I have always wondered about this, Fallout games mostly feature music from the 40s/50s/60s. I understand that it is there to match the mood and theme of the games.

One thing i have noticed is that the Fallout games are set at least a few hundred years after the era that these song were made in.

Here's the thing, why is there no unheard of music from the time between the end of the 60s and the great war? did the people in the Fallout universe just stop making music after the 60s?

Edit: i am not talking about music that exists in the real life, i am talking about music MADE IN the Fallout universe between the timeline split and the great war, there is hardly any at all.

because then the devs would have to devote time and money from other aspects of the game to creating a musical score. remember, this is a business. they have a budget and a timeline.

Because in the Fallout world there was a divergence from our timeline resulting in the USA remainng in the culture of the 1950s. So music, TV shows, cultural attitudes etc all remained in the 1950s, with technology advancing far beyond ours.

Pretty much this. They advanced in technology, but retained the 50s culture, after WWII, I believe.

I think the point he's making is that even if there were a divergence of timeline it shouldn't mean that the entertainment industry suddenly collapsed on itself and little new was produced in between.

I think Bethesda should hire http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojYK6CW8gdw to create a song or two and allow their band (SPG) to take on a Fallout-spin where they're actually musical automatons rather than people in make-up. Their musical automatons style would fit in Fallout's universe and they have a wide range of musical abilities so they could probably create something that sounds very 50's but feel somewhat modernized.

Yes, this

My rationalization has always been that these songs were what was popular at the time of the Great War. Style and culture often being cyclical after all.

There probably were other types of music at the time, but only the most popular recordings survived (as there were more of them.)

I do think it could be a neat quest to try and track down an ultra-rare and mythical holotape, and it turns out to be Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give you Up."

That would be the best Rickroll in the history of man-kind.
Unless the survivor2299 ends up being one.

I rather wander around in the wasteland listenting to 50''s music than Dubstep :L

It wouldn't be Dubstep since Fallout society is stuck in the 50s

well true but it does gives wonders what kind of music they would have came up with.

would probably be all 50s style music

One of the main plot tropes of the Fallout universe is that it takes place in a world that is based on the people of the 50s' grandiose (and often ludicrous) view of the future. That means that the bombs dropped during a time when the world existed in a glorified and technologized version of the real-world 50s. Hence the music.

Our world's 50s era, is essentially the same as the Fallout universe's 2050s era, except for the added technology. When the bombs dropped, everything froze in time.

There was, Obsidian actually http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Begin_Again for the New Vegas DLC. The thing is, it's a lot easier to just license existing music than it is to write and record new songs, so while new music was created after the 60s I wouldn't hold my breath expecting to see more original songs in future installments.

The thing I never liked about people claiming the divergence, is that a lot of rock n roll musicians were born before the Divergence. All these people somehow not decide to be musicians?

Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Beatles, The Doors, Jimmy Hendrix, etc etc etc would have still existed. Elvis existed, and he would be considered by many to be early rock, and people like Chuck Berry and Little Richard. I would definitely like to see some Chuck and Lil Richard in a FO game.

I heard that they planned on having Elvis music in New Vegas, but the licenses would've been to expensive or somethin'

This what I basically go with as well.

I hate that "culture stagnated for 120 years" thing, it's literally less realistic than radiation turning people into immortal zombies. I prefer to think of it as America re-embracing Cold War culture as nuclear war loomed over them in a subconscious cargo-cult hope that if they emulate the Cold War they'll also emulate the fact that the Cold War ended without a nuclear exchange.

Yeah I don't expect to see any Elvis or Beatles in a FO game for that reason. Unless they really decide to unleash some $$ for music.

The thing is that Fallout series is in essence a retro-futuristic presentation of a post-apocalyptic world. Thus the divergnce, the technological difference, etc. It is basically what people in the 40/50s imagined the world be or would become.

Well we see alot of 1950s style performers seen in posters in Fallout New Vegas.

It would be great to have orginal 50s style music created for future Fallouts but that would cost alot of money I assume. Unless they did what New Vegas did and have the developers write and perform their own music.

Fallout needs more people like the Lonesome Drifter, Agatha and Dean Domino.

well they could kind of copy the Bioshock Infinite retroized modern music gimmick and have acceptable modern songs preformed in a retro 40's or 50's style because there had to be something like PMRC in the Fallout universe

What the OP means, or what I think at least he means, is why no new music was made even though the Great War didn't happen until 2077. I mean, even if cultural tastes stayed the same, there'd still be "new" music - simply in that old style. But, in order for Bethesda or Obsidian to portray that, they'd have to pay for an actual score to be made, which isn't as cheap as simply buying the rights to some old songs.

I loved how they did that.

I've thought about the same thing; I can understand the reasons, but it does feel off that the only music readily available is 300 years old. In the originals you only hear 50's music during the intro movies. I can't off hand remember if there were any implications about other music, but a wild guess is that there'd be music in bars and casinos: not for the player to hear, but the environment suggests it (and I think that was better way of doing it).

My thought? Because the new devs and/or management either have misconceptions about the setting of the original series, or want to keep it excruciatingly simple to 'get' the concept of the FO world setting. Alas it's become 'It's the future, but all wacky and done like in the 50's or something'.

Culturally one could extrapolate that there was no Woodstock, and that the fifties aesthetic pervasively influenced every decade that followed; however it's nutty to simply assume that the only music in the world was actually recorded in the fifties. FO1 and 2 used their (SINGLE!!) fifties track as a nod to the way it had been before the war ~there was no fifties style music highlighted by the developers in Fallout's present day ~and they had ample option to simply commission music done in the 50's popular beats.

Sure, there could be original 50's tunes played in places... but the majority should have been from later artists; for instance like http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/Alternate-Earth_zps53e52bc9.jpg and http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/IggyPop-1-1_zps357123f7.jpg; or http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/M_Manson_zpsd681db6e.jpg.

**And of course they're all faked images for the fun of example... they certainly don't have to use real celebrities, but the point is that it's an alter-Earth setting where they ~and many others~ could (and probably would) exist, but have been of noticeably different countenance, appearance, and influence in that alternate reality than how they appeared in ours.