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Still Alive
"Still Alive" is the song that plays over the closing credits of the 2007 video game Portal. It was composed and arranged by Jonathan Coulton and was performed by Ellen McLain, who voiced the Portal antagonist and in-game singer of the song, GLaDOS. Two Valve developers commissioned a song by Coulton, a fan of Valve's Half-Life series, which is set in the same universe as Portal. The song was released on The Orange Box Soundtrack on December 21, 2007, along with an exclusive vocal mix not heard in the game.
The song plays after GLaDOS is defeated by protagonist Chell. Its lyrics, which are displayed on what appears to be a computer console, reveal that GLaDOS is, in fact, "still alive". The song received praise for its humor and the quality of its performance. It has been featured in multiple venues, including at the 2009 Press Start -Symphony of Games-, a yearly Japanese concert event that showcased the musical works of video games. It was released as a free downloadable song for the Rock Band music game series on April 1, 2008. A rerecorded version, with Sara Quin on lead vocals, appears on Coulton's 2011 album Artificial Heart.
The song "Still Alive" was written by Jonathan Coulton and performed by Ellen McLain for the 2007 video game Portal. McLain also provides the voice for GLaDOS in this song, an artificial intelligence and the game's antagonist.
"Still Alive" is sung from the perspective of GLaDOS, used as the song that runs over the game's credits. At the end of the game, Chell, the game's protagonist, who has been misled and placed in life-threatening situations within the Aperture Science Enrichment Center by GLaDOS, eventually defeated her. However, the song disputes this, with GLaDOS asserting that she is "still alive" and that the experience had been a "huge success". She also references the Combine invasion of Earth in the Half-Life series.
Coulton was approached by two Valve designers following a concert in Seattle, Washington. They asked him if he would like to write music for the company. Coulton was a fan of Half-Life, so he immediately accepted. After discussing what they should do, he and the designers settled on Portal. By this point, a few months before the release of The Orange Box, Valve's writers had created a large amount of backstory for GLaDOS and other aspects of Portal, which Coulton used to write the lyrics. As GLaDOS grew more important to Portal's story, McLain was asked to sing for the game, since she was a trained operatic soprano, given a scratch vocal version by Coulton. McLain's singing, which Coulton described as conveying "emotion in a non-emotional way", was modified to sound computerized. The overall process took about six weeks to complete. Coulton found it difficult to get GLaDOS' voice out of his head. Kim Swift, lead designer of Portal, explained that the song was chosen to play during the credits because they wanted to leave players feeling happy.
The song is also present as a samba instrumental version through in-game radios at certain points in the game. On 9 December 2022, the Portal 2 Soundtrack was updated, now including this instrumental and the original raw, unfiltered music. The unfiltered version was also featured in Portal RTX.
When Coulton began work on a theme for the Portal-connected 2015 video game Lego Dimensions, he exclaimed that the song was a "phenomenon ... out of control", and that the song benefited from the writing and its context in the game. He found composing the Lego Dimensions song, "You Wouldn't Know", easier to do once he accepted that he would not be able to make a song as big as "Still Alive" again.
"Still Alive" met with praise. USgamer writer Nadia Oxford called it "legendary". Vice writer Jagger Gravning called it the most famous lyric-based video game song. A large majority of video game critics who awarded Portal game of the year mentioned "Still Alive" as one of the game's qualities, while Portal designer Chet Faliszek felt that it was part of why Portal was special. Former LucasArts employee and Sinistar designer Noah Falstein felt that the song improved the game, and that more games should include such a fitting song. He praised McLain's performance as "pitch-perfect" and the song as "catchy". IGN writer Ryan Geddes called it the best game-ending song of all time. Mashable writer Kellen Beck found it one of the most recognizable. In the book The Art of Videogames, author Grant Tavinor wrote that while he was in hysterics by the song, he got the sense of artistic completion upon hearing it. 1UP.com's Alice Liang called the ending to Portal "catchy, charming, surprising, and humorously bittersweet". Kyle Hilliard of Game Informer included the song in a list of surprising musical numbers in video games, while fellow Game Informer writer Michael Leri featured it in a list of "awesome" non-interactive credits sequences. UGO writer Melissa Meli felt sick of the song due to how often they heard it, but still recognized the game's soundtrack as "one of the most endearing and original soundtracks in gaming history". Sara Goodwin of The Mary Sue called it one of the best villain songs, calling it "pretty" and the lyrics "amazing and chilling". Paste Magazine writer Nathan Spicer felt that it was a video game song that could be enjoyed regardless of someone's familiarity with Portal.
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Still Alive
"Still Alive" is the song that plays over the closing credits of the 2007 video game Portal. It was composed and arranged by Jonathan Coulton and was performed by Ellen McLain, who voiced the Portal antagonist and in-game singer of the song, GLaDOS. Two Valve developers commissioned a song by Coulton, a fan of Valve's Half-Life series, which is set in the same universe as Portal. The song was released on The Orange Box Soundtrack on December 21, 2007, along with an exclusive vocal mix not heard in the game.
The song plays after GLaDOS is defeated by protagonist Chell. Its lyrics, which are displayed on what appears to be a computer console, reveal that GLaDOS is, in fact, "still alive". The song received praise for its humor and the quality of its performance. It has been featured in multiple venues, including at the 2009 Press Start -Symphony of Games-, a yearly Japanese concert event that showcased the musical works of video games. It was released as a free downloadable song for the Rock Band music game series on April 1, 2008. A rerecorded version, with Sara Quin on lead vocals, appears on Coulton's 2011 album Artificial Heart.
The song "Still Alive" was written by Jonathan Coulton and performed by Ellen McLain for the 2007 video game Portal. McLain also provides the voice for GLaDOS in this song, an artificial intelligence and the game's antagonist.
"Still Alive" is sung from the perspective of GLaDOS, used as the song that runs over the game's credits. At the end of the game, Chell, the game's protagonist, who has been misled and placed in life-threatening situations within the Aperture Science Enrichment Center by GLaDOS, eventually defeated her. However, the song disputes this, with GLaDOS asserting that she is "still alive" and that the experience had been a "huge success". She also references the Combine invasion of Earth in the Half-Life series.
Coulton was approached by two Valve designers following a concert in Seattle, Washington. They asked him if he would like to write music for the company. Coulton was a fan of Half-Life, so he immediately accepted. After discussing what they should do, he and the designers settled on Portal. By this point, a few months before the release of The Orange Box, Valve's writers had created a large amount of backstory for GLaDOS and other aspects of Portal, which Coulton used to write the lyrics. As GLaDOS grew more important to Portal's story, McLain was asked to sing for the game, since she was a trained operatic soprano, given a scratch vocal version by Coulton. McLain's singing, which Coulton described as conveying "emotion in a non-emotional way", was modified to sound computerized. The overall process took about six weeks to complete. Coulton found it difficult to get GLaDOS' voice out of his head. Kim Swift, lead designer of Portal, explained that the song was chosen to play during the credits because they wanted to leave players feeling happy.
The song is also present as a samba instrumental version through in-game radios at certain points in the game. On 9 December 2022, the Portal 2 Soundtrack was updated, now including this instrumental and the original raw, unfiltered music. The unfiltered version was also featured in Portal RTX.
When Coulton began work on a theme for the Portal-connected 2015 video game Lego Dimensions, he exclaimed that the song was a "phenomenon ... out of control", and that the song benefited from the writing and its context in the game. He found composing the Lego Dimensions song, "You Wouldn't Know", easier to do once he accepted that he would not be able to make a song as big as "Still Alive" again.
"Still Alive" met with praise. USgamer writer Nadia Oxford called it "legendary". Vice writer Jagger Gravning called it the most famous lyric-based video game song. A large majority of video game critics who awarded Portal game of the year mentioned "Still Alive" as one of the game's qualities, while Portal designer Chet Faliszek felt that it was part of why Portal was special. Former LucasArts employee and Sinistar designer Noah Falstein felt that the song improved the game, and that more games should include such a fitting song. He praised McLain's performance as "pitch-perfect" and the song as "catchy". IGN writer Ryan Geddes called it the best game-ending song of all time. Mashable writer Kellen Beck found it one of the most recognizable. In the book The Art of Videogames, author Grant Tavinor wrote that while he was in hysterics by the song, he got the sense of artistic completion upon hearing it. 1UP.com's Alice Liang called the ending to Portal "catchy, charming, surprising, and humorously bittersweet". Kyle Hilliard of Game Informer included the song in a list of surprising musical numbers in video games, while fellow Game Informer writer Michael Leri featured it in a list of "awesome" non-interactive credits sequences. UGO writer Melissa Meli felt sick of the song due to how often they heard it, but still recognized the game's soundtrack as "one of the most endearing and original soundtracks in gaming history". Sara Goodwin of The Mary Sue called it one of the best villain songs, calling it "pretty" and the lyrics "amazing and chilling". Paste Magazine writer Nathan Spicer felt that it was a video game song that could be enjoyed regardless of someone's familiarity with Portal.