Leonardo

Here's a forgotten genre of music. People easily recognize film score composers, but apart from Koji Kondo and Nobuo Uamatsu noone has a clue who wrote their favorite game soundtrack. Or do they?

What's your favorite soundtrack / composer? Why?

Joel007

Nascar racing series have some amazing tracks, and not just the roads Written by Joe Satriani

The Red Alert games had awesome soundtracks that I still listen to, written by Frank Klepacki

And of course, Nintendo have contributed some game music which has attainted cult status. Such as Final Fantasy, Zelda, and Mario Bros (and many more )

Leonardo

That was Squaresoft, not Nintendo. But still pretty great, yes. : )

Joel007

D'oh!

And tetris was also cool.

Leonardo

Tetris was great. And a generally unknown factoid about the soundtrack is that every track is a classical tune.

The most famous, Music A, was based on a russian folk tune called "Korobeiniki", with varations. Music B is "The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" by Tchaikovsky, and Music C is based on Bach's French Suite no. 3.

It was all arranged by the russians in the soviet army science division who made the original tetris game and smuggled it out of the country in the 80's, into Hungary, from where its popularity exploded all over the world.

matious

though the games have been on nintendo systems in the past.

snes, gamecube(crystal chronicles =/) and gameboy and ds all have final fantasy games =D

i really dug the tunes on ubisofts "Beyond Good & Evil" no clue who it was by though

HoopyFrood

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Leonardo

Christophe Heral did Beyond Good & Evil. It's good, I totally agree.

And yeah, nintendo licensed a few final fantasy games, but they didn't have anything to do with the music, that's all. Neither did Sony, for that matter.

One of my favorite soundtracks is the soundtrack from Chrono Trigger, mostly done by Yasunori Mitsuda (but with help from the ever popular Nabuo Uamatsu, who did the final fantasy soundtracks).

Also, Metal Gear Solid 2 had a great soundtrack by Harry Gregson-Williams, which was a strange choice of composer to start with. He usually does hollywood soundtracks, and works in Hans Zimmer's studio.

matious

your quite the nerd =/

legend of zelda, anything after ocarina of time def needs a mention.

they might not be the most epic, but damn they're catchy.

HoopyFrood

Zelda music is definitely catchy! But, gods, I do love that game

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RoxyMoron

Video game music is so good, some people have to use the music to make a good song...
Anyone ever watch Fredryk Phox videos? I love the one where he plays some Nintendo game themes on piano. YouTube it.

matious

yea. majoras mask was my fave, not just musically, but in everything

Leonardo

That's an unusual favorite. Why Majoras Mask?

Oh, and on the mention of Zelda (which is mostly done by the amazing Koji Kondo), I have to mention The Mario And Zelda Big Band, a japan exclusive concert where The Big Band of Rogues and Yoshihiro Arita play a bunch of mario and zelda (and some tunes from Yoshi Island) songs, and Shigeru Miyamoto and Koji Kondo show up as guests and the show is just great. They also recorded it professionally for a cd that got released exclusively with some nintendo magazine, but it's possible to find it online. It was released as a DVD too, which you can also find if you go look.

Or you could watch it here.

Yoshihiro Aritas band consists of a banjo, guitar, mandolin, contrabass, violin, and occasionally drums and a xzylophone. ITS SO GOOD! They cover songs from Windwaker and Yoshi Island, and it's just exceptionally well done.

And don't be thrown off by the guitarist in the start, he's just the host. The music gets much much better.

matious

it was the most original in the series. it didnt follow the same formula a la windwaker, ocarina, a link to the past, twilight princess.

the art style and characters, and overall mood was amazing for a 64 game. It was so creepy, that father coming outta the closet part still scares the shit outta me every time.

Smash bros melee soundtrack is pretty hawt too

r0ckl0bster

wow
leonardo knows a lot about video game music
i usually put my own songs on and turn the volume way down when im playing viedo games