Rustic music in sci-fi video games

What’s the deal with all this rustic music in sci-fi video games? By Clayton Ashley, Aug 6, 2020, 3:14 pm EDT. On-line lecture, text, video:[1] With Lisa Yaszek and Dom Flemons for on-screen scholarly commentary.

Lede: Futuristic places with country-fried soundtracks

On video games, but with references to such movies as METROPOLIS and significance for R. U. R. and the theme of labor (and labor exploitation and the labor movement) in SF, including labor involving high-tech body extensions (cf. exoskeleton in ALIENS), tools, and, as so often, trucks.[2] See and listen to for the blue-collar, working-class esthetic of — and actual factories and other work-places in — an important set of video games, and movies whose "look and feel" we have often called "Industrial," and to which we need to add considerations of music and other sounds, background and diegetic.

RDE, Finishing, 13Aug20