still Alive" is sung from the perspective of GLaDOS, used as the song that runs over the game's credits. By the terminate of the game, Chell, the game'southward protagonist who has been misled and placed in life-threatening situations inside the game's testing facility setting by GLaDOS, eventually defeated her. Nonetheless, the song disputes this, with GLaDOS exclaiming that she was nevertheless alive and that things were a success. She as well exclaims that she is nevertheless testing, and references the Combine invasion of Earth in the One-half-Life series. The song itself is likewise present as a samba instrumental version through in-game radios at certain points in the game.[3]

Coulton was approached by two Valve designers post-obit a concert in Seattle, Washington. They asked him if he would like to write music for the company. Coulton was a fan of Half-Life, so he immediately accustomed. After discussing what they should practice, he and the designers settled on Portal. By this betoken, a few months before the release of The Orange Box, Valve's writers had created a large amount of backstory for GLaDOS and other aspects of Portal, which Coulton used to write the lyrics.[4] Every bit GLaDOS grew more important to Portal 's story, McLain was asked to sing for the game, since she was a trained operatic soprano, given a scratch vocal version by Coulton.[5] [half-dozen] McLain's singing, which Coulton described every bit conveying "emotion in a not-emotional mode," was modified to sound computerized.[6] The overall process about half-dozen weeks to complete.[4] Coulton constitute it hard to become GLaDOS' vocalization out of his caput.[7] Kim Swift, lead designer of Portal, explained that the song was called to play during the credits because they wanted to exit players feeling happy.[eight]

When Coulton began work on a theme for the Portal-connected video game Lego Dimensions, he exclaimed that the song was a "phenomenon ... out of control," and that the song benefited from the writing and its context in the game. He constitute composing the Lego Dimensions song, "You lot Wouldn't Know", easier to practice once he accepted that he would not be able to brand a vocal every bit big as "Still Alive" again.[9]

In other media [edit]

It was featured in The Orange Box Original Soundtrack released on Steam, containing both the original version and remix sung past Coulton himself.[10] It was given a remix by vocalist Sarah Covey in the album, "The Greatest Video Game Music 2".[eleven] Information technology had been played live at the tertiary Video Games Live concert, and released as part of the album Video Games Live Level iii.[12] Coulton worked with They Might Be Giants songwriter John Flansburgh on a new version of "Still Alive" for an album by Coulton in 2013.[13] It was included in the Vitamin String Quartet'southward Geek Wedding Album.[14] A vinyl disc was released to celebrate Portal 's 10th ceremony in 2017, featuring "Withal Live".[fifteen]

The vocal is besides present in Valve'south zombie-themed Left 4 Dead two, which tin can be selected to play on a jukebox in three dissimilar campaigns.[16] The opening line for "Still Alive" ("This was a triumph. I'm making a notation here: HUGE SUCCESS.") was featured in the Valve game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. This was thought to exist an alternate reality game nigh a potential Portal sequel, but was afterwards confirmed to just be an Easter egg.[17] In the Portal game mod "Portal Prelude", a remix of "However Alive" can exist heard on several radios throughout the game, however, they are not performed by GLaDOS.[eighteen] The spin-off Bridge Constructor Portal features a cameo advent of the song.[xix] A Christmas-themed remix of "However Alive" was created for Valve'southward Discontinuity Science website, showing a moving image of the Weighted Companion Cube with a Santa Claus hat, catastrophe with a message reading "HAPPY [HOLIDAY NAME HERE]".[xx] A special Microsoft Windows port of the Xbox Live Arcade title, Chime, includes "Nevertheless Alive" as an additional music stage for the game.[21] [22]

In Rock Band [edit]

"Notwithstanding Alive" was featured equally a downloadable song in multiple games in the Stone Band series, including Rock Band, Rock Ring 2, and Rock Ring Unplugged.[23] [24] [25] It was included for gratis on the Xbox 360, Wii and PlayStation 3 to thank players for supporting the series.[26] [27] After complaints about Rock Band Unplugged 'due south version not existence free, this was rectified and anyone who paid for information technology had their money refunded.[28] Afterwards a content pack for Stone Band was hacked, a list of songs purported to be included was released which included "Withal Alive".[29] Jonathan Coulton and three others performed this vocal on Rock Band, announcing its presence in the title as a downloadable song.[30] Coulton's version with Sara Quin, as appears on his album Artificial Heart, was later released through the Stone Band Network as well.

Live performances [edit]

The song was also performed at the 2009 Press Showtime -Symphony of Games-, a yearly Japanese concert result to showcase the musical works of video games. "Even so Alive" is the first Western song to be performed at the show, which included a Japanese translation by Kazushige Nojima, a writer of several Last Fantasy games, and arrangement for the Tokyo Combo Orchestra. Masahiro Sakurai, director of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, demonstrated the game to the audience prior to the performance, given the minimal exposure of Portal in Japan. The vocals were done by vocalist Mariko Otsuka.[31] [32]

PBS [edit]

An instrumental version of the song was used in the soundtrack of the Public Dissemination Arrangement's From Bounding main to Shining Sea video travelogue of the Usa.

Reception [edit]

"Still Alive" has been met with pregnant praise, called "legendary" by USgamer author Nadia Oxford and identified by Vice author Jagger Gravning as the most famous lyric-based video game song.[33] [5] It is credited with earning Coulton a "cult condition."[34] A big bulk of video game critics who awarded Portal game of the year mentioned "Still Live" as one of the game's qualities, while Portal designer Chet Faliszek felt that it was office of why Portal was special.[35] [36] The vocal was called the most memorable moment of 2007 by the Australian Broadcasting Company's television set series, Good Game.[37] Quondam LucasArts employee and Sinistar designer Noah Falstein felt that the song enhanced the game, and that more than games should craft a song for the end that fits them also every bit Coulton was able to fit "Still Alive". He praised McLain'south performance as "pitch-perfect" and the song as "tricky."[38] IGN writer Ryan Geddes calling it the best game-catastrophe song of all fourth dimension, while Mashable author Kellen Brook plant it ane of the most recognizable.[39] [xv] The vocal'due south singer, McLain, praised Coulton for capturing GLaDOS in the song every bit well as he did.[40] The song was given the "Best Original Vocal - Pop Song" award by the Game Sound Network Society during their 2008 awards.[41] Coulton experienced a surge in popularity after the release of Portal due to the song's release.[4] It was afterward performed live past original vocaliser Ellen McLain for the outset time at Anime Midwest in Chicago.[42] In the book The Art of Videogames, author Grant Tavinor stated that while he was in hysterics by the song, he got the sense of artistic completion upon hearing it.[43] 1UP.com's Alice Liang called the ending to Portal "catchy, charming, surprising, and humorously bittersweet".[44] On the eve of Portal two 's release, Forbes editor David Ewart called the vocal "surprising, funny, tricky, and unforgettable", and considered its opening line "This was a triumph" as a "modernistic shibboleth".[45] Kyle Hilliard of Game Informer included the song in a list of surprising musical numbers in video games, while fellow Game Informer writer Michael Leri featured it in a listing of "awesome" non-interactive credits sequences.[46] [47] UGO writer Melissa Meli felt sick of the vocal due to how frequently they hear it, just still recognized the game's soundtrack equally "one of the nearly endearing and original soundtracks in gaming history."[48] Sara Goodwin of The Mary Sue called information technology one of the all-time villain songs, calling it "pretty" and the lyrics "amazing and spooky."[49]

The Printing Start -Symphony of Games- performance received criticism from Video Game Music Online writer Cedille, who felt that the lyrics sounded "childish" when translated into Japanese, and that the vocaliser gave a "faceless performance" that fabricated it "painful and dreadful." Cedille was appreciative of the efforts made to demonstrate Portal to Japanese audiences, but questioned the need to translate it into Japanese and feature a different singer.[50] The Covey remix in "The Greatest Video Game Music 2" album was considered a weaker vocal in said album, with beau Video Game Music Online Jon Hammond finding the instrumental aspects nice, but feeling that Covey sounded similar she was trying too hard to sing well, sacrificing the song'south humor.[11] Video Game Music Online critic Oliver Jia felt that the original version of "Still Alive" was one of the most memorable video game themes, but felt that the performance on the Video Games Live Level three album ruined it due both to the fact that they used a live recording that sounded worse than other songs on the album, but also due to the crowd singing and clapping forth, making information technology audio "overly cheesy and poorly done."[12]

Due to the success of the vocal, Coulton was brought on to work on the soundtrack of the sequel, Portal 2.[51] Paste Magazine writer Nathan Spicer felt that it was a video game song that could be enjoyed regardless of someone's familiarity with Portal.[35]

See also [edit]

  • Music of Portal 2

References [edit]

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External links [edit]

  • Farther clarifications on the song at jonathancoulton.com
  • "Nonetheless Live" at MusicBrainz (information and list of recordings)

quijadamajoys.blogspot.com

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Still_Alive

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