The Daniel Pemberton TV Orchestra: "Leaders Of Men (Little Big Planet Dub)"

You’re all familiar with Little Big Planet, right? No? Allow me to move that rock from on top of you. It’s a “design your own planet” game with a neat Mario twist, so universally addictive it’s got families living like Tolkien clones: industrious, subterranean, beavering over tailor-made continents. Think of it as World of Warcraft for people with social skills: HD CGI has never looked sweeter, the main Sackboy character is toyetic as fuck and even the stoniest of hearts can’t help sprouting moss as the merry in-game wildlife starts to trill. Its playability has even broken through the ranks of the stuffed shirt brigade (Stephen Fry lends his Cambridge rosiness to the game’s roving tutorial), helping to lift what’s basically a blend of Worms, Sim City, and Sonic to a higher level of credibility. Who wants to live in a loud town of worms, though, and who’d be nuts enough to try and write the anthems?

TV’s Dan Pemberton is a safe bet, still aglow with the quirky insights he picked up from scoring five years of Peep Show. Bringing a strand of every grabbable genre to the game’s rainbow soundtrack, Pemberton is a surprisingly mischievous composer-for-hire, capturing the fun of the Sackboy’s antics while giving you something to tap along to. Aside from the Edward Scissorhands-style “Orb of Dreamers” he wrote for the opening cut scene, “Leaders of Men” is the most zinging effort I’ve heard between levels to date, something directors of summery teen films would kill to sign up for their mall scene. With all the fun beats and booty-wiggle of a souped-up Lily Allen, it turns a Cuban trumpet line into ska with AI as fast as you can figure the controls out. The kids will go nuts for the kazoos and R2-D2 while Dad gets to relive his Madness days, brightening the horrors of compulsory Family Time. Sony can be proud of this one. You don’t get funk this dozy when you’re learning how to bowl with a Wii.