FIFA 14s Steve Schnur on Compiling "the Only Annual Soundtrack for the World"

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EA Sports' "FIFA" video game series is the biggest in the world. Though it's revered for its gameplay and online engagement, the franchise has always boasted interesting soundtracks that place prominent artists alongside no-name bands. For the most part, "FIFA" soundtracks are exceptionally forward-thinking; it's common that a track you first heard on "FIFA" will light up the radio a full year after you first unwrapped the game.

In recent years, "FIFA" has pushed even deeper into the pop cultural bloodstream by using artists like Snoop Lion and Drake (who's a big fan of the game and "FIFA 14"'s ambassador.) To learn more about this year's soundtrack and the process of choosing music for a game whose last iteration sold 14.5 million copies, I emailed Steve Schnur, an EA Sports executive who founded EA's music publishing wing Next Level Music and has worked for over a decade on "FIFA" as well as the popular Madden franchise.

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