Needledrop - "Exile Vilify" by The National x Portal 2

My first entrance of the 'Secret' music category. You can only come across this track in a secret room, otherwise you may never hear this song (written specifically for Portal 2).

Last week I touched on ‘Secret Music’. When it comes to accessing fandom and smaller-scale inclusions in games, it gets more difficult to find broader data. Instead, let’s turn to one of the greatest and most innovative games of all time, Portal 2, to give us a real life example of hidden music and its involvement with storytelling both sides.

1. What is Portal 2?

2. Why did The National write a song for Portal 2?

3. So…did this ‘Secret’ have an impact?

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1. What is Portal 2?

Portal 2 is a sequel of Portal. Shock. Portal was a critically acclaimed puzzle-platformer released in 2007 where you are navigating a testing center and you are trying to break out of it.

Portal 2 data is a bit lacking online (or I completely missed it), but Portal 2 is ranked as 95/100 on Metacritic. It sold 4 million units in less than a year of its release. IGN ranked it as 9.5/10, and quoted:

“A mind-bending marvel.”

“The attention to detail throughout is nothing short of stunning.”

This game was developed by Valve Corporation. Why is Valve one of the coolest companies on the planet? Well. They made the Half-Life series, which was originally released in 1998 and is still one of the most critically acclaimed games of all time, here’s an article from 2023 about why it still stands. They created Steam, a groundbreaking digital distribution system for selling software and games which is still incredibly popular today, boasting 62 million daily users. They also launched their own operating system to optimise gaming in 2013. Steam then hosted the first-generation of VR software in partnership with HTC in 2016 and have since released their own headset, the Valve Index, released in 2019. Valve also have some of the coolest working spaces and processes, removing job titles & hierarchies, and also where their early take on hot-desking included literally unplugging your own desk and wheeling it across the office to allow people to work together anywhere. I mean, come on. Anyone here think that ‘won’t work’? Read this paragraph again.

I don’t even know why I ‘prove’ these games are great, you just need to trust me by now. Get a friend and play this co-op.

In the Portal games, players navigate through a series of increasingly complex puzzles using a portal gun to create inter-spatial gateways on flat surfaces. The gameplay centers around the concept of using these portals to manipulate objects, solve puzzles, and traverse the otherwise impenetrable environments of the Aperture Science facility. The player, primarily in the role of Chell, is challenged not only by the physical puzzles but also by the psychological manipulation of the facility's AI overseer, GLaDOS, who is constantly giving you unsolicited advice in an AI’s attempt at empathy that strongly comes across as sarcasm. The games are renowned for their ingenious level design, dark humor, and the unique mechanic of portal-based transportation, which turns conventional spatial navigation on its head.

Within this meticulously crafted environment, players occasionally stumble upon hidden 'dens' - secretive areas scattered throughout the levels. These dens, believed to be created by a character known as the Rat Man (Douglas Rattmann), a former Aperture scientist, add a deeper layer to the narrative. They serve as easter eggs within the game, providing glimpses into the backstory and the darker aspects of Aperture Science's history. The discovery of these dens, marked by scribblings, drawings, and disjointed messages on the walls, offers subtle storytelling elements that enrich the game's lore.

Why did The National write a song for Portal 2?

If you search hard enough in Portal 2, you will come across a ‘den’ that has a radio that plays The National's "Exile Vilify" on repeat. The National had written this song specifically for Portal 2. This area this radio plays this track is a secret, marking an interesting blend of artistic creativity and unintentional commercial strategy. It's a clever approach, rewarding curious players with an unexpected musical treasure.

There is a bit of backstory as of how The National partnered with Portal 2 for this track. In this article it reports:

“The project wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for the persistence of Julia Betley of Bug Music, the band’s publishing company. Chet Faliszek, one of the game’s writers, had plans for a “fake” ending in the middle of the game, which needed a song to go with it. Coulton was already working on a song for the “real” ending, and to convince players of the “fake” ending, Faliszek needed a different song. He explained over email: “I had been a big fan of the National for years, and when their name came up, our search was over. I played some music for anyone in the meeting (who hadn’t heard of them), and everyone agreed with the choice.”

With the sole exception of drummer Bryan Devendorf (who plays “a little bit,” said Berninger), the National weren’t really interested as hobbyists. “None of us are big gamers. There are always game systems on our buses, but they don’t get used too much. Then we found out that Stephen Merchant was involved, and thought ‘This could be fun.’” The band’s decision to write the song for Portal 2 was given a huge assist from an occasional video game player close to the band. “It was my brother Tom who was like: ‘You don’t understand.’” Tom helped convince Matt and the band to look into it further.”

In the same article, it later references how The National felt about writing this track outside of their standard album cycle:

Berninger’s more than pleased with the result of the whole experience. “In some ways,” he admits, “we had more fun writing that than we did our own songs, without the pressure of working for our own record. We needed a break from the creative bottom-ground. This was a perfect way to write without moving forward.”

But on top of this style of impact, did the origins of its feature and the reduction of pressure have an effect on the song itself, given that there are discussions on people thinking this track is so different from the other National songs?

So…did this Secret have an impact?

Annoyingly this track has been removed from streaming services so I can’t gauge the commercial impact. But looking at more Reddit forums to see what people are saying about it, I came across the below from only a year ago:

“Exile Vilify is what got me into the National. It was so beautiful and haunting that I had to hear more, so I dived into their albums on Spotify, starting with High Violet and working my way back.”

“Portal 2 was how I found the national, way back in 2011. I was only 11 at the time and the clam sombre tone of the song blew me away. So glad I went into that little hidden Ratt man room.”

“This is a core memory for me”

“10. This was my kids’ introduction to the band. Thank you Portal.“

“part of the reason I bought Portal 2 the day it came out, the other part being that it was Portal 2...”

“By any chance were your playing the video game Portal 2 when you heard it? :-) That was when I first heard the song, although I had been listening to The National at that point for a year or so. They wrote Exile/Vilify for the video game. There is a level in the game where you come across a radio and the song is playing on it. I remember finding the radio and hearing the song and thinking to myself how much that sounded like The National and after I quick check on the Internet I confirmed it. I ended up carrying that radio around with me on that level as I played through it. I was also lucky to hear them perform the song live for the first time in 2011 at the MusicNow Festival in Cincinnati.”

In addition to the rave review of this placement, Valve teamed up with The National to launch a video competition. They opened this for one month only, receiving 320 entries according to the Portal 2 wiki. For 2011 YouTube, this was an impressive amount of creators all generating content and advertising it for the band as well as the game.

This worked well from Portal 2’s audience because of the Portal fandom. Without so much data on revenue sales, you can instead see the amount of merch made by Valve directly, as well as merchandise made by the fans even today. This dedicated fan base would no doubt be high engagers here too which would evidence the powerful impact this track inclusion had on the fans.

Did players unify over discovering this secret, like fans at an artists secret show? Did the discussion this inclusion created from its discovery (and incredible songwriting as expected from The National) create a bridge between gamers that had not heard of The National, to discovering them - an audience the music industry would have more difficulty reaching, or perhaps didn’t prioritise? Is it the context of its use what made it such an incredible song by giving the band a new environment or context to write songs, making it noticably different from their usual songwriting?

I know I’ve used a lot of Reddit evidence in this post but I think this only proves the deeper, lasting community attachment and discussion that comes from sharing secrets with a community. All the music industry academics would have inevitably come across Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 true fan theory, so why wouldn’t this apply to deeper contextual uses inside of video games?

I can’t believe I ended this SubStack with a graph.

TLDR:

Valve Corporation are clearly being advised by the Simpsons as they operate around 10 years ahead of everyone else. They made Portal 2, a puzzle-shooter with deep narrative. In a secret area in the game, a radio plays The National’s “Exile Vilify”, a track written specifically for the game. This was intended to only be discovered by a few and turned out to be discussed by many. Portal’s thriving fandom suggested they had engaged with The National as a result of this in a series of anecdotes. If you fancy sitting in a graffiti-riddled digital den listening to a hidden gem by The National on repeat - play Portal 2, chapter 2, chamber 3.