About the Contest

“Jamglue is excited to bring you a remix contest featuring ‘Still Alive,’ the theme song from EA's Mirror's Edge video game performed by Swedish Pop Star Lisa Miskovsky.” The four steps, quoted as they read on November 25, 2008:

Enter the contest by creating your own version of the official contest mix. The easiest way to do this is to click the “Start Mixing Now!” button and then “SAVE A COPY” in the Mixer.

Remix the song by adding new sounds, rearranging the clips, etc. using the Jamglue Mixer. You can even add your own voice using the Jamglue Recorder in the Mixer. Be creative, and don't forget to publish your mix when you're done so that people can vote for it!

Promote your mix: embed it in your MySpace and email a link to all of your friends. The 25 mixes with the MOST VOTES will be in the running for prizes, so break out your address book and encourage your friends to vote for yours!

Win great prizes!

How the judging worked. From the official rules: “Officials from Electronic Arts will listen to the twenty-five (25) Remixes with the most votes, determined by the number of Jamglue users who called the Remix ‘A Favorite,’ subject to contest eligibility. The Officials will choose one (1) Grand Prize winner and two (2) runners up from the foregoing twenty-five (25) Remixes.” The contest was co-sponsored by Jamglue Inc. of Takoma Park, Maryland and Nettwerk Music Group of Vancouver, and ran from approximately 9:00 p.m. Pacific on November 10, 2008 to 5:00 p.m. Pacific on April 11, 2009.

Winners

“The results are in, and our winners have been chosen!” Three mixes were named out of 1,218: one Grand Prize and two runners up, all three picked by EA out of the twenty-five most-voted entries. Every name and title below is taken verbatim from the archived results page.

Grand Prize Winner

Runners Up

“These were EA's runner-up picks. Each of these winners gets an EA and Mirror's Edge swag pack.”

What survives: three names, three titles, and 1,218 entries counted but not kept. The audio does not survive. Jamglue put mix downloads behind a sign-in, so no crawler ever reached the files, and none of these remixes has been found anywhere else. The professional remix album EA released alongside the contest is still in print; the amateur one, which was larger, is gone.

About “Still Alive”

The contest page carried EA's own copy about the song. “Still Alive” was written and produced by Rami Yacoub and Arnthor Birgisson, whose credits included Pink, Britney Spears and Kelis, and recorded exclusively for the game. Since Mirror's Edge was built at DICE in Stockholm, EA went looking for a Swedish voice and found Lisa Miskovsky, who had a number 1 self-titled debut and a platinum follow-up, Fallwater, at home.

“A groundbreaking videogame demands an equally provocative theme song. We've taken an unprecedented approach to this track, bringing together several of the world's top remixers to create an album that will not only cross genres and borders, but also redefine how great new music can be delivered to the world.”

“When given the opportunity to work with Lisa, Rami and Arnthor, who are all avid gamers, we knew we had something very special on our hands. With ‘Still Alive,’ we created a Mirror's Edge theme song that is able to stand on its own two feet as well as accurately representing the emotional experience of playing the game.”

“This is a terrific song from a tremendous new artist. Every one of these remixers responded not only to the power of the track itself, but also to what this project will mean to the continued convergence of music and gaming. Our entire worldwide marketing team is committed to making this a landmark digital release.”

The official remix album, as the contest page listed it:

The Page Skin

Every Jamglue contest got its own skin: a banner, a background painting, and a stylesheet that repainted the whole site in the campaign's colors for its duration. Here is the background art that sat behind this one.

Sources