Video Game Music (OST)

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by B.Burl, Jan 9, 2011.

  1. the sands

    the sands Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oslo, Norway
    I really wish they would release the "Destiny" game soundtrack composed by Paul McCartney and collaborators. It's gotten some good reviews but it's only been a digital release so far. Since 2014. There was a 12" vinyl maxi of McCartney's theme "Hope for the Future" which i don't think it is on the soundtrack.
     
  2. Jeff Kent

    Jeff Kent Forum Resident

    Location:
    Mt. Kisco, NY
    I doubt this will ever be released on CD...so for now this is all we have.

     
  3. JohnnyQuest

    JohnnyQuest Forum Resident

    Location:
    Paradise
    Summer of '02. :love:
    The game was released in 1999 but I didn't get my hands on it until a couple years later.
     
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  4. attym

    attym Forum Resident

    Location:
    US
    Interstate 76

    Official Interstate '76 Game Soundtrack featuring sound clips from the game's badass characters. The music was performed under the name "Bullmark" with Arion Salazar, of Third Eye Blind fame, on bass, Santana-alumni Tom Coster on keyboards, and Bryan Mantia, who among his performing credits previously played with Primus and Guns N' Roses, on drums.

     
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  5. JohnnyQuest

    JohnnyQuest Forum Resident

    Location:
    Paradise
    One of the greatest intros of all time. :thumbsup: Smooth as silk!
     
  6. JohnnyQuest

    JohnnyQuest Forum Resident

    Location:
    Paradise
    I used to practice in this stage just for the music. It wasn't even to sharpen my skills. :laugh:
     
  7. onionmaster

    onionmaster Tropical new waver from the future

    I rediscovered this old gem from Sonic CD recently. It's the US version of Stardust Speedway Zone.

    From 0:56 onwards it's such a cool piece of ambient synthpop music. I would love if there are any synthheads who know of anything else like it.

     
  8. phish

    phish Jack Your Body

    Location:
    Biloxi, MS, USA
    This one from C418 is awesome.


     
  9. Wombat Reynolds

    Wombat Reynolds Jimmy Page stole all my best riffs.

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA, USA
    I like the music from Diablo 2 and the Borderlands series.
     
  10. Farmer Mike

    Farmer Mike Forum Resident

    When I first encountered the CD International reference book in the 90's, I was amazed how much game music was available from Japan. 40 some pages of 50 titles a page. We had a couple of exchange students from Japan and Korea that special ordered a disc every month. For whatever reason, game soundtracks on CD never really happened in the U.S.
     
  11. Runicen

    Runicen Forum Resident

    There's a great indie game called Flower making the rounds that has a phenomenal soundtrack. As you progress through the levels, layers are added to the music, so it starts very sparse and ambient and becomes more dynamic and orchestral as you go.

    I don't have Youtube access where I am right now or I'd link the video. Someone uploaded the entire soundtrack and it's a joy. Perfect listening after a rough day... or a good day... or just because.
     
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  12. Jeff Kent

    Jeff Kent Forum Resident

    Location:
    Mt. Kisco, NY
     
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  13. mahanusafa02

    mahanusafa02 Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    From Doom and Doom II: a lot of the music utilized riffs lifted from Alice in Chains, Pantera, Slayer, and Megadeth, among others. That's literally how I discovered those four bands, anyway, back in the early 90s.
     
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  14. Runicen

    Runicen Forum Resident

    I still remember when there were websites dedicated to MIDI files of current songs. That was how I first heard Verse Chorus Verse by Nirvana. A lot more haunting as a MIDI instrumental on a crappy Sound Blaster! :D
     
  15. supermd

    supermd Senior Member

    Location:
    San Jose, CA
    I discovered a lot of bands through video games, especially Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games. I heard great songs by The Ramones (Blitzkrieg Bop), Frank Sinatra (That's Life), Johnny Cash (Ring of Fire), etc.
     
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  16. Ashley Pomeroy

    Ashley Pomeroy Forum Resident

    Location:
    England
    I'm old enough to remember when games occasionally had a cassette of music that you were supposed to play through the television (e.g. Carrier Command, some arcade conversions such as 720 and OutRun). Of course the golden age of chiptune soundtracks was the 1980s, particularly e.g:
    At this point the forum software forbids me from embedding more than one piece of media. Bah! It was Rob Hubbard's Sanxion loading music.

    The advent of CD took a bit of the adventurousness out of it, because it was possible to just bundle pop hits. But the likes of WipeOut and WipeOut 2097 had fantastic soundtracks that worked as standalone albums. And there were things like Rez, which is hard to describe:


    And e.g. Parappa the Rapper, Space Channel 5 etc. The Dreamcast in particular had loads of great soundtracks. Some time in the 2000s a mixture of chiptune nostalgia and a more sophisticated audience took away most of the computer gamey-ness of games soundtracks - some of them are excellent, as above, but they could be film soundtracks or concert music.

    I was always impressed with LucasArt's iMuse system, which was loosely built on an idea they used in Ballblazer in the 1980s. It was a generative music scoring system that reacted to the action, a bit like the "boss battle music" in modern games. But imagine if that idea had been built upon to create entirely generative symphonies!
     
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  17. Marshman96

    Marshman96 Forum Resident

    Location:
    harrisburg, PA
    Yes one time made a song for a video game called homeworld.
     
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  18. Jeff Kent

    Jeff Kent Forum Resident

    Location:
    Mt. Kisco, NY
    I remember going to panels at CMJ to learn about getting songs into video games. With albums selling fewer and fewer copies every year, video games are the exact opposite.
     
  19. Runicen

    Runicen Forum Resident

    I've not been particularly pleased with where mainstream gaming has gone, musically. They're basically indistinguishable from summer blockbuster soundtracks - just bombast and orchestras and a choir going "OOOOO" really loud during crescendos.

    It was cool when it started though. I still look at the Halo soundtrack with a degree of fondness. It was a nice blend.

    Where the golden age lies for me is in the relatively early CD-ROM titles that had a data track and then redbook audio tracks for the in-game music. Granted, it was usually just well-rendered MIDI, but it was sweet.

    Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure is one that never leaves my music library. That music was such a tremendous part of my childhood and it still holds up.
     
  20. jiffypopinski

    jiffypopinski Forum Resident

    Location:
    West Virginia
    Silent Hill 2

     
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  21. I see a large amount of Sega soundtracks have been mentioned already - their sound teams have been responsible for some of my all time favourite videogame compositions!

    To the poster who named Space Channel 5 and Rez, both of these were the work of Tetsuya Mizuguchi, who also produced Lumines along with more conventional titles including Sega Rally Championship and it's spiritual successor, Sega Touring Car, the latter featuring music licensed from Avex Trax plus a wealth of further Japanese talent, most notably Yoji Biomehanika. (Speaking of Yoji, he provided a fantastic remix for the Club Sega series, which ended after just two volumes.)

    Continuing with Sega, the first Sonic Adventure introduced a "supergroup" then called Sons Of Angels but later renamed Crush 40, which consists of in-house guitarist Jun Senoue and Johnny Gioeli of Hardline (also formerly with Axel Rudi Pull). Their material definitely works as standalone music, though I'm still not done...

    One figure who appears more than any other in some of my favourite Sega arcade titles, usually those by the Yu Suzuki led AM2 research department, is Takenobu Mitsuyoshi. From his vocal contributions to Daytona USA to more conventional instrumental pieces for the Virtua Fighter and Shenmue franchises, he's perhaps Sega's biggest asset audio-wise.

    I'd heard of B-Univ (AKA baby Universe) before, yet it wasn't until I started really investigating their catalogue that I realised this was a short-lived side project established to create very different remixes of Sega's in-game music for soundtrack albums. Also featuring guitarist Koichi "Miki" Namiki and Fighting Vipers composer David Leytze, they put out a CD of very different arrangements based on tunes from the original Virtua Fighter that is criminally underrated. More than any other disc, I'd strongly recommend their Neo Rising collection, plus the vocal album they made for Daytona USA, which contains what I consider the definitive versions of this iconic game's themes.

    Although he lender his voice to several of Sega's arcade hits in the mid 90s, even having a track in Daytona named in his honour, Leytze soon left the company, moving back to his native America, where he continues to work as a percussionist and drum tutor. However, he's still got an online presence, and I patiently await a promised compilation of unreleased material from his brief affiliation with B-Univ, especially as his vocals and songwriting proved so distinctive. One of my absolute favourite tracks he's prominently audible on is this bluesy number from the aforementioned Neo Rising, featuring him encouraging Namiki through the last minute or so, recorded spontaneously in a single take:



    The Sega Saturn conversions of the first two WipEout games had soundtracks unique to this system, produced by Psygnosis' very own Tim "CoLD SToRAGE" Wright due to licensing issues with Sony. Even though the PlayStation originals are beloved, I rate these alternatives even more highly.

    I'd also like to help raise the profile of Richard Jacques, who is the mastermind behind the music to Sonic 3D, Sonic R, Metropolis Street Racer and HeadHunter. On top of all these, his work features in Daytona USA Championship Circuit Edition, Jet Set Radio and Out Run 2, plus he was even chosen to share a place on the Club Saturn album with such major DJs as Paul "Trouble" Anderson, Marshall Jefferson and Kenny Ken. Furthermore, collectors should hunt down the European versions of Baku Baku, Sega Worldwide Soccer '98, Shinobi-X and Sega Touring Car, which all boast more exclusive audio content by Jacques.

    Finally for now, there's one last personal favourite band from this period in Sega's history I'd like to promote to anyone interested. Although they only featured on two games (Ghen War and the US edition of Cyber Speedway, the latter a little-known rival to WipEout), the Bygone Dogs were the only act signed to a label founded by Sega's American division. Their work on Cyber Speedway alone justifies any mention in this thread, which I've loved sharing a few recommendations through, by the way.
     
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  22. profholt82

    profholt82 Resident Blowhard

    Location:
    West Michigan
    The 'Streets of Rage' and 'Outrun' soundtracks are probably my favorites. The Castlevania games pump out some good ones as well, I'm particularly partial to 'Symphony of thr Night.'
     
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  23. The Streets of Rage series (or Bare Knuckle, as it is known in its native Japan) is synonymous with composer Yuzo Koshiro, who also contributed to two of my favourite videogame soundtracks, Shenmue and Slap Fight MD. In fact, his work from these was recently picked up by a small independent label Data for long overdue audiophile quality vinyl release from transfers of his original electronic files:

    Products ยป
     
  24. Runicen

    Runicen Forum Resident

    Oh, can I give a shout out to Frank Klepacki, who hasn't put out a single stinker in a fairly long career?

    He really grabbed my attention via his soundtrack for Command & Conquer: Red Alert. It had a number of rockers, but a great selection of more ambient, funky/jazzy tracks too.

     
    nosliw likes this.
  25. Halfwit

    Halfwit Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dublin
    My all time favourite:

     

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