mxmtoon Is Bringing the ‘Post-Post Apocalyptic Dance Party’ to LEGO Land
In a surprising move, PlayStation recently announced a slate of new games targeted at younger players, one of which came totally out of left field: LEGO Horizon Adventures. In our initial impressions going hands on with the game, Rolling Stone noted that its irreverent, self-referential take on its own IP wasn’t just refreshing, but hued closely to the frenetic energy of The LEGO Movie. That included its bombastic soundtrack.
What we didn’t know at the time was who was responsible for making that hyperpop-like sound, until now. This week, singer-songwriter and streamer mxmtoon announced on X that she had written the game’s main track, titled “post-post apocalyptic dance party.”
The Brooklyn-based artist gained popularity in 2017 for her YouTube vlogs and Twitch streams, where she frequently performed alongside playing games like Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Her lo-fi sound, often utilizing the ukulele in her bedroom pop songs, became a hit with her followers for their emotionally resonant and cozy vibes — qualities that led to her first foray into video game music with the Life is Strange series. But the more upbeat, hyperpop-inspired track she’s created for LEGO Horizon Adventures continues her shift toward a more bombastic energy that began with her 2022 album, Rising.
Officially released today, the song is a fist-pumping mishmash of references to both the Horizon series and world of LEGO, one that does some heavy lifting to translate the very serious tone of the former’s end of the world scenario into something more spectacularly silly.
Ahead of the track’s official release, mxmtoon spoke with Rolling Stone about how the collaboration came to be, her love of the Horizon games, and why Grand Theft Auto VI is her next big dream gig.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Prior to this song, were you familiar with the Horizon games?
Yes, Horizon’s been a game that I’ve loved playing. I played back in high school for the first time, and I remember getting home in the evenings being like, “I can’t wait to play Horizon. I have to finish literally everything I need to do.” So, this project was like a dream come true to be a part of. I’m very excited to play the game [LEGO Horizon Adventures] when I get the opportunity to.
How did you get involved with LEGO Horizon Adventures?
Well, honestly, [I] think they were trying to keep it under wraps for a good portion of it. So, PlayStation reached out, and we’re like, “We’re looking for the song for this project, doesn’t have a name yet. These are kind of the general vibes that we’re looking for.”
They sent me a bunch of keywords of what they were looking for — I had no idea at that point what the project was. So I wrote a song based off of the information that they shared with me. And I remember reading the brief and being like, “This sounds a lot like Horizon Zero Dawn, but weirdly, there’s some LEGO terminology in here. And I remember being like, “That’s cool if they ended up doing that, then it ended up being exactly what I had anticipated!
Did you have to rework the song once the truth was revealed?
It was dead on the nose. I remember they had they had the word “focus” in there [from the tool in the game] and “master builder” in the terms list. And I was like, “I am pretty sure this is some sort of Horizon project.” So, I think from that point on, it was really easy, because I’ve just been a fan of the game for such a long time. And I love Aloy [the hero in Horizon]. I love the story of the world. And it was easy to form a song that was what they were looking for.
What drew you to the world of the Horizon games?
I think the world building is just really fascinating. The combination of the natural world with technology has always been something that I’ve really enjoyed in different fantasy worlds. And the post-apocalyptic world after some sort of crazy event, has always been something that I really like, whether it’s like a series like The Hunger Games or what not.
I think that those are always universes that are a lot of fun to dive into. It reminded me of playing Tomb Raider for the first time and having Lara Croft as your character [as] you’re going through this open world. It felt really reminiscent of games that I had already loved previously but put in this new world that was really fun to explore for the first time.
Tomb Raider has seen some updates, but Aloy is definitely a modern-day kick-ass type of character. What about her appeals to you?
I feel like her journey of self is really an important story to be told [that you] don’t get oftentimes, with protagonists that are female, especially in the video game world. I feel like we see those things in indie games more regularly than we do in major developer releases. And so, with Aloy, it’s just really cool to watch her be badass for no other reason than to just be badass. That’s all she knows. It’s really sweet to see that translated to a LEGO format too, because LEGO games were [some] of the first games that I ever remember playing from the beginning of when I started playing video games. I certainly remember consistently, always trying to swap for Princess Leia and LEGO Star Wars. [If] I had this game at my fingertips when I was a kid playing video games for the first time, I would have been really stoked to see Aloy as an option in the first place.
What were the LEGO games you played the most growing up?
LEGO Indiana Jones, LEGO Star Wars were the main ones that I remember playing. My brother and I are a year apart, and so I constantly had a couch co-op person that I was playing with every single time I picked up one of those titles. [That’s] ingrained in my brain forever. So, I actually shed a tear when I found out this was a LEGO project, because I was like, “This is the coolest thing ever.” Fully recognizing my inner child and going back and doing something that like feels so connected to the stuff that had such an impact on me as a kid is so, so cool. So, yeah, I’m gonna be camped out on my couch when I get to play this game.
Outside of the lyrics, were you able to incorporate the Horizon score into the production of the song?
I think there’s a couple motifs of the string tracks; there’s a Horizon music motif with the plucking of violins, or like the [hums Horizon theme], so we put that into the actual song. So, there were a couple additional things that we added. I think the PlayStation team ended up going out into strings players and kind of doing their own creative direction on some of that stuff, which was really cool to like work collaboratively, like [with] writing the lyrics. Lyrically, it didn’t really change a lot, but some elements of the production, it was just like, “Okay, how can we make this a cooler experience for people that really love these games, and put these little moments in that people can listen to it and be like, “Wait, that’s the theme for Horizon, but in the song, in a different context, which is cool.
The song has a hyperpop-like energy the feels a bit like the insanely popular track from The LEGO Movie, “Everything Is Awesome.” Was that an influence?
I love the LEGO movies; I literally just rewatched LEGO Batman two whole days ago.
[But] that is exactly what I like to do. I have a song from my 2022 record, “coming of age,” that was directly inspired [by] how much I love, “Everything Is Awesome” from The LEGO Movie. I am just a fan, in the truest sense. And so, when they came to me and they were giving me these inspiration references, they were like, “Oh yeah, the LEGO tracks from The LEGO Movie, that should be a good reference point and kind of what we’re looking for.” And I was like, “Done. So easy.”
Like, that’s the best thing you could have possibly said to me. Taking that and running with it felt really natural, given that I had already done it previously for a past song. It’s something that I continuously do in all of my music. So, it was really easy, because I was like, oh yeah, ‘Everything Is Awesome,’ one of the top songs I played in the year 2022 on my Spotify.
I believe this is technically the first time a video game franchise has been adapted into its own LEGO-styled game.
I hadn’t thought about that before, but it is really exciting. I think it’s interesting to take a game that’s so known for its own mechanic system, and then introduce it into a [new] format. LEGO has its own world, its own system, and the way that it functions, the people explode into pieces when they die. There’s so many things that are fun, but I think that because there is such a solid, consistent language that’s present in the video games, it’s fun to think about just taking a story and characters that people love already and just formatting them in this other situation.
I think it’s really exciting, and I hope that it’s done more. I think that storytelling is such an impactful thing, especially when it’s done in the context of video games. And it’s easy to take adaptations like Star Wars and turning that into a LEGO video game, but at the end of the day, good stories are good stories, and trying to move them into a different format, especially in a LEGO world, is still exciting. So, I’m sure that this is the beginning of something that will continue to happen, but it’s really cool that I got to be a part of it for its first iteration.
How did you land on the title, “Post-Post Apocalyptic Dance Party?”
I remember I got the brief, and I was talking with [my brother] about a little bit about it, and he was like, “Well, you know, it sounds like they’re making some sort of Horizon Zero Dawn thing. [It] sounds like, you know, a post-post-apocalyptic situation. Not even just a post-apocalyptic. And I was like, “Oh yeah, that’s a good point; that’s a good hook.” So, now I probably have to give points to my brother.
I’ve written songs before, previously, about this kind of clashing idea of having fun, but the world is on fire.
What are you playing right now?
Really, just Fortnite lately. But, other than that, I’m really trying to up my indie games experience. So, I just recently played Animal Well, which was really great. My favorite game of the year, huge fan of that.
So, you’ve been featured in Life is Strange and now this. What’s the next game you’re gunning to make music for?
Oh man, If I had the opportunity to work on anything, I think it would be a Rockstar game. I have no idea what that is like, or what it’s like to work in that world but those stories are always incredible and being involved in them in some capacity would be a dream come true.
Okay, so we should be looking for you on the radio in GTA VI.
All the way to the top!
