Streaming key generator music for home and abroad!

February 1, 2011 12:06 PM

KeygenJukebox is ready to serve up a nice stream of chiptunes pulled from serial key generators, program crackers, trainers and so on. A large part of their library comes from the formidable collection at Keygenmusic, which carries the music in its original format and is organized by cracking group. Get nostalgic! Energize the workplace! Please note that no actual key generators or cracking information of any kind can be found on these sites.
posted by Monster_Zero (19 comments total)

I'd prefer the keygens without the music.
posted by Obscure Reference at 12:15 PM on February 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

As someone who definitely has left his keygens sitting in the background just to hear the tunes, I'm pretty excited about this.
posted by JauntyFedora at 12:19 PM on February 1, 2011 [3 favorites]

Sweet.
posted by dead cousin ted at 12:28 PM on February 1, 2011

The first song to come up when I entered the site was The Police: I'll be Watching You. No, really!
posted by Obscure Reference at 12:40 PM on February 1, 2011

I always assumed that the lovely keygen music was to distract you from the rootkit being installed in the background...
posted by disillusioned at 12:44 PM on February 1, 2011 [5 favorites]

For folks looking for context: Crack intro.
posted by zamboni at 12:45 PM on February 1, 2011

I read this at first as chiptunes that were automatically generated from keygen output. Ie, turn your Windows XP serial number in to music. This is pretty cool too, a collection of Scene music. Did this genre have much connection to other music? It's all heavily electronic and loopy, but the tracker scene seems pretty divorced from mainstream electronica.
posted by Nelson at 12:52 PM on February 1, 2011

More context: keygen.

I think it's interesting how the industry warnings against keygens (They're laced with malware! They're made by criminal organizations!) dovetail so neatly with anti-drug messages.

Is there a PR firm that the US govt hires to do all of it's anti-whatever messages? DON'T COPY THAT FLOPPY YOU'LL GET THE COMPUTER HERPES AND RUSSIAN MOBSTERS WILL ASSASSINATE YOUR CHILDREN AND BLOW UP YOUR VAN
posted by Avenger at 12:53 PM on February 1, 2011

I approve heartily.
posted by jscott at 12:59 PM on February 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

I drove a van once, and lemme tell you, Russian mobsters blowing it up would have been one of the best things that could have happened to it.
posted by valkyryn at 1:11 PM on February 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

For a year or two, there was a rumour on the Music App warez groups that H20 and their successors, AiR had been paid off by Steinberg to *not* crack Cubase 5/Nuendo 4/Wavelab 6, etc.

When AiR finally released the crack, it was accompanied by this rather fine doo-wop style tune.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:22 PM on February 1, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm using foobar2k and foo_dumb to play back the original files with pleasing results.
posted by polyhedron at 1:39 PM on February 1, 2011

Sincere thanks for adding the contextual links, folks! I sometimes forget that on the internet not everyone knows what things like "keygens" are. At least I scaled back the Obscurity Level by not adding a message like .::GREETZ TO TEAM STRAYLIGHT::. as I'd planned originally.
posted by Monster_Zero at 2:21 PM on February 1, 2011

fantastic.
posted by sgt.serenity at 3:03 PM on February 1, 2011

also - how would a chap make a keygen tune ? (without the keygen obv)
posted by sgt.serenity at 3:05 PM on February 1, 2011

also - how would a chap make a keygen tune ?

Apparently you eat a bunch of meth pressed into tablets that you thought was Ecstasy and open a program called Fruity Loops and try to make extremely epic earbleed eurotrance.
posted by loquacious at 3:15 PM on February 1, 2011 [4 favorites]

Anecdotal: more than once I've seen an electronic musician or DJ struggling with software while performing or getting ready to perform. And they'd go to reinstall whatever borrowed/pirated piece of software and unlock or crack it when...

...thunderous, insanely loud, badly mastered keygen music comes blasting out over the main PA channel at seemingly impossible ear-shattering and speaker cone tearing amplitudes.

It's hilarious but rather harsh for everyone involved.
posted by loquacious at 6:06 PM on February 1, 2011 [1 favorite]

Number 1449 in their playlist, "War Hammer - Loquendo TTS 6.x crk" is the Alf theme song.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 7:10 PM on February 1, 2011

I permanently misplaced the CD case where I had taped the serial for my copy of Nero 6. Years ago I found a keygen by the Orion group which I drag out every now and then for when I reinstall Windows XP and need to put Nero back on it. It always brighten my day to see a gun toting Chuck Norris accompanied by some happy chip-tunes.
posted by bionic.junkie at 7:35 PM on February 1, 2011