Soundtracks

I’ve heard from several people that rather than turning to the radio or music store for their tunes, they’ve been listening to video game soundtracks. I, myself, frequently find myself putting one in rather than listening to whatever the radio has to offer (which, unless you’re listening to satellite, is usually only commercials). There are several reasons why videogame music has been steadily gaining in popularity … I’ll attempt to go through some of them here.


1. As the video game consoles improve, so does their sound hardware. This allows for a much higher sound quality than has ever been heard before. While the blips and bloops are music to a lot of people’s ears (including my own), there is definitely something to be said for realistic instruments. In many cases, the instruments sound better than real. Not only has MIDI-programmed sound in games gotten better, but the use of digital music has become commonplace on many game systems. This opens the door for literally anything the composers and sound team can think of.

2. We’ve grown up with videogame music. Most of the people that read this blog are in the 30 and under crowd, and we’ve grown up with these games. They’re not strange to us, like they are to older generations. The sound isn’t (usually) annoying or grating. Play some blips and bloops for someone in their 60’s, and watch them squirm. Most of us don’t think a thing of it.

3. Repetition is the key. How many times do you hear the Zelda overworld theme repeated? If you’re playing the original Zelda, it’s about once every 30 seconds if you’re roaming around. It’s natural to “get used” to something and even like it if you hear it enough times. They say that you have to taste a new food ten times to like it. If music is the same way, then you only have to play Zelda ten minutes or so to like the music!

4. Videogame music is a lot more available than it used to be. We can download it at our favorite sites or P2P networks, we can import it a lot easier from common sites like Amazon, etc. Not only that, but I dare say that most of the MIDI files on the internet are videogame-related. People who like videogames generally like computers.

5. For the most part, video game music is actually getting BETTER. More composers are being added to the mix. Composing for games is now a real career, not something that random people just “fall in” to. Games are being treated more like movies, and more care is given to their graphics, marketability, and yes, their music.

6. Some secular music is actually getting worse. Boring beats, stupid lyrics, cliché songwriting … for some people, it’s time for a change.

It should also be noted that game music is being appreciated in another way: people are remixing it. There are several people out there who spend a great deal of time putting fresh spins on video game themes. There are concerts put on to celebrate game music. But yeah, all of that will probably be explored in a future post.

Articles here don’t usually actively ask for the reader’s opinion, but I’d like to know some things. Do you spend a lot of time listening to music from games? If so, why? If not, why not?