I'm continually amazed by the music in this game. First of all, just the little bits of game music that play when something is loading, or you're in 'buy' mode, were all written by Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo fame. There are eight different musical instruments in the game (you can see the drum set and bass guitar in this shot, and there's even something resembling a theramin), and each instrument has ten different bits of music they play, according to the Creativity level of the Sim playing. When they get good enough, they can even choose different styles of music to play - jazz, country, etc. I just love it when my Sims get good enough at the piano that they start playing the Hanon exercises I spent hours on as a kid, or Joplin rags!
As if that wasn't enough, all stereos can be set to one of 20 radio stations. These have 5 or 6 songs each that are real pop songs, re-recorded (very often by the original artist, at least as far as my ear can tell) in Simlish, so they are unique to the game. I'm amazed every time I hear a Barenaked Ladies song come on the radio, or Depeche Mode, or Kajagoogoo, not to mention Katy Perry or Lily Allen. How much did that all cost, and what was involved in all that recording, and drawing up contracts? It's such a special touch, and if you never bought a stereo or never thought to change the station (they always default to Salsa, somewhat oddly), you'd never even know.
Of course you can also set up your own radio stations that play music you have on your computer, but I've never bothered.
This is another of my 'set and forget' home businesses; there is a ticket machine set with a pretty low price (I think 42 Simoleons), so Sims are happy to pay it, and they just hang out and play the instruments and socialize. When my playable Sims are hungry, I have them serve a whole meal and call the guests to eat, which seems to improve mood and how long the visiting Sims stay.
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