Reimagining Sims Sessions

For over 22 years, music has been an important feature of our Sims history. Along with art and animation, music is key in a Simmer’s storytelling process. It can influence emotion and set up the tone of the story being created. Who wasn’t inspired by Paramore’s Simlish version of “Pressure” in The Sims™ 2?

We are extending an open invitation for Simmers–and fans of music–to go behind the curtain as we work with musicians to rediscover their own songs in Simlish. Sims Sessions will create a real-world connection to our in-game musical moments, and enable you to experience an artist’s creative spark between their music and a love of Simlish.

To kick off the launch of Sims Sessions, we worked with global pop star and fellow longtime Simmer, Anitta, who counts Simlish as the sixth language that she sings in. 

“When we are young we dream about so many things, and then when we see these things actually happening, it’s just crazy,” said Anitta. “I am thrilled to be part of the first-ever Sims Sessions segment, and for players to get insight on how we recorded the Simlish version of my new song “Practice”, from the Deluxe Edition of my studio album Versions of Me!”

Simmers can dance to the Simlish version of “Practice,” or “Prooshtis,” if we’re speaking Simlish, in-game through The Sims™ 4 Pop radio station, starting on November 17. 

Through Sims Sessions we’re learning how these artists answer the question… what sparks your creativity? Together, we will get an opportunity to see a new side of the musicians as they challenge the status quo, and how they create, express and inspire.

What is Simlish, you ask?

The nonsensical, fictional language of The Sims known as Simlish was created to be universally relatable, composed entirely of improvisation and emotion.

To celebrate the new direction of Sims Sessions, we spoke to the incredible team who have been leading the music selection and Simlish translations for The Sims 4 since the beginning: Voice Director for The Sims, Jackie Perez Gratz and Senior Audio Director, Robi Kauker. 

Can you tell us a little about yourself and how you got started with Sims Sessions?

Jackie: I’m a musician and vocalist in my personal life, which originally got me into game audio in the first place. Being the Voice Director for Maxis puts me in a special position where I get to work with Simlish quite often and having both vocal experience and directing Simlish experience enables me to translate the lyrics for licensed music pretty quickly. The more challenging translations are when the original lyrics are not in English, then the Simlish translation becomes even more abstract between the two.

How long have you been doing this for?

Jackie: I’ve been translating Simlish lyrics throughout the life of The Sims 4.

Robi: The voice director role, has often done the Simlish translations. They tend to be singers strangely, in our history, so Jackie is a very good singer. Bill Cameron who did it for The Sims™ 3 was also a singer in his own way. Something about that skill, even though I’ve been involved with Simlish since the very beginning, I’m not a singer so when people try to sing my translations they’re a lot harder for them. A lot more adjustments made after the fact. 

Jackie: The artists are used to singing the words they have written, and many do not have experience singing in a different language let alone singing in a made up language. When writing Simlish lines for an artist, my goal is to make it as easy for them as possible, so I pick up the lyrical techniques they are already using in their own lyrics and mimic those techniques in Simlish. If they use alliteration, rhyming or repetition of parts of words, I’ll choose simlish words that have the same effect, lyrically -  I hope this makes it easier for them to perform it.

Are lyrics easily translated word for word from the native language to Simlish? 

Jackie: The Simlish language is not a 1:1 translation. Yet there are some words that are very well known to fans, like Sul Sul or Yibs. Most of the Simlish phrases and words are used to describe a theme rather than represent one word or phrase in English. For example, there are specific Simlish words used as a generic greeting or used when Sims are talking about food or babies. I fill in those Simlish words first so that the overall theme of the song, like love or death, are also addressed in the Simlish version. If an original lyric says “Hey Baby, Hey Baby, Hey Baby,” these have pretty iconic Simlish words that fans might understand or recognize, “Sul sul noobo, sul sul nooboo,” etc. Everything else is filled in with SImlish words that are easy on the tongue, so I’m not writing some epic tongue twisters for the artists to replicate.

Robi: Making the Simlish fit the song is far more important than any word or anything that we have. Due to the nature of the way the game is, we have a lot of freedom. We use that to our maximum advantage and the goal is to make the artist focus on the ultimate truth of the song, without having to think too much about translation and lyrics.

Is there a language that you work off of?

Jackie: We have pages and pages of Simlish words and phrases that the cast actors use in our recording sessions. We call them ‘Simlish cheatsheets.’ Because we have been using these pages for so long we are actually building the language based on what words are used together based on the way they are laid out on the page. It’s not necessarily intentional but it works well!

What is your favorite Simlish word that you’ve translated?

Robi: We did some death metal music back in The Sims 2, and there is a line that we translated into the song that was “groish fratishy.” That one makes me laugh the most! 

There are all sorts of stories of artists who are amazed with the Simlish version of their songs. We’ve had artists who have found that recording in Simlish has made them change the way that they even perform the actual song or change lyrics.

What gets you excited about Sims Sessions?

Robi:  There’s a song for everyone in there, and we don’t want to live in one genre. Beautiful thing is that The Sims audience is willing to listen to any type of music. We want to mix and cross things up to see where it lands, and that’s the exciting part.

What has it been like to work with artists like Anitta in the recording studio? 

Robi: Anitta is one of those great cases of being a fan of The Sims, so she didn’t need us. Anitta is somebody that we’ve been trying to work into our world and finding the right place that felt good and this opportunity was too much, not to take it. She's very much involved in The Sims community. I always get surprised how some artists are, and to know her story for so long - it’s awesome. To have a Sims player now be featured in this space. It’s amazing. She’s something special.