"So this song is incredibly chaotic but wholly coherent. Last Shot is by templuv, which is an electronic music duo, and 347aidan, who is a Canadian rapper. Valorant is a first-person shooter game, and this song was commissioned to be the 2025 Valorant Champion tournament anthem. I like it so much because if it had popped up on some random kid's SoundCloud page, I would have pointed at it and said, That that's what right now sounds like."
"One of the things that's so great about this song is it shifts every 10 or 15 seconds. In one moment it's, like, emotionally desperate, and the other it's, like, really pugnacious. You're hearing the long tail of groups like Brokencyde. It's really, really Warped Tour familiar. The breakdown in the middle feels incredibly indebted to Lil Peep. For more than two decades, video games have kind of doubled as discovery engines for new music."
The Valorant Champion anthem "Last Shot," by templuv and 347aidan, combines electronic production, rap, emo and pop-punk influences into a fast-shifting, cohesive track. The song changes mood every 10 to 15 seconds, alternating between emotional desperation and combative energy, and references stylistic lineages from Brokencyde and Lil Peep. The commission for a major esports tournament exemplifies how video games function as long-running discovery platforms for diverse music. Games like Tony Hawk Pro Skater, Grand Theft Auto, Madden, NBA 2K and Fortnite have placed hip-hop, pop, rock and pop-punk side by side, encouraging genre-agnostic listening among young audiences.
Read at www.nytimes.com
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