Pitchfork

We rarely have full tracklists for records seven months before their release for the same reason that we haven't yet nailed down our plans for New Year's Eve 2010-- although if you know any good parties, feel free to hook us up. Video game development takes time, though, which is why game/music cross-promotions leave us with news spanning a nearly precognitive time-frame.

And so we pass that early, strange, marketable news on to you-- in the summer of 2005, Aspyr Media will release Stubbs the Zombie - The Soundtrack, featuring some of your favorite focus-group tested favorite bands performing covers of songs from the 1950s or earlier. This is all, as you may have guessed, connected to the upcoming release of Stubbs the Zombie in "Rebel Without a Pulse", an XBOX/Mac/PC game. Players will slake the undead protagonist's hunger (or so we assume) to the sound of these tunes:

01 Ben Kweller: "Lollipop"
02 The Raveonettes: "My Boyfriend's Back"
03 Death Cab for Cutie: "Earth Angel"
04 Rogue Wave: "Every Day"
05 Cake: "Strangers in the Night"
06 The Walkmen: "There Goes My Baby"
07 Dandy Warhols: "All I Have to Do Is Dream"
08 Oranger: "Mr. Sandman"
09 The Flaming Lips: "If I Only Had a Brain"
10 Clem Snide: "Tears On My Pillow"
11 Rose Hill Drive: "Shakin' All Over"
12 Milton Mapes: "Lonesome Town"
13 Phantom Planet: "The Living Dead" (non-cover, but zombie-themed song)

The anachronistic feel of the soundtrack extends to the game itself, which is set in 1959, but takes place in a World's Fair-style "City of the Future." Imagine yourself as an inhuman monster bent on revenge, trashing a proto-Epcot Center while Wayne Coyne croons you a song from The Wizard Of Oz. That, my friends, is high culture.

The bands were given substantial leeway in suggesting songs for the project, with nudges by Aspyr's producers. But it apparently didn't take much nudging, as Nick Harmer of Death Cab had this to say: "We absolutely had to be a part of it. We had such a great time recording "Earth Angel" for a zombie game that we even decorated the recording studio to look like a 1950's prom just to get us in the mood. Thankfully, we didn't have to eat each other as well."