Texture: Still Alive, Portal

Still Alive, the ending credits song from the video game Portal, became an overnight cult classic. A perfect ending to a perfect game, Still Alive is sung by the main villain of the game, GLaD0S; a murderous, sentient robot; after you supposedly destroy her.

Still Alive is very different from The Confrontation. There is only once singing voice in Still Alive, for example, so the texture of this piece is based almost entirely on the instruments.

(NOTE: my times are off about six seconds on this timeline. I was writing based on my mp3 of the song, and the YouTube version has six seconds of set-up before the music starts.)
0:00 - GLaD0S's voice enters by itself and the song is briefly monophonic
0:01 - Electric (possibly synthesized?) harp enters
0:17 - Shakers enter
0:31 - Drums enter
0:45 - Electric bass enters, bells replace harp
0:53 - bells exit, leaving voice, bass, drums and shakers
1:23 - Electric guitar enters and becomes lead instrument, synthesizer enters
1:45 - Synthesizer, guitar and bass exit, leaving voice, harp and shakers
1:57 - Electric guitar enters
2:01 - Electric bass enters
2:15 - Synthesizer enters, harp exits
2:30 - Synthesizer exits
2:52 - All instruments fade abruptly
2:54 - Voice exits
2:56 - Song ends

The instruments in this song are all very specifically electronic instruments. The premise of the game is that you, the player, are in a large building that is only inhabited by GLaD0S and other, non-sentient, robots. It could easily be assumed that the game takes place in the future, but it never explicitly stated. Technology is a major focal point of the game, so having acoustic instruments for the song--while it may sound nice--would not fit in with the theme of the game.