Ludwig Göransson is one of the hottest stocks in the music industry right now. He became known for his work on hip-hop productions by Childish Gambino and Kendrick Lamar. He is famous because his compositions appear in Marvel and Disney productions. Since Sunday (March 11th) the Swede has also been the proud winner of an Academy Award. He got it for his soundtrack to the Oscar winner “Oppenheimer”.
Without intending to do so, Göransson didn’t just make friends that evening. Since the beginning of the week, the internet has been overflowing with malicious comments about the sound artist, who is something of a legitimate successor to Hans Zimmer, not only in view of his role in Nolan’s biopic.
Guitars instead of video games
But what happened that the friendly musician is now receiving hate messages? In his acceptance speech, Göransson said that when he was younger, he preferred playing instruments instead of sitting in front of the television and playing computer games. Specifically, he thanked his parents “for giving me guitars and drum machines instead of video games.”
The notoriously offended gamer scene, which likes to point out the success figures of its industry (which Hollywood has long since been unable to do anything about), but always reacts when their art is laughed at as secondary, immediately took out their claws.
Numerous users on Twitter pointed out the importance of soundtracks from video games, which have had a significant influence on electronic music and also on film music. Most games have long been provided with opulent scores, recorded by their own orchestras. Something that the film industry only wants to afford in exceptional cases.
You could write an entire article about the importance of music in video games, how it shapes pop culture today, and so on. However, it hardly protects Ludwig Göransson from all the hateful comments about what was actually a pretty mild joke that was only intended to express how much his parents supported him as a child and believed in his musical talent.
Bet he’ll be doing the scoring for a Marvel game soon…