Rainbow Roads queer video game charity album releasing Friday
This Friday, GameGrooves will be releasing its fourth charity album, Rainbow Roads: A Queer Tribute to Video Game Music. This album seeks to highlight LGBTQ+ composers, characters and video games as well as queer cover artists.
The album will be available on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon Music, and more, and all proceeds will be donated to ILGA (International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association) and Mermaids.
Check out the track list below for a preview of what’s on the album.
I had the chance to have a quick chat with the album’s producer Kain White about the project.
Robin: How did the album come about?
The album originally came about through an interview Game Grooves did in June for Pride Month featuring LGBTQ VGM artists. One of the questions was what we could be improved in the community when it comes to acceptance, and I’d suggested a charity album to raise funds for different causes.
Following the interview, Allen reached out to me and asked if I’d be interested in producing the album myself, while Game Grooves would handle the financing and release of it. Of course, I was more than happy to do it!
Why were these tracks chosen?
I tried to set a pretty open criteria for all of the artists participating in the album when it came to song choices. Namely that the songs could be from games featuring LGBTQ characters, games with heavy themes of acceptance or self discovery, and songs that were by LGBTQ composers.
Why were these charities specifically chosen?
I picked the charities myself after some research and felt like Mermaids, and ILGA were strong choices to split the proceeds between. Originally there was going to be 3 charities and The Trevor Project was going to be one of them but unfortunately we weren’t able to make that work out.
Track List:
- Welcome to VA-11 HALL-A (from “VA-11 HALL-A”) by Metatron
- Life at Garreg Mach Monastery (from “Fire Emblem: Three Houses”) by Stevie Viola
- Main Theme (from “The Sims 3”) by Recorder Arcade
- Fall (Ghost Synth) (from “Stardew Valley”) by Betsy7Cat
- Leliana’s Song (from “Dragon Age: Origins”) by The Gamba Geek
- His Theme (from “Undertale”) by Shake Elite
- Grapefruit Sky (from “Stardew Valley”) by Genna Renee
- Once Upon a Time (from “Undertale”) by Lucas Guimaraes ft. Alejandro Espinosa and Ian Martyn
- Reach for the Summit (from “Celeste”) by Christian Richardson
- Hollow Knight (from “Hollow Knight”) by Andy-Ru
- Rainbow Road (from “Mario Kart 64”) by Kain White