Hey there, listeners! It’s been an epic two weeks since last we spoke and there are some big announcements in the VGM community to exclaim to the world!
Online VGM arrangement community, “OverClocked ReMix” has released their most recent album project! It’s a “Radical Dreamers” arrangement album called “Thieves of Fate!” and it can be downloaded FOR FREE at http://rd.ocremix.org!
Also, the Chrono Compendium has released is first ROM Hack (editing material of a game to, essentially, create an entirely new game from old material) called “Chrono Trigger: Prophet’s Guile.” The game follows the sorcerer, Magus, as he attempts to foil Lavos, but fails and gets sent to 12,000 BC… and to the Kingdom of Zeal. It can be downloaded at the Compendium website, http://www.chronocompendium.com.
Also, SquareSound.com has a contest… one arrangement… one recording… one winner. Any piece by Nobuo Uematsu and the winner gets to fly to Chicago for a show at the concert hall, “Final Fantasy: Distant Worlds” and gets TO MEET NOBUO! Needless to say, I entered the contest, and we’ll just see what happens! Stay tuned!
The interview segment of SC is coming up, but there’s still some paperwork to be completed, Blizzard is now a big company… Anyways! The next ep of “Into the Score” follows Capcom’s release of “Street Fighter II” and we study up on ethnomusicology! Lookin’ forward to it, right on!
Kenley
Hey, I just started listening to your podcast, already a big fan! Can’t wait to hear more, but I still have to catch up on the archives! Anyway, love what you are doing and you are great at doing it! I linked you from our site, since we are all about game music as well, though more about musicians influenced by game music =]
Keep up the great work!
Hey Anthony! Thanks so much for the positive response! I LOVE gamemusic4all.com - you are the foremost news outlet on video game music and I’m thrilled that the site has taken notice of “Into the Score!”
I think that it’s so crucial that video game music get treated for the modern art that it is. It has idiosyncrasies that are unique to that genre, especially in regards to technology, sound cards/modules, interactivity (with the graphics, plot, gameplay, etc). So many new art forms get criticized upon their first release: Opera music, ballet music, Impressionistic music, minimalism, film music… and now, video game music.
There are so many forms that have pushed VGM to the next level, largely the serious focus of symphonic and/or marketing groups (Play! and Video Games Live in particular), the incredible surge in the economy that gaming has been responsible for, as well as the contracting of “serious” composers to do music for video games, like Harry Gregson-Williams or Peter Gabriel (Myst series, I believe). For people who are not immersed in video game music culture, this seems a bit trivial because many understand the art form that it is and see the pioneers of the genre as some its greatest writers: Uematsu, Kondo, Mitsuda and some of their Western counterparts in the Fat Man, Tommy Tallarico or Jack Wall. In which case, the eyes of many critics who look to the mainstream have largely discovered video game music through popular music composers, I suppose that it could be similar to Metallica performing with the San Francisco Symphony and discovering Beethoven and Mahler through metal music.
Anyways, this podcast largely seeks to treat VGM as a unique and legitimate genre, having artistry that exists in the same capacity nowhere else in history. Composers put SERIOUS work into making the score musical, appropriate yet accessible to the gamer and many of these scores are high-musical accomplishments and they deserve to be studied in the depth that they were written with.
I am passionate about video game music and I love that gamemusic4all.com is as well - thanks for your notice, it is definitely appreciated! It would be wonderful to talk some more!
Kenley