As the PES 2010 start screen loaded up and the first tune kicked in, it dawned on me like the detective piecing it all together at the end of 'The Usual Suspects'; Myself and others like me have more than likely heard the ‘songs’ on the PES soundtracks more than any other piece of music. If I was holding a cup I may have dropped it, only to see 'Konami' written on the broken base. Thanks to the life affirming brilliance of the gameplay, it has never really mattered that, just like the weak commentary and the presentation, the music has always been so utterly random. But realising that ‘Go to the Goal’ has hit my eardrums more than Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born to Run’, I couldn’t help but wonder, what exactly have we been putting our ears through over the years?

PES soundtracks have historically been made up of unlicensed songs with names like ‘Ambiguous Tea’, and the above classic, ‘Football’, performed by anonymous artists, session musicians and ‘up and coming’ bands hired like musical hit-men to commit these aural atrocities then disappear. Unsurprisingly, research doesn’t reveal too much about those responsible for the music. Like fake songs by fake bands in films, the songs produced sounded like they didn’t belong in our world, belonging instead to some kind of alternate dimension; a parallel universe where everything is slightly off, and a bit crap.

The origin of the songs may have been questionable, but Konami’s musical range certainly wasn’t. Genre hopping more than Beck, they have emotionlessly assimilated everything from techno to jazz over the years. Thanks to nostalgia and an appreciation of Konami as some kind of ironic musical comedians, some of the tunes were actually bearable. I still find myself humming the International Superstar Soccer theme sometimes. On the other hand though, ninety nine per cent of the music was just horrendous, and even the ones that were funny got old pretty quick. I veered disturbingly close to some kind of mental episode when ‘Existence’ and it’s ‘colour of love’ chanting despicably lodged itself into my mind after too much PES 6. That was a dark time, but even then I still had the brilliance of the game to make it all worthwhile. At times though, you get the feeling Konami are just laughing at us, that they’re just busting our chops. But then, more likely, they’re probably just crazy.

It’s a sad state of affairs when one of the areas in which the increasingly ironically titled Pro Evolution Soccer series has evolved most is song licensing. In recent years Konami stepped up from anonymous bands to, and the next term is used as loosely as possible, ‘real artists’ like Robbie Williams and Kasabian. With PES 2010 they’ve managed to actually put together their least annoying soundtrack yet, while still showing how off the pace they are by signing up acts like Andrew WK, whose musical pedigree may actually be lower than some of the session bands they replaced. And there's a bit too much 'Stereophonics' for it to be considered 'good'. Even when critically acclaimed acts like The Chemical Brothers are on board, the ‘PES effect’ manages to make all their songs somehow sound like, well, the same anonymous, random PES music we’ve been hearing for years.

Of course now we live in the future, where we can all create our own custom Pro Evo soundtracks on our consoles. With a world full of actual, real music, the question now is which tunes to choose? What can replace such timeless classics as ‘Football’ and ‘Existence?

My jam: The Transformers, The Movie OST (1986).

No need to rush through menus and options before the song kicks in with this bad boy on. The whole soundtrack works. The whole god damn beautiful thing. Stan Bush, Dare, The Touch. Weird Al, even ‘The Death of Optimus Prime’ works in those introspective moments looking back over a hard fought, emotional Master League season. If there is a fault, maybe it’s that it’s too good; its sheer awesomeness means more time spent in the menu screens and missing out on play time to hear the end of the song.

If you’ve got a favourite album or playlist for accompanying your PES replay watching and menu tinkering, comment away.