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Home , Another Way to Die, A Few Small Repairs, Elite Beat Agents, Funny the Way It Is, Geoff Tate, The Essential Clash

This journal lists the prologue and the songs associated with the Seven Deadly Sins in my Elite Beat Agents 2 project, including the Seven Deadly Sins' half of the finale. (Note that the finale has only five songs unique to it – two for the Sins, two for the Virtues, and one “bridge” song that serves as the roadblock for those who have yet to unlock the good ending. The other 28 songs in the finale are remixes of songs from earlier in the game - that's why I call it a boss rush.) Note that I'm not 100% happy with all of these lists and am open to substitution suggestions.

{Note that because the Seven Deadly Sins are well, evil behaviors that are not to be condoned at all, the final level for each Seven Deadly Sins set is basically themed on showing just how pathetic the Sin is (or, at least, how indulging in it is a terrible idea that will directly lead to your being completely and utterly destroyed). Thus, the boss level always involves the Sin being afflicted by either Laser-Guided Karma or a Villainous Breakdown (generally of the BSOD variety). This does not apply to the final level of the prologue, which directly leads into the storyline proper, or the final level of the Sins' half of the finale, in which they outright murder the Elite Beat Agents unless the Seven Heavenly Virtues have been recruited – in which case the game transitions to their half of the finale. (Well, okay, technically the “murder the EBA” bit happens in the middle of the bridge, but it still counts.) The Sins' greatest moments for their individual levels instead tend to be the pre-boss levels. In any case, I will be providing justifications for each song and its placement. Some of these justifications will be stronger than others – as I said, I'm not 100% comfortable with all of my song choices.}

The song list for the Seven Heavenly Virtues can be found here.

Prologue: Prologue links: Screenshot, Playlist 1. "Supersoulfighter" by Lenny Kravitz [5] {The songs in the prologue all form a story arc. In this song, the EBA are conducting business as usual, inspiring a guitarist to foil a bank robbery. And before you ask – no, I didn't necessarily want to plug my own video here, but better that than the only other video with the song on YouTube, which doesn't even get the song's name right.} 2. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana [Nevermind] {The EBA are called to prevent a teenager's house from being totally trashed by a party he threw that's gone dreadfully wrong.} 3. "Funny the Way It Is" by the Band [Big Whiskey & The GooGrux King] {This song is mainly here as a bit of rambling about the flaws of humanity to lead into the point where the plot starts to thicken. (Maybe I should have included a few more stages before this, but the story arc is gonna take a while.)} 4. "Murder by Numbers" by The Police [Synchronicity] {The EBA find themselves called to assist in a murder investigation. And by "assist", I mean "inspire the policemen". Hey, it's what they do.} 5. "Psycho Killer" by the Talking Heads [Best of Talking Heads] {The above-mentioned investigation goes a little too well, and the EBA wind up confronting the killer.} 6. "Renegade" by Styx [Pieces of Eight] {The EBA apparently catches the killer, but things go deadly wrong…}

1 7. "Dani California" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers [ 2007] {...And I mean that literally. The murderer slips through the police's fingers, and one of the police officers ends up dead. Uh-oh.} 8. "Survival" by Muse [The 2nd Law] {The EBA escapes the killer by the skin of their teeth.} 9. "Should I or Should I Go" by [The Essential Clash Disc 2] {A global crime wave has broken out, and the killer the Elite Beat Agents are chasing is only the tip of the iceberg! For now, however, they must stick to their current mission.} 10. "City of Delusion" by Muse [Black Holes and Revelations] {...Or not, as a riot suddenly starts up and the Elite Beat Agents must calm the mob.} 11. "The Living Daylights" by a-ha [Best of Bond... : 40th Anniversary Edition] {With the riot quelled, the EBA finds that the killer was behind it, and give chase once more.} 12. "Blood on the Dance Floor" by Michael Jackson [Blood on the Dance Floor] {The EBA catches the killer in the act and confront them once again to rescue their would-be victim.} 13. "Queen of Spades" by Styx [Pieces of Eight] {The force controlling the killer reveals itself - it's a demon embodying Lust, one of the Seven Deadly Sins!} 14. "Let the Hunt be the Hunted" by Saliva [Spy Hunter: Nowhere to Run] {The Elite Beat Agents find that the killer is more than they bargained for, and are forced to retreat. Unfortunately, the killer gives chase.} 15. "DIVE" by Be4U [Dance Dance Revolution] {I won't lie – I wanted to make sure there would be a J-pop song in this project, to honor Elite Beat Agents's Japanese roots (Elite Beat Agents is basically a Westernized counterpart to Osu! Tanken! Ouendan!). And this song is really, really catchy. As for this song's placement in the prologue's story arc: the Elite Beat Agents manage to elude the killer, only to find themselves helping a bystander rescue the killer's next victim. When all is said and done, said intended victim is safe. Unfortunately...} 16. "Getaway" by Earth, Wind & Fire [Earth, Wind & Fire: Greatest Hits] {...The Elite Beat Agents are back in the killer's sights, and must escape once again.} 17. "" by [Skyfall] {The Elite Beat Agents engage in a final battle with the killer and defeat him. However, the demonic presence that was controlling him escapes.} 18. "It's On Again" by feat. Kendrick Lamar [The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Soundtrack] {The EBA resolves to get to the bottom of the incident, and begins to investigate the global crime wave.} 19. "We Didn't Start The Fire" by Billy Joel (BOSS) {The true battle is just beginning; the world is broken and needs to be fixed.} Seven Deadly Sins #1: Lust:

2 Lust links: Screenshot, Playlist, Wikipedia

Lust is typically seen as an unhealthy desire for sex, but it's really an unhealthy desire for anything. Having said that, this playlist does focus on sexual desire because, well, that's what most music tends to get written about. 1. "Someone" by Boston [Corporate America] {A guy is pining for a girl who apparently wants nothing to do with him. There are also mild stalkerish undertones.} 2. "If You Want It To Be Good Girl (Get Yourself A Bad Boy)" by the Backstreet Boys [Backstreet Boys] {The narrator is trying to invoke the "All Girls Want Bad Boys" trope (while also invoking Bad Is Good And Good Is Bad for extra Mind Screw). Sadly, bad boys tend to make for bad husbands, and marrying one is just asking for a dismal, abusive marriage.1} 3. "A View To A Kill" by Duran Duran [Best of Bond...James Bond: 40th Anniversary Edition] {I'm just going to paraphrase Friar Lawrence from Romeo & Juliet here – "passion that burns too bright burns itself out."} 4. "Only the Good Die Young" by Billy Joel [The Stranger] {Trying to corrupt a good girl and make her a whore should not sit well with anyone. Basically, if there was ever a song that it would make sense to start a colossal moral panic over, it would be this one. (And, as it turns out, there totally was a moral panic over it.2)} 5. "My Humps" by the Black-Eyed Peas [Grammy Nominees 2007] {I used to hate this song when I was younger, and the reason why is simple – it is blatantly sexually charged and just plain inappropriate. I only warmed up to it when I was made aware that its misogynistic tones are supposed to be over-the-top.}3 6. "Sexyback" by Justin Timberlake [Grammy Nominees 2007] (MID-BOSS) {This song consists of over-the-top flirting, and being very, very open about the hoped-for end result. Bonus points for bringing up the subject of bondage.} 7. “Every Breath You Take” by The Police [Every Breath You Take: The Singles] {You know how I mentioned that “Someone” by Boston had slight stalkerish undertones? This song has heavy stalker undertones, to the point where the only way it could be

1 Yes, I’m aware that, based on the epic-, the song sounds like it should come later on the list, but this is a sin that has a lot of songs associated with it, I had to pick just 12 (because I want the same number of songs for each sin and virtue), and, well, there were just a lot of songs that fit better at a later point in the narrative than this one.

2 I know that I look a little foolish for not doing thorough research before writing descriptive justifications... but I love my original wording too much to throw it out.

3 My brothers have pointed out that this song could fit in the Greed playlist, due to the female narrator/subject exploiting her sex appeal to get men to shower her with gifts. Following this logic, I could swap “My Humps” and “The World Is Not Enough” (the latter song is rather blatant Intercourse With You, thinly veiled with a world domination plot). But then again, Intercourse With You is such a common trope in music that a lot of songs in this project could fit in the Lust list by that logic, and I had to pick the 12 songs that would be the strongest fit.

3 more explicit about being about a stalker would be to say it outright. How people consider this a straight romantic song is beyond me.} 8. “Goldeneye” by Tina Turner [The Best of Bond… James Bond: 40th Anniversary Edition] {The narrator plots to seduce and imprison a man she’s had a crush on since her childhood. Creepy.4} 9. "Wish I Had an Angel" by Nightwish {The song basically amounts to "I want to rape someone!" No, seriously. Here's the refrain: "I wish I had your angel / For one moment of love / I wish I had your angel / Your Virgin Mary undone / I'm in love with my lust / Burning angel wings to dust / I wish I had your angel tonight." Virgin Mary undone?!? In love with my lust?!? Burning angel wings to dust?!? When you put it all together, it sounds an awful lot like deflowering an innocent woman whether she wants it or not!!!! (The storyboard for this one is most likely going to involve the EBA taking down a sexual slavery ring, with the head pimp being Lust in disguise — and he'll be furious at his operation being shut down and vow to kill the Elite Beat Agents right then and there, leading into the final three songs.)} 10. "You Give Love A Bad Name" by Bon Jovi {Falling for a seductress is never fun.} 11. "Whoever Brings the Night" by Nightwish [Dark Passion Play] (PRE-BOSS) {I swear, this song could so easily be from the POV of a succubus. Or just someone who exploits their looks to ruin people. The whole thing is basically a BDSM death innuendo that should rightfully induce nightmares in any sane individual.} 12. "The One I Love" by R.E.M. [Eponymous] (BOSS) {Breakdown; sexual conquest just isn't as fulfilling as truly falling in love and having a complete romantic relationship. It's entirely possible that this song intentionally deconstructs the "Intercourse with You" archetype. In all fairness, it is a little hard to tell – R.E.M. songs have a tendency to be somewhat incomprehensible.} Seven Deadly Sins #2: Gluttony: Gluttony links: Screenshot, Playlist, Wikipedia

Gluttony is typically pigeonholed as the overconsumption of food, but it's much broader than that — it's really the overconsumption of anything non-spiritual. Unlike the Lust list, where I went along with the popular perception pidgeonhole because of an abundance of songs fitting that concept, for Gluttony, I was able to branch out and explore its broader concepts and sub-sins. 1. "This Is The Life" by Weird Al Yankovic [Dare to be Stupid] {The narrator’s lifestyle is so absurdly materialistic, one can’t help but roll their eyes.}

4 As a side note, this song was originally Envy #9, because I interpreted the refrain as expressing jealous thoughts (“You’ll never know how I watched you from the shadows as a child / You’ll never know how it feels to be the one who’s left behind”). But upon closer inspection of the lyrics as a whole, I find that the jealousy is just an aspect of the classic Yandere craziness of the narrator, and twisted romantic obsession is definitely more emblematic of lust than envy.

4 2. "Good Times Roll" by The Cars [The Cars] {Hedonism is a form of gluttony if you ask me… After all, gluttony is defined as “the over-indulgence and over-consumption of anything to the point of waste”. That would include entertainment. (The main reason why "Only The Good Die Young" is filed under Lust rather than Gluttony is that the whole reason why the male narrator is trying to coax the female subject away from her Catholic morals and into a life of sinful hedonism is so that he can relentlessly bang her.)} 3. "Good Times Inc." by feat. De La Soul [Grammy Nominees 2006] {Once again, this song’s about hedonism – and in this case, it’s being taken a bit too far for the hedonists’ own good.} 4. “Rehab” by [Grammy Nominees 2008] {Addiction is also an aspect of gluttony, and Amy Winehouse’s rehab doesn’t seem to be working… (In fact, now that I think about it, didn't she die of a drug overdose?)} 5. "Cheat" by The Clash [The Essential Clash Disc 1] {This song seems to be largely about taking and hoarding more than one's fair share. Admittedly, hoarding is more in greed's domain, but I already have plenty of songs for that.} 6. "Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)" by The Doors [The Doors] (MID-BOSS) {It's a song about guys wandering around bars and getting hammered. Not exactly responsible behavior.} 7. "Tommy Gun" by The Clash [The Essential Clash Disc 1] {"Cheat" is about taking more than one's fair share through trickery and deceit. This song is about doing so through brute force, up to and including murdering people.} 8. "Life in the Fast Lane" by The Eagles [Hotel California] {Again, a relationship that proceeds too fast is going to crash and burn. In this case, literally. And sex isn't the only thing being carried to excess (which is why this song is under gluttony rather than lust).} 9. "Grapefruit Diet" by Weird Al Yankovic [Running with Scissors] {The narrator seems to have a borderline eating disorder, ‘cause this case of obesity stretches the limits of credulity.} 10. "Rock You Like A Hurricane" by the Scorpions [Love at First Sting] {Rockers gone wild here... when you're comparing yourself to a ravenous wolf, and flat-out admitting that your life is governed by your bestial instincts, it might be a sign that you've developed some unhealthy habits.5} 11. "Too Much" by the [Crash] (PRE-BOSS) {This song speaks for itself… in fact, it was going to be the boss before I devised my “final song has to make the Deadly Sin look pathetic” rule. I’d be filling up a whole page if I tried to give all the reasons why this song fits here.}

5 Why, yes, I do enjoy being a Deadpan Snarker. Whether or not I'm any good at it is, of course, debatable.

5 12. "Another Way To Die" by Disturbed [The Lost Children] (BOSS) {Karma; humankind as a whole has a nasty case of gluttony that's endangering the biosphere. Or, to put that in layman's terms, our tendency for overconsumption is going to KILL THE ENTIRE PLANET if not stopped. So either we stop being gluttons, or we get killed by our own rapacious appetites. Oh, and the does not hesitate to make this point, nor does it waste time being subtle about it – in fact, it beats subtlety to a bloody pulp before proceeding to shoot it in the face with a machine gun, pour gasoline on its corpse, and then drop a nuke on it.} Seven Deadly Sins #3: Greed: Greed links: Screenshot, Playlist, Wikipedia

Like Lust and Gluttony, Greed gets pidgeonholed as the hoarding of money, but excessive hoarding of anything counts as greed. The first three Deadly Sins are grouped together by their excessive and selfish concern for worldly, material things instead of focusing due attention on God and spiritual things. For this list, I did end up mostly focusing on the pidgeonhole again, because there are just so many songs about the evils of excessive money-loving. There are a few songs that manage to generalize, though. 1. "Koka Kola" by The Clash [] {I’m not sure if this song is about drugs or the stock market (the title suggests the former (though it could just be referring to the soft drink), but the lyrics seem to hint at the latter (though, then again, I could just be biased)), but either way, it depicts people being driven to suicidal madness by their own avarice. (Yes, I am completely intentionally equating greed with pure evil – in my opinion, it's the deadliest of the Seven Deadly Sins, for reasons that will become clear towards the end of the list.)} 2. "" by Tom Jones [Best of Bond... James Bond: 40th Anniversary Edition] {The song is about someone who unashamedly takes whatever the f**k he wants; a textbook (if cartoonishly overblown) example of greed.} 3. "Take the Money and Run" by the Steve Miller Band [Young Hearts: Complete Greatest Hits] {This is another song where the "protagonists" were motivated largely by being bored. I have ranted in the past about how boredom is a sign that you really need to being doing something with your life, but that something should not be a freaking bank robbery or burglary! As for why I put this under greed and not gluttony, well, if Billy Joe and Bobby Sue robbed the bank/home just for the thrill of getting away with it, they could have left the money someplace where the cops would find it. No, not turn themselves in – while it would be the right thing to do, right after not robbing the bank/home in the first place, there's an implication that the kids want to humiliate the police, which would involve not getting caught. (And the detective who chases them is implied to be a jerkass who could use a little humiliation.) So they could just leave the money behind while getting out of Dodge – wait, nope, they kept the dirty money. And they shot somebody in the process of stealing the money in the first place! So, yeah, the charges of greed stand, Your Honor.}

6 4. "The World Is Not Enough" by Garbage [Best of Bond... James Bond: 40th Anniversary Edition] {Read the title again. "The World Is Not Enough." THE ENTIRE CLUSTERCHUCKING WORLD is not enough for these people. That is greed on a stupidly massive scale. It's almost a shame to put this song so early on the list.} 5. "Money" by Pink Floyd [Dark Side of the Moon] {This is a classic example of a Money Song that deconstructs materialism.} 6. "If In Money We Trust" by Van Morrison (MID-BOSS) {This is a song about the inherent shallowness of material wealth. It's a bit repetitive, slow, and long – very long, to the point where the most challenging part of the beatmap would be having the endurance to get through the whole thing – but it gets its message across. (Plus, having a really long song in the list compensates for how incredibly short "Koka Kola" is. Though, on the other hand, this might be overdoing it...)} 7. "The Dreaming Tree" by the Dave Matthews Band [Before These Crowded Streets] {This song is here as a sobering reminder of the damage greed can cause – and its utter callousness towards the lives it ruins and the dreams it destroys.} 8. "Chemi-Kill" by Exodus [Pleasures of the Flesh] {This is a song about pharmaceutical corruption and how it ruins people's health and livelihoods. Really, it might as well be Kevin Trudeau's personal anthem. Just be warned that it's rather crude and potentially offensive. (If this were to be an actual , this song alone might make it worthy of a T rating.)} 9. "The Power of Gold" by Dan Fogelberg and Tim Weisberg [Twin Sons of Different Mothers] {This song’s about how the pursuit of money tends to make your life worse, not better. (Needless to say, I love it. It could have been the boss, but, well, I found a song that was more direct about stating that greed leads to destruction in the end...)} 10. "American Capitalist" by Five-Finger Death Punch [American Capitalist] {This song delves into why I think greed is the deadliest of the Seven Deadly Sins – it tends to be catastrophic for everyone. The life of the greedy one is empty, no matter how much material wealth he or she tries to fill it with (the narrator of the song sounds like he's desperately trying to deny this). At the same time, greed is never, ever victimless; when someone is hoarding goods, other people can't get enough of what they need, and all too often, the greedy one's insatiable desire for more and more leads him or her to treat everybody else as either tools or threats. And they will ruthlessly exploit the tools (then toss them away afterwards) and crush the threats. For the sake of humanity, such horrible behavior must be stopped. I could go into a really, really tremendous rant on the subject, but for the sake of everyone involved, I'll try to hold my tongue. Which brings me to the next song...}

7 11. "Corporate America" by Boston [Corporate America] (PRE-BOSS)6 {Corporate greed is responsible for over 80% of the world's problems. 'Nuff said. Whose brilliant idea was it to make corporations only legally responsible to their stockholders, instead of, oh, I dunno, the entire community human race world, anyways? I know that person's probably long dead, but they still deserve a knife to the chest (or at least a couple dozen slaps to the face) for that world-f**king brain fart. Seriously, this is why I dislike the stock market; the whole system encourages corporate corruption. ...Ugh, just thinking about how badly greed screws the world over gets me all riled up...} 12. "Dark Money" by Geoff Tate [Kings and Thieves] (BOSS) {Karma; it's only possible to get away with exploiting people for so long before they wise up and strike back...} Seven Deadly Sins #4: Sloth: Sloth links: Screenshot, Playlist, Wikipedia

All of the Seven Deadly Sins are more than they appear to be on the surface. Sloth, for instance, incorporates both laziness and apathy/despair (this includes depression, but not self-hatred; that's part of wrath's domain). Both aspects are reflected in its list of songs. 1. "" by Dave Matthews [Under the Table and Dreaming] {You’d think that this song is about diligence, but no. Read just a little bit between the lines, and you’ll find that it’s really about how people can get so caught up in the rat race that they forget how to enjoy being alive. Also, the refrain is about procrastination, which is definitely a prime example of sloth.} 2. "Police & Thieves" by The Clash [The Essential Clash Disc 1] {When the police are hardly any different from the thieves, it becomes very, very hard to give a f**k. (I'm honestly not sure that this song wouldn't fit Wrath or Envy better... Sloth had an open slot, okay?)}7 3. "Live and Let Die" by Paul McCartney & Wings [Best of Bond... James Bond: 40th Anniversary Edition] {"But something in this ever-changing world we live in / Made you give in and cry... live and let die". This song represents crossing the Despair Event Horizon into callous disregard for other people's well-being.} 4. "In the End" by Linkin Park {This song has a nihilistic narrator. And I'm not talking about true Nitchzeanism, which espouses the view that if life is meaningless, it is up to each individual to give life a meaning. That's a healthy viewpoint; it promotes hard work and self-development. No, this brand of nihilism is, to put it bluntly, emo-

6 I've given some thought to swapping the positions of "Corporate America" and "American Capitalist", as the former sounds more like a deconstruction of greed; the latter does deconstruct greed a bit, but it's rather subtle and it sounds much more like greed reveling in its power and its nature. But "Corporate America" also has elements of greed seeing itself as invulnerable... basically, it's not an easy choice for me to make. Also, in my earliest conceptions of this project, "Corporate America" was the boss and "American Capitalist" was the pre-boss. However, I was unable to find a live performance or cover version of "Corporate America" for the finale, so I went ahead and found another deconstructive song for the role of the list boss.

7 I may replace this song with “The Boxer” by Simon & Garfunkel. With two songs from the Rocky series on the Diligence list, it feels appropriate to contrast them with a song about a boxer who couldn't handle the lifestyle and gave up on it.

8 kid-style moping and not giving a crap about anything and wallowing in self-pity. That is considerably less healthy.} 5. "Peace of Mind" by Boston [Boston] {Basically the polar opposite of "Ants Marching", this song is about a guy who got so sick and tired of the rat race that he’s withdrawn from it completely. Now he's pretty much a recluse.} 6. "Mad World (American Idol Studio Version)" by Adam Lambert [Season 8 Favorite Performances] (MID-BOSS) {“I don’t want to live on this planet anymore”, taken literally and not played for laughs.} 7. "Numb" by Linkin Park {The narrator has completely run out of f**ks to give. I can relate somewhat — I have Asperger’s, so I’m more prone to making mistakes than most people, and I have been on the receiving end of mammoth nagging sessions that made me feel filthy and worthless inside. Then again, it’s not like I get nagged at daily (or even weekly or monthly), and the nagging I’ve been subjected to has never been selfishly malicious; it’s more parental nagging than shrewish spouse nagging, and I suspect this song is about a guy who’s been subjected to the latter. Either way, most nagging is probably a well-intentioned attempt to drive the subject to improve — the problem is that it tends to be so unpleasant and harsh that it drives the listener to either tune it out or lose a lot of self-esteem. It can be hard to be motivated when you feel like nothing you do is ever good enough. So while those who receive nagging should consider taking the advice they’re being given, those who nag others should find a better way to voice their criticisms — a less cruel and spiteful way.} 8. "Execution Day" by Meatloaf [Blind Before I Stop] {The song is basically about a man knowing he's about to die and pretty much s**tting himself over it (he may or may not actually be on death row; maybe he's just been sentenced to death (and thus isn't on death row yet, but will be in a few minutes or hours, depending on how long the drive from the courthouse to the prison is), or cornered by a lynch mob, or just incredibly paranoid).} 9. "Prelude/Angry Young Man" by Billy Joel [Turnstiles] {The narrator flat-out admits that he has become apathetic and jaded over the years, and furthermore, that according to him, anybody who isn’t apathetic and jaded is an idiot. Don’t believe me? Well, not only is the whole song spent poking fun at the titular angry young man, there’s one passage that single-handedly landed this song in this list. Let me quote it right here: “I believe I’ve passed the age / Of consciousness and righteous rage / Now it seems just surviving is a noble fight / I once believed in causes too / Had my pointless point of view / Life went on no matter who was wrong or right.” On the surface, this seems like it could be a positive message, but if you ask me, it absolutely is not. That sort of thinking leads to horrific consequences, as “Boy In The Well” will be happy to demonstrate.} 10. "Waiting on the World to Change" by John Mayer [Grammy Nominees 2007] {The narrator of this song and his buddies are well aware that there are lots of things that need fixing in the world, but believe themselves to be incapable of contributing to

9 said repair in any fashion. Which feels like some sort of blend between laziness and despair disillusionment disenfranchisement ...uh, I'm pretty sure there's a word for "apathy stemming from a perceived inability to cause meaningful change", but I don't know what it is... Like "Too Much" on the Gluttony list, this was originally the boss song before I decided that the boss song needed to deconstruct the Deadly Sin.} 11. "Boy In The Well" by R.E.M. [Around The Sun] (PRE-BOSS) {…Somebody is being left to drown just because nobody can be arsed to save him. WTF? Seriously, this is how the Origami Killer became a thing… Heck, I’d be tempted to think this song was about Kitty Genovese if it wasn’t explicitly named “Boy In The Well”. Anyways, this song exemplifies the greatest danger of sloth – "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." Well, in this case, the only thing necessary to allow needless tragedy to happen is for nobody to do anything before it's too late, but the same general idea applies.} 12. "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day [Grammy Nominees 2006] (BOSS) {Breakdown; the narrator clearly doesn’t care for anything, but just as clearly wants to care for something, because, well, when you don’t care for anything, what’s the point of anything?}8 Seven Deadly Sins #5: Wrath: Wrath links: Screenshot, Playlist, Wikipedia

Wrath includes hatred in all its forms, including hatred of the self – up to and including the ultimate expression of self-hatred. Which would be suicide. 1. "" by [A Few Small Repairs] {Look, I’m sure having your significant other cheat on you is totally unpleasant, but burning down your house with them trapped inside of it isn’t exactly a healthy reaction.} 2. "Hate & War" by The Clash [The Essential Clash Disc 1] {Hate and war are natural consequences of wrath. They also tend to feed into it.} 3. "Saturday Night Special" by Lynyrd Skynyrd [Maximum Cowbell] {Angry person + pistol = carnage. Seriously, a gun can severely wound or flat-out kill a person in the blink of an eye, with no more effort than, well, pulling the trigger. At least beating someone to death takes quite a while, so the perpetrator has time to think twice about what he/she’s doing and stop before it’s too late. With a gun, just a simple squeeze is enough to cause irreversible damage.} 4. "Orange Crush" by R.E.M. [In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003 Disc 1] {Yet another song about carnage – in this case, the "Orange Crush" used by the U.S. against the Vietcong in the Vietnam War.} 5. "The Guns of Brixton" by The Clash [The Essential Clash Disc 2] {This is a song about some revolutionary or anarchist movement, the authorities trying to squash

8 I may replace this song with "The Sound of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel. Also, "The Sound of Silence" may become the pre-boss (showing sloth as being infuriatingly impenetrable) and "Boy In The Well" may become the boss (showing how sloth results in disaster).

10 this movement with deadly force, and the revolutionaries/anarchists responding with deadly force in turn. Actually, I think it's specifically about some uprising in recent British history, but I haven't done enough research to know any details.} 6. "Cadence of Her Last Breath" by Nightwish [Dark Passion Play] (MID-BOSS) {Like I said, suicide is categorized as a sin of wrath, so this is the obligatory suicide song for the list. No, seriously – "A loner longing for the cadence of her last breath"? That heavily implies that the loner in question is suicidal! And so do the rest of the lyrics. The song is swamped in imagery about butterflies and how brief their lives are, and how you hardly know how much you care for someone until they're gone. I won't lie, I love this song to death (pun not intended – or is it (it totally is)), to the point where I've memorized the lyrics, so that's a factor in me wanting to include it in the project somewhere, but I honestly can't see it as being about anything other than suicide.} 7. "Murder Incorporated" by Bruce Springsteen [Greatest Hits] {It's all in the title... institutionalized murder. I think it's specifically about organized crime, or at least gang violence, considering the sense of paranoia that pervades the entire song.} 8. "" by The Clash [The Essential Clash Disc 2] {A sultan imam doesn’t like rock and roll. So what does he do when his subjects start rocking out? Why, try to blow them to smithereens, of course! No, really, he commands a squadron of jet fighters to drop bombs on them. They refuse to go through with it (and in fact start rocking out themselves), but still, that is a dick move.} 9. "Under The Ice" by Blind Guardian [A Night At The Opera] {No, I'm not plugging the video I made – oh, dagnabit. But in all seriousness, the song is about Klymnestra attacking Agemneon for slighting her in the Trojan War – and Cassandra ends up caught in the crossfire. Ouch.} 10. "Back For More" by Five-Finger Death Punch [American Capitalist] {Yes, this is a song that promotes persistence – don't back down, don't give up. It's also a song that promotes being violent for the sheer hell of it. It also equates aggression and violence with value as a human being — I'm pretty sure there’s a formal term for that, said term being “machismo”, a.k.a. “toxic masculinity”.} 11. "It Snows In Hell" by Lordi (PRE-BOSS) {Revenge is one thing, but coming back from the dead just to torture your murderer is another entirely. A much, much worse thing. …Okay, it could just be a Paranoia Gambit and the narrator has something more along the lines of “an eye for an eye” in mind, but still, he’s basically turned himself into a hatred-powered revenant, which is not a healthy way to react to being wronged. Never mind that it’s not actually possible in real life – it’s still an overreaction, with shades of being a sore loser to boot. That, and if the narrator had an assassin sent after him in the first place, he must have hurt somebody. That is, if the backstory isn’t something more along the lines of being stabbed in the back by someone who had enough of him abusing them… in fact, that’s a little more likely, what with the narrator having mentioned that he “didn’t see it coming” – someone who does something worth sending assassins after them for can hardly be entirely

11 oblivious to the threat (well, assuming that they actually know what sort of person they’re pissing off dealing with…). Maybe I’m nitpicking this too much, but the point is, revenge is no substitute for justice – mainly because revenge, due to being motivated by anger, has a nasty tendency to grow to over-the-top proportions and spiral out of control.} 12. "Lost in the Flood" by Bruce Springsteen [Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.] (BOSS) {Karma & Breakdown; "Those who live by the sword, die by the sword." That, and constantly being angry tends to eat away at you.} Seven Deadly Sins #6: Envy: Envy links: Screenshot, Playlist, Wikipedia 1. "Supremacy" by Muse [The 2nd Law] {This song's about trying to knock someone off their high horse. Why? Because of resentment. It's a textbook example of "Tall Poppy Syndrome".} 2. “Those Were The Days” by Mary Hopkins [20th Century Rocks, Volume 8: 60's Pop] {This was originally the first song on the Envy list — my reasoning is that the song is ultimately about nostalgia and lamenting bygone times, and nostalgia is effectively a form of envy towards one’s own past self. Shortly after beginning to compile the lists, I replaced this song with “Supremacy”, due to that song fitting the sin of envy better. After I removed “I Shot The Law” from the Lust list and moved “Goldeneye” from Envy to Lust to replace it, I figured that this song would make an excellent follow-up to “Supremacy”, with the former top dog lamenting their fall from grace, and re- inserted it into the list. After all, while it’s very possible for a revolution against an authority figure to be completely justified, there have been many revolutions throughout history which either didn’t care about the people’s grievances or used them as a convenient excuse, with the true fuel of the uprising being its leader’s desire to take the current ruler’s position for themselves. It’s quite understandable that an ex-ruler who was forced to flee from their privileges and responsibilities by some charismatic jackass with a power fetish would be more than a little bit upset about their situation.} 3. "Before He Cheats" by Carrie Underwood [Grammy Nominees 2008] {There's going to be a recurring theme in this list of dissatisfaction with what one already has. Like, say, a deteriorating relationship. You could also say that this is a reaction to a covetous husband.} 4. "Big Lie Small World" by Sting [Brand New Day] {A comedy of errors caused by a man unable to let go of his ex. And by "comedy of errors", I mean "a life ripped to shreds", culminating in the guy getting arrested for assaulting a hapless mailman and his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend.}9

9 This may be replaced with “Pumped up Kicks” by Foster The People; “Big Lie Small World” is a rather slow song (which isn’t a great quality for a ), and “Pumped up Kicks” is about a kid seriously considering shooting up his school because he's jealous of how nice everyone else's shoes are — of all the reasons to shoot up a school, that is among the absolute pettiest and stupidest.

12 5. "Cold as Ice" by Foreigner [Records] {Being abandoned by a significant other sucks. Especially when it's for a petty, selfish reason. Namely, some other guy’s money. (This song used to be in the Lust list, but I felt it fit better here.)} 6. "Best of You" by the Foo Fighters [Grammy Nominees 2006] (MID-BOSS) {This song's narrator displays extreme possessiveness and jealousy.} 7. "Keep Your Hands Off My Girl" by Good Charlotte {Guys fighting over a girl... need I say any more?} 8. "Can't Stand Losing You" by The Police [Every Breath You Take: The Singles] {Yet another song about trying to cling to an unhealthy relationship. Sigh. This playlist is a bit oversaturated with songs of that nature, but songs about other aspects of envy are hard to find.} 9. "What Goes Around... Comes Around (Interlude)" by Justin Timberlake [Grammy Nominees 2008] {More cheating... in this case, though, the girl's dissatisfaction with Justin (or whoever the narrator is) comes back to bite her in the @$$ when her new boyfriend proves equally dissatisfied with her. Envy just makes everyone miserable, doesn't it?} 10. "Don't Drink the Water" by the Dave Matthews Band [Before These Crowded Streets] {The song is about Europeans coming over to America and making life utter hell for the Native Americans in the process of claiming the land they lived on. This song could fit under greed or wrath, but I placed it here because it wasn't so much a "theft" or "assault" as a catastrophic failure to reconcile wildly different cultures (Native Americans didn’t consider land to be something that a person or group of people could own), and the Europeans treating the Native Americans like obstacles to be eliminated.} 11. "I Took Your Name" by R.E.M. [Monster] (PRE-BOSS) {At its core, envy is all about ruining other people's lives because you want their stuff – and this takes it so far that it borders on outright spite.} 12. "Caught In A Web" by [Awake] (BOSS) {Breakdown; when you devote yourself to ruining others' happiness, it doesn't really make you happy... In fact, it tends to make you miserable.} Seven Deadly Sins #7: Pride: Pride links: Screenshot, Playlist, Wikipedia 1. "Stupid Girls" by P!nk [Grammy Nominees 2007] {Women and vanity never mix well... No, really, there's a very fine line between "sexy" and "#@!*ing obnoxious"!} 2. "Children of the Moon" by the Alan Parsons Project [Eye in the Sky] {I'm not sure exactly what happened – the details are rather vague – but these "children of the moon" seem to have seriously screwed themselves over through their own vanity.} 3. "Bad" by Michael Jackson [Number Ones] {The whole song is an elaborate "I'm better than you" rant... with the exception of the last verse, which starts talking about working to make the world a better place. Nice save, Jackson.}

13 4. "We've Got It Going On" by the Backstreet Boys [Backstreet Boys] {Like "Bad", the song is basically one long bragging session. Unlike "Bad", it doesn't really try to elevate itself above one person in particular, instead raving about how awesome the Backstreet Boys are.} 5. "Hit 'Em High (The Monstars' Anthem)" by B Real, Busta Rhymes, Coolio, LL Cool J, & Method Man [Space Jam] {The song can be paraphrased as "We are going to kick your ass, and there's nothing you can do about it." Filled with lots and lots of bragging (are you sensing a pattern yet?) Bonus points for the hint of excessive ambition (there’s a throwaway line that unsubtly hints at wanting to conquer the world, which is something that requires quite a bit of hubris to seriously consider attempting).10} 6. "You're Gonna Get Your Fingers Burned" by the Alan Parsons Project [Eye in the Sky] (MID-BOSS) {Bragging with a side-order of Mind Screw.} 7. "The Pretender" by the Foo Fighters [Grammy Nominees 2008] {Like "Bad", this is an "I pwn joo" song. Unlike "Bad", it doesn't soften the bragging and bait-and-switch into something less self-centered, instead claiming that the target of the rant is a pathetic impostor. (To be fair, the subject very well could be an impostor, but since we don’t have the context to know one way or the other… well, it doesn’t reflect well on the narrator to fling accusations around, especially with the way he words them.)} 8. "Amaranth" by Nightwish {Somebody seems to be lashing out at everything around him in order to prove his superiority. This can’t end well.} 9. "Faint" by Linkin Park {Somebody has a problem, and is trying to "solve" it by talking himself into thinking he's superior to everyone else. This also can't end well.} 10. "Mama Said Knock You Out" by LL Cool J {Yet another "I'm better than you" rant, with an implication of "I'm going to prove it by beating you up."} 11. "Let the Hammer Fall" by Hammerfall [Legacy of Kings] (PRE-BOSS) {Yet another "I'm better than you" rant, with an implication of "I'm going to prove it by KILLING YOU." And, just to make it so much more insufferable, it's also stuffed full of self- righteousness, with undertones of "Might makes right" – and that sort of attitude tends to result in making people suffer.}

10 There is one issue I have with this song, which is an issue that’s quite common among songs written for the purpose of being included in musicals or semi-musicals — the lyrics are inextricably linked to the plot of the work they were written for, to the point where the song is hard to fit into any other context and has difficulty standing on its own. (This doesn’t apply quite as much to songs that are written as introductions to non-musical works, such as the numerous James Bond songs on the lists; sure, those songs tend to be related to or descriptive of the plot of their home works, but the way they tend to be written, they can stand just fine on their own.) Thankfully, for “Hit ‘Em High”, the “meaning degradation outside of original context” issue is minor and easily overlookable, but over on the Charity list... well, “Man Up” is a bit of a headache, and only got in in the first place because songs about charity are really tough to find.

14 12. "Big Shot" by Billy Joel [52nd Street] (BOSS) {Karma; those who are full of pride have a nasty tendency to make themselves look foolish. Or, to put that more simply, "pride comes before the fall."} Seven Deadly Sins Finale: Finale links: Screenshot, Playlist

The Sins get the first half of the finale, while the Virtues get the second. I'm only going to bother justifying myself for the intro and outro; the boss rush songs have the same justification as before. 1. "It's The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" by R.E.M. [Eponymous] (Seven Deadly Sins Intro) {When people allow themselves to succumb to the Seven Deadly Sins, it results in the world going to hell in a handbasket.} 2. "Whoever Brings the Night" by Nightwish, live performance 3. "The One I Love" by R.E.M. [R.E.M. Live Disc 1] 4. "Too Much" by the Dave Matthews Band [Summer Tour Warm-Up] 5. "Another Way to Die" by Disturbed [Live at Download Festival 2011]

6. "American Capitalist" by Five-Finger Death Punch, live performance11 7. "Dark Money" by Geoff Tate [Live at the House of Rock] 8. "Boy in the Well" by R.E.M. [R.E.M. Live Disc 1]

9. “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” by Green Day, live performance at Reading 201312 10. "It Snows In Hell" by Lordi [Live in Munich 2009] 11. "Lost in the Flood" by Bruce Springsteen [Live in New York City Disc 2] 12. "I Took Your Name" by R.E.M. [R.E.M. Live Disc 1] 13. "Caught in a Web" by Dream Eater, live [The YouTube link seems to be unavailable.] 14. "Let the Hammer Fall" by Hammerfall, live 15. "Big Shot" by Billy Joel [KOHUEPT (Live in Leningrad)] 16. "Lucifer" by the Alan Parsons Project [Ultimate The Alan Parsons Project] (Seven Deadly Sins Outro/BOSS) {It's the friggin' devil, what more do you want? True, I could use "Beelzeboss" by Tenacious D, but that explicitly ends with the Devil being defeated, and I want to use something more open-ended here, since victory against the Seven Deadly Sins isn't really possible without the Seven Heavenly Virtues.} 17. “The Root of All Evil” by Dream Theater [Octavarium] (BRIDGE) {This song was my original idea for the boss song for the Seven Deadly Sins’ half of the finale. However, upon taking a closer look at the lyrics, I noticed that the second half of the song

11 I couldn’t find a live performance of “Corporate America”.

12 I may replace “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” with “The Sound of Silence”. If I do, the version of “The Sound of Silence” in the finale will be the cover version by Disturbed, and it will come before “Boy in The Well” instead of after.

15 focuses on the Seven Heavenly Virtues. Indeed, the focus of the song is the outrageously decadent narrator trying to clean up his act and find redemption. So, I decided to have this song act as the roadblock between the Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Heavenly Virtues. If the player has yet to unlock and complete all of the Seven Heavenly Virtues songs, then a Non-Standard Game Over sequence (or, rather, the bad ending) will begin at 3:44, with the failure cutscene ending at 3:58 (right before the segment of the lyrics labeled “Remove”) as the Seven Deadly Sins obliterate the Elite Beat Agents. In other words, the player literally will not be allowed to clear this song. If all the Seven Heavenly Virtues have been recruited (by unlocking and completing their song lists), then the Non-Standard Game Over becomes a Fission Mailed as the Seven Heavenly Virtues swoop to the rescue and stop the Seven Deadly Sins’ attack, allowing the player to progress into the second half of the song. Once this song is completed, the game progresses to the Seven Heavenly Virtues’ half of the finale. Also, being the bridge, this song is counted as both the final song of the Seven Deadly Sins’ half of the finale and the first song of the Seven Heavenly Virtues’ half of the finale, but this doesn’t mean it has to be completed twice. It’d be more accurate to say that the first half of this song is the final song for the Seven Deadly Sins’ segment and the second half of this song is the first song for the Seven Heavenly Virtues’ segment.} Please provide as much feedback as you can on my selections; I want to hear plenty of constructive criticism!

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