Pharrell Isn’t Playing Around On His ‘Tron: Legacy’ Rap “The Game Has Changed”

Idolator Staff | April 2, 2011 9:43 am

If you’re getting antsy waiting for the Tron: Legacy remix album to come out, here’s a little something to hold you over. A new track featuring Pharrell rapping over Daft Punk’s moody score for the film has just leaked, and true to its name, “The Game Has Changed” puts Sara Bereilles’ web cam buddy in a whole new ballgame (or should we say video game?). Only Tron star Jeff Bridges covering N.E.R.D.’s “Hot N’ Fun” could have our curiosity any more piqued. Have a listen below.

“Like Tron, I’m brightly outlining my shit up,” the fence-hopper spits in just one of many cinematic shout-outs (appropriate, given that the music is from a movie). The references are all over the place: The Da Vinci Code, King Kong, Twilight, Mini Me, Return of the Jedi, and of course, Michael Jackson (since seemingly every rapper feels the urge to name-check the late King of Pop at least once per song). And while initially this pairing of rap with the Disney sci-fi flick’s soundtrack seems like a totally random experiment, it all kinda makes sense when we recall that Daft Punk produced “Hypnotize U” on N.E.R.D.’s Nothing, and the Neptunes remixed the French duo’s “Harder Better Faster Stronger” long before Kanye West ever got his hands on it.

[wpaudio url=”//static.idolator.com/uploads/2011/04/Pharrell-The-Game-Has-Changed.mp3″ text=”Pharrell – The Game Has Changed” dl=”0″] We think the gloomy, suspenseful Daft Punk score is a strange but surprisingly good bedfellow for Pharrell’s intense (and equally dark) verses, which give us such memorable gems as “run too hard, you might tear your meniscus” and informs us that the Oh Land collaborator misses “the taste of blood.” (Meanwhile, we’ll also get to hear the Crystal Method’s take on “The Game Has Changed” when Tron: Legacy R3C0NF1GUR3D drops on Tuesday.)

“I hate to eat and run, but this was delicious,” is Pharrell’s exit line here, and while we completely agree, at just over two minutes, this is more like a tasty snack than a fully satisfying meal. The track ends rather abruptly — is this possibly just a taste of more to come? Probably not, but we’re intrigued enough by “The Game Has Changed” that we could go for hearing Pharrell rhyme over the entire soundtrack.

Consider our appetite for rapping over film scores officially whetted. More, please!

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