Liscenced music you have found though video games

[Tahaneira]

While I knew he existed before, I never really listened to Nine Inch Nails until 'Just Like You Imagined' was featured in a Crysis 2 trailer. Listened to that, listened to 'Echoplex', then I bought all of his albums and have been listening ever since.

 

[RonHiler]

I was introduced to Stabbing Westward from an old Duke Nukem game (the song was "I won't Become the Thing I Hate"). And while I'm not really an industrial metal sort of person, I ended up buying two of their albums, which I really liked. I still really dig that song in particular.

 

[sextus the crazy]

I'm sure I won't be the only one saying that I'd have never have found Cage The Elephant if it weren't for Borderlands.

ditto.

Hush, by Deep Purple thanks to Spec Ops: The Line, as well as Jimi Hendrix's cover of The Star Spangled Banner, which plays over the main menu.
That game's got a great soundtrack. The dev team must have had a great time putting it all together.

double ditto. Spec ops had such a good soundtrack. Personally, my fav was "dies irae" which plays during the helicopter scene. so good.

 

[shadyh8er]

Pretty much the entire soundtrack for True Crime: Streets of LA, my personal favorite being Poem by Taproot.

Then there's Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 which introduced me to Blood Brothers by Papa Roach and Guerilla Radio by Rage Against the Machine.

And one of the trailers for Left 4 Dead 2 introduced me to Electric Worry by Clutch. By far the most disappointing song. It just goes on for too long.

 

[hazabaza1]

Stealing sheep from a Tearaway trailer (These girls are a pretty good folk band);

That's where I got them from.
I knew it was something game based but I completely forgot what it was.

Otherwise...
Tears by Health from that one awesome scene from Max Payne 3

Spoiler: Obligatory video and possible spoilers

Johnathon Coulton as well. Portal, obviously, but he's got a load of other great songs, go google him.
Oooh, and the stuff from Hotline Miami as well.

Spoiler: God damn that's a nice beat.

 

[lacktheknack]

I keep beating games to the punch.

Most impressively (for me) is when I declared "Selected Ambient Works Vol. II" (a 1994 album from Aphex Twin) to be the greatest album of all time in early 2012 the instant I listened to the whole thing. About two days after doing this, I found that they used one of the best tracks in a GTA IV trailer.

<youtube=gXYfN6BzBOk>

So close.

 

[King of Asgaard]

Apart from the great Cage the Elephant from Borderlands.

I found Nico Vega from a Bioshock infinite trailer (Crazy good rock, look up Beast);

Stealing sheep from a Tearaway trailer (These girls are a pretty good folk band);

Jose Gonzales from Red Dead Redemption;

And there is probably a lot more.

Quoted because your avatar is amazing. O_O

OT: Brutal Legend got me into metal. Manowar, ACDC, Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne, Dragonforce and all the rest.
Borderlands had Ain't No Rest For The Wicked, and its sequel had Short Change Hero, by Cage the Elephant and The Heavy, respectively.

 

[Smeggs]

All Saint's Day from Dark Souls trailer.

Machine Gun from the Metro: Last Light trailer.

Hell, those are pretty recent ones. Truth is there are way too many for me to list.

 

[AVeryClassyCat]

Shaun White Snowboarding gave me Kasabian, The Dykeenies, and illScarlett.

Fallout 3 reminded me of Billie Holiday and introduced me to The Ink Spots and Ella Fitzgerald.

oh and Mirror's Edge for Lisa Miskovsky.

 

[cennsor]

the intro song for borderlands was pretty cool, but when i went on to check out other stuff from the same band i was kind of disappointed.

it was, i think, thanks to NFS: most wanted that i started listening to disturbed (their "10,000 fists" was featured in the game).

other random examples off the top of my head would be.. avenged sevenfold's "afterlife" (NHL 2009) and more recently "make it bun dem" (far cry 3).

the whole liberty rock radio from gta IV would also deserve a mention.. but for the most part i knew the bands already.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Breaking Benjamin from Halo 2.
Cage the Elephant from Borderlands.
The Faunts from Mass Effect.

A ton from the Rock Band and Guitar Hero games.

 

[NightmareExpress]

Pertubator, Scattle, M O O N, Sun Araw (Hotline Miami, 2012)
Anamanaguchi (Bit Trip Runner / Scott Pilgrim vs The World, 2010)
Cage the Elephant (Borderlands, 2009)
Faunts (Mass Effect, 2007)
Lockjaw, Lifeseeker, The Evolutionaries (Dead Rising, 2006)
Breaking Benjamin (Halo 2, 2004)
KMFDM (Test Drive 5, 1998)

Missing a few for sure from music, sports and racing games...but there's too much there, man, too much.
These are the ones that stood out for whatever reason. Especially the Mass Effects credit theme, due to it being the only thing that had lyrics in the game if I am remembering it correctly.

Honorable mention goes out to Alan Wake (2010) for containing Roy Orbison (In Dreams) and David Bowie (Space Oddity). I say this because I've been a listener of those two for years and was pleasantly surprised to hear them in it. Now if only it could have had Blue Jay Way by the Beatles...

 

[the clockmaker]

I'm going to third, (fourth?) burnout 3, the general feeling stemming from that game, the music, the look the...that is one of the best experiences that I have ever had gaming.

 

[piinyouri]

Oh yeah and I fell in love with Vader through The Witcher.

And all the Tony Hawk games have turned me onto at least 4 bands a piece.

 

[socialmenace42]

I never payed much attention to metal at all until I played Brütal Legend. Now it's pretty much all I listen to, especially power metal.

 

[aceman67]

For me it was Sick Puppies "War", which was featured in a Street Fighter IV ad.

 

[Adam Locking]

I found my favorite band '16volt' through the combat soundtrack they did for Primal back on the PS2. Helped along with the bonus cd that came with the special edition.

Also picked up a few cool tracks from the Guitar Hero games, but never got into any of the bands' other stuff