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Originally Posted by: DistortedAudio  Originally Posted by: Gildermershina Originally Posted by: DistortedAudio Originally Posted by: Gildermershina Well the thing is, soundtracks don't really mean anything to you unless you've seen the actual show/film.
About MIDI though, I'm not sure what you mean, MIDI files, or MIDI-programmed music, because MIDI is a part of the majority of modern music. Either way you are wrong. Not exactly true. Good music is good music. I didn't mean MIDI, I don't know why I typed that, I meant Chiptune and Video Game Music in general. Like: The OneUps Knife City Unicorn Kid. OH! I was listening to Ford and Lopatin(Games) when I was typing the last message up and they have a song: Too Much MIDI. Oh well in that case, fuck chiptunes. I love old game music just fine, but all these bands blending that style of sound with real instruments, and voice, and making songs out of them, I find it nigh-on unbearable. That said, VVVVVV had a great soundtrack - but that's because it's literally a video game soundtrack, and fits the art style and gameplay design. It looks, sounds, plays, and feels like a game from another era. I really have a hard time with any music that tries real hard to sound like it's from a different time, but is actually too slick, too modern, too out of context, too obviously trying to be something it is not. It's a really fine line. Except that Chiptune usually uses modified versions of said consoles to make some of the music. I've stated it before, Good Music is Good Music. If it's by a band trying to sound like it's from the 80's, fuck if I care. If it sounds good to me then I'll treat it like I do any other good music, I'll play it over and over again. Bear McCreary though, I couldn't enjoy until something MADE me enjoy it. BSG was horrible IMO and I hated listening to Bear run through All Along the Watchtower. At least with The Walking Dead I'm guaranteed an hour of solid Drama and if things turn out how they have in the comics, it's gonna be fucking awesome and fucking brutal. It probably won't though because I can't see some of the stuff that does happen, happening on regular Cable. Actually, I like Bear McCreary now that I know everything he's done. It's just that I really dislike the BSG soundtrack. Eureka, Rest Stop, Wrong Turn 2. I loved not only those movies but the soundtracks were top notch as well. Anyway moving back to the Chip-Tune thing, Chip-Tune uses the chips of old consoles and so on to produce the music. So I guess it's as authentic as you can get without actually being a game from the 80's. Not to mention that Chiptune IS considered video game music because it is most often actually USED in Video Games. Think what you're referring to is Nintendo-Core?
Now Anamanaguchi do something like you said, merge their sound with Indie Rock unless they actually are making the soundtrack to a game(see: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World). So yeah. [/Rant] Not sure how you could not like BSG, but the Watchtower thing I thought was really great. Granted, I never had any reverence for any version of that song previously, but contextually, the way it's used in the narrative, it's extremely cool to me. That and the fact that the best part of McCreary's version of it is an entirely original melodic theme. As for the whole chiptune/nintendocore (ugh... <insert thing here>core...) thing, the thing is: I like old videogame music. Why? Probably because of nostalgia. I remember enjoying these tunes as a kid. I have flashbacks when I hear certain game tunes. But now there's an entire generation of kids who are seemingly into power metal, and late 80s early 90s video game soundtracks - which are actually pretty similar as it turns out. The whole notion of chiptunes as a genre is really fucking absurd to me... The old videogame composers who were working with 8 and 16 bit soundchips were not doing it because they thought it was a cool sound, they were doing it because that's all they had to work with. They were making music in various styles, orchestral, pop, jazz, rock, whatever, it's just that they were limited in their sound palettes. In many cases, these were real composers who were just making do with the limitations put upon them. A lot of this modern "chiptune" music takes those limitations, and then overdub live instruments and all kinds of effects not possible on the hardware. That's fine, it's just that it's not really the same thing. It's like kids nowadays wearing pre-stressed Hot Topic t-shirts of Atari logos or whatever. It's the contrast, the crass, out-of-context exploitation of an aesthetic that really puts my teeth on edge. Unless your game looks like an 8bit or 16bit game, it probably shouldn't have chiptunes in it. And of course over the last few years even mainstream pop music has taken the whole chiptune thing on board, with cheap dirty synth bleeps and arpeggios everywhere. IT REALLY DOES MY FUCKING HEAD IN. Sorry, but it does. It is a prejudice I have, and it takes a lot to win me over. If people like that sort of thing, then they can knock themselves out, but I honestly find it very hard to enjoy. Obviously there are plenty of modern video games which have great soundtracks that don't rely on that aesthetic. Bastion is a recent example. Limbo is amazing. Portal 2, the Assassin's Creed series, Mass Effect series, Mirror's Edge. |
