Song Review: Video Game Green by Betsy Podsiadlo
Inspiration surrounds us all. It may not always be the creative spark we need, but in any setting–light or dark, crowded or isolated–there are muses waiting to be found. All you need to do is look, and you’ll see how much wonder the world truly holds. So much around is beautiful. So much is affecting. So much is begging to be told in new ways: with letters in prose, on screens with cinema, in canvas with design, and through notes with music. From fleeting habits to quiet moments, from the sweep of a landscape to the intricacies of a relationship, everything becomes a doorway to artistic expression when approached with care and curiosity.
For musician Betsy Podsiadlo, that doorway opens with something as simple and as evocative as a color. On her latest single, “Video Game Green,” she explores this idea with breathtaking fascination, utilizing minimal tones to reveal life’s deep splendor. Warm synthesizer notes explore the verdant hue while an ethereal vocalization drifts through the track with peculiar comfort, settling into a beckoning frequency that stirs and soothes in equal measure. No words are needed, no extra instrumentation either; just a transcendent union of digital modulations and natural expression that is deeply resonant in its elemental form.
Behind the scenes, this sonic watercolor draws from a deep and eclectic well of inspiration, with sources new and old, surreal and niche. It borrows elements from the 1957 Peggy Lee version of pop standard “The Folks Who Live On The Hill,” Richard Strauss’ piece “Beim Schlafengehen” from 1950’s Four Last Songs, the C418-scored 2011 soundtrack to gaming sensation Minecraft, and a titular nod to Lana Del Rey’s breakout 2011 single. The result surprisingly feels eerily aligned with the dreamlike mood of Angelo Badalamenti, specifically his aesthetically defining score for Twin Peaks. Both soundscapes give full space to the weight of unsaid emotion, though while Badalamenti’s work rises and falls with devastating grace, Podsiadlo’s seems to ebb and flow with encouraging radiance.
This kind of abstract spectacle lives within all of us if we choose to observe everything around us. In Podsiadlo’s hands, though, it emerges with particular clarity, shaped by her multifaceted experience as a composer, producer, educator, and performer that allows her to see an expansive big picture and fill out all the necessary small details. Around Richmond’s music scene, she’s well-known as an accompanist, lending her classical-by-way-of-bluegrass fiddle style to singer-songwriters in ways that subtly underscore and enhance their emotional core. Recently, she’s begun to front her own group, Betsy From Mars, a songwriting project designed for the stage rather than the studio, steeped in a post-apocalyptic cosmic cowgirl aesthetic.
This fluid blend of styles and identities lies at the heart of Podsiadlo’s music, a quality first made clear on her 2023 debut EP, to be loved by you. The four-track collection traced themes of new love, farewells to a childhood home, and the quiet magic of things that can never be, expressing each with free-roaming sonic ambition that covered fiddle-driven folk, dreamy electronica, spacious bedroom pop, and rootsy ambient. “Video Game Green” aligns most with “Home” from that release, though much more abstract in design. Still, it’s far from an outlier in her creative journey. On her personal SoundCloud page, early demos like “This And Much More” reveal a similar interest in tonal impressionism, where minimal frameworks support vocals that drift with greater complexity and intent.
While Podsiadlo remains creatively immersed in Betsy From Mars and professionally engaged in lecturing, composing, conducting, and directing throughout Central Virginia, pieces like “Video Game Green” feel less like detours and more like recurring stars in her broader musical constellation. More celestial marvels surely lie ahead, but this sonic imprint offers plenty to savor for now. With any luck, it will inspire listeners to seek out the beauty in their unique surroundings, and, in doing so, contribute to the ever-expanding miracles of the world.
“Video Game Green” is available now on all streaming platforms. stay up-to-date on Betsy Podsiadlo’s future releases, make sure to follow her on social media.
