Will.i.am's New Mercedes Collab Creates Sick Beats While You Steer, Brake, and Accelerate
To paraphrase Britney Spears, when you hear this in the car, you’re gonna turn this ish up.
We've "gotta feeling" that the latest Mercedes-Benz collaboration with artist and producer will.i.am at CES 2024 will never get the respect it deserves. The new feature is called MBUX Sound Drive and comes to Mercedes and AMG cars soon, mixing a unique soundtrack based on the vehicle inputs of how you drive. At a stop sign, Sound Drive often plays a muted drum-and-bass beat. Accelerate and it turns up the volume on the backing track while blending in a melody. As speed climbs or you steer into corners, vocals and additional instrumental tracks fade in, for an immersive musical experience while driving.
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Is this gimmicky? Yes. Is it also surprisingly well done? Also yes.
Sound Drive will be available as an over-the-air-update in the second half of 2024 for all Mercedes vehicles that run the second-generation MBUX infotainment system. During a demonstration drive at CES 2024, Mercedes showed off 16 different Sound Drive tracks built from songs such as The Black Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feeling" and "Scream & Shout" by will.i.am and Britney Spears.
Creators will also be able to use a desktop computer app to make their own tracks that can then be downloaded by Mercedes owners. Sound Drive will initially take five inputs from the vehicle—acceleration, cornering force, speed, brake recuperation, and brake pedal position—to mix the so-called new song. Mercedes engineers say they may add more channels, such as driving mode, in the future. Songs play continuously until you change the track, but Mercedes has programmed Sound Drive to cycle through a song's melodies so that a long, steady-speed highway drive has some variation.
If you think this sounds like the kind of thing that would encourage someone to drive like a knob, well, you're not wrong. The first time you use Sound Drive, it's tempting to accelerate hard and drive fast, but you'll soon learn that there are limits to how you can influence the song. The vehicle knows the speed limit and exceeding it doesn't alter the song in any way.
This isn't the first time Mercedes and will.i.am have worked together. In 2022, the artist turned a Mercedes-AMG GT into the WILL.I.AMG, a custom one-off with G-wagen design cues and rear-hinged doors. It's good that everybody stuck to just music this time around.
