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This isn't exactly a head-on solution, but here's some particularly nerdy outlets for non-RIAA music:

Nectarine Radio - streaming C64, Atari ST, Adlib, etc. music
OC Remix - huge repository of submitted video game remixes
Streaming radio of above
Metroid Metal - Surprisingly well done

There's also a lot of music legally available via BitTorrent. For instance, there's nearly 5GB of it over at http://bt.ocremix.org/

I know others have mentioned it in this thread, but do have a look at OCRemix.org and VGMix.com. Both have some very nice remixes of FF music. (OCRemix even has a remix of the FF6 theme in homage to Uematsu from Jeremy Soule, composer for quite a few recent games.) Finally, for the original stuff, I'd suggest having a look at Zophar's Domain. One of the reasons I still use WinAmp and not iTunes or such is for the SNESAmp plugin to play the SNES SPC files.

I know others have mentioned it in this thread, but do have a look at OCRemix.org and VGMix.com. Both have some very nice remixes of FF music. (OCRemix even has a remix of the FF6 theme in homage to Uematsu from Jeremy Soule, composer for quite a few recent games.) Finally, for the original stuff, I'd suggest having a look at Zophar's Domain. One of the reasons I still use WinAmp and not iTunes or such is for the SNESAmp plugin to play the SNES SPC files.

Additionally, if you're new to the whole ocremix scene, I'd recommend checking out this remix.

Jeremy Soule, the man behind other notable game soundtracks such as Neverwinter Nights, Icewind Dale, and Morrowind, put together a very nice arrangement of one of Nobuo Uematsu's works. In a geeky sort of way, its pretty cool to see one good composer pay this sort of homage to another.

Hope this isn't offtopic, but it is on my mind (since I'm listening to it at work). This website: http://www.ocremix.org/ posts remixes of classic titles. I especially like the Chronotrigger remixes, but it has A LOT of Final Fantasy remixes as well. Most of them are a big salute to Nubuo Uematsu's original mixes. Hope the people who care enough to read this article enjoy the remixes as much as I do.

I own an iPod, full of music (1004 tracks - I can't fit in enough on it) and just 7 songs are illegally downloaded. Everything else is ripped from about a quarter of my legit CD collection.

FYI, there are two bands that make up those tracks. One of them (Jill Sobule) according to my local store doesn't have any CDs in production anymore. I'm not American, and can't find any Internet store willing to sell to me that actually has any tracks by that artist.

The other few tracks are from The Living End's newest album Modern Artillery. I have every other album they have produced, two EPs and a single. I've seen them in concert at least once. I chose not to purchase from their newest album due to the DRM installed on the CD. I don't run Windows, and I am not going to waste my time trying to figure out how to get those tracks onto my iPod. Somebody else already did this, so I got them from him instead.

I think companies like Microsoft that enforce restrictions that previously never existed are ensuring the value of new media is far less than it used to be. Thus, there is less incentive to purchase new CDs. I'm certain this is at least the case for GNU/Linux users like myself. In 1997 and 1998, I purchased at least one album each week. This year, I have purchased just three CDs. A great many CDs have been scrubbed off my want list due to these DRM restrictions.

I did download Kong in Conert the other day, but I don't have enough space to fit it on my iPod.

One final note; I wanted the Story of the Year - Page Avenue album. I was told it had to be shipped, and would take up to 6 weeks (which it did). In the meantime, I grabbed some of the tracks from eMule. Is this harmful? I had my receipt to prove I owned the CD anyway.

Might wanna take a look at the Overclocked Remix main page also mentioned in the article. It's got about 1200 remixes, of various games and in various genres. And yes, Streets of Rage is covered too. As is the Starlight Zone. Just not in live jazz(until someone does and submits it)

Nintendo does have every right to do as they please with their copyrighted work. So far they've either not noticed well-established places like OverClocked ReMix, VGMusic, or VGMix, or they've decided not to care, OR ideally, they welcome reinterpretations of their music. The music of Kong in Concert is non-commercial, free, and credited to Nintendo and the original composers (Robin Beanland, Eveline Fischer, and Dave Wise).

If imagining doomsday scenarios and ruminating over legalese is your thing, go for it :) We hope you're enjoying our fan service in the meantime.

Nintendo does have every right to do as they please with their copyrighted work. So far they've either not noticed well-established places like OverClocked ReMix, VGMusic, or VGMix, or they've decided not to care, OR ideally, they welcome reinterpretations of their music. The music of Kong in Concert is non-commercial, free, and credited to Nintendo and the original composers (Robin Beanland, Eveline Fischer, and Dave Wise).

If imagining doomsday scenarios and ruminating over legalese is your thing, go for it :) We hope you're enjoying our fan service in the meantime.

• The Minibosses, of course.
• Check out Project X. They've got full renditions of the Mega Man 2 and 3 soundtracks.
• This has already been mentioned, but Relics of the Chozo is an excellent cover of the Super Metroid soundtrack.
• Poke around at OC Remix. You're sure to find something you like there.

• The Minibosses, of course.
• Check out Project X. They've got full renditions of the Mega Man 2 and 3 soundtracks.
• This has already been mentioned, but Relics of the Chozo is an excellent cover of the Super Metroid soundtrack.
• Poke around at OC Remix. You're sure to find something you like there.

NIN never did a Zelda cover. Look it up. Someone else just renamed their work to show it off. It's a common thing on P2P.

People on there also seem to think that Weird Al did every funny song ever, and System of a Down did a Zelda remix too(They didn't, the original's on OCR and has a statement from the band itself that it's not them)

Hell, Terra in Black has been credited to Madonna a few times on P2P networks. There's tons of other examples as well.

Why would they? It's not like they're making money off of these tracks, and it's not like Nintendo is losing anything.

Overclocked Remix has been around for a few years, and I don't think they've ever had a lawsuit.

We also have a BitTorrent distribution of the album's whole WAV compilation.

This isn't the first time the Overclocked Remix guys have come together to make a tribute album for a Super Nintendo game. I highly recommend checking out Relics of the Chozo, which is their soundtrack tribute to the game Super Metroid. VERY good stuff, if I do say so myself.

Just my $.02...

So when are they going to beef up their selection of Overclocked Remixes? That's where most of my 5-star songs come from.

To me, I love the simplicity of digially created music. No orcistra or anything. It's simple, yet manages to not get boring. It rewards the listener who listens to it by increasing the tension, then letting it all go in a cresendo of beats and sounds.

If you love video game music, and it's remixes be sure to download these torrents.

http://bt.ocremix.org/files/OCR00001_to_OCR00500.t orrent
and
http://bt.ocremix.org/files/OCR00501_to_OCR01000.t orrent

To me, I love the simplicity of digially created music. No orcistra or anything. It's simple, yet manages to not get boring. It rewards the listener who listens to it by increasing the tension, then letting it all go in a cresendo of beats and sounds.

If you love video game music, and it's remixes be sure to download these torrents.

http://bt.ocremix.org/files/OCR00001_to_OCR00500.t orrent
and
http://bt.ocremix.org/files/OCR00501_to_OCR01000.t orrent

I think people want more and more "realism" in their games to the point where they look and sound like a movie (maybe even play like one cough).

Today I find music from Sonic 2 and other SNES/Megadrive (Genesis) era games to be much much better then from the 3D era. They now seem too "unclub like" (no other way to put it).

When I listen to music ingame I want it to blend in, to make me tap my foot and to be enjoyable in the background. Todays games tend to make music "just there" or a huge part of the game (Doom 3 comes to mind), but none of it is really enjoyable. Rather then make music to be enjoyed they make it to fit a game and you can't just sit there and enjoy it, rather you must hear it as it was originally ment to be or nothing at all.

Places like http://www.ocremix.org/ do a good job at keeping the old game music alive in a new format and show how much we love the classic songs.

Developers don't understand that we can still remember all the old school music to levels in a game we loved and replayed many times far far better then music we hear for a level in a game we never pick up again.

I don't mean to sound like an ass but as a musician why the hell should I give-up my creative secrets so that someone else can use them?

Believe it or not, some people enjoy contributing to the community. Look at sites such as these for example. For the vast majority of musicians, playing and recording music is not a spectacularly lucrative endeavor.

Is there really any logical reason as to why music should be open source and why I shouldn't make money off my hard work.

Some artists release their work under less restrictive licenses to gain exposure and accolade.

What the hell is the point anyway, the whole idea behind open source software is so that if a coder missed a bug or a feature wasn't included (and that the community wants) it can be fixed or included

You seem to have a very limited conception of the merits of open source. One of the things that motivates me to use open source software is the fear of planned obsolescence. I don't like to have my data at the mercy of a single software company. I'd prefer to at least have the option of employing my fair use rights to customize commercial software. As a consumer of music, wouldn't you like to have multi-track versions of your favorite songs?

THIS COULD NOT WORK WITH MUSIC by it's very definition music is done when it's done.

It does happen, I've already shown you the evidence. The links that I've posted will take you to sites where patch and sequencing data are legally shared among communities of musicians. Some programs, such as Reason, are particularly suited for this kind of sharing. Both the musicians and their audience benefit from this open exchange of information.

We all have taken something from the commons. Would you have been a musician if you had to invent your own instruments, scales, and time signatures?

I listen to Nintendo remixes. The songs are memorable and catchy, and most of them don't have lyrics so I can concentrate on my work.

I submitted this once as an ask slashdot question (and got rejected), but I think it's of relevance here. I know others want to boycot the RIAA, but it can be difficult to find decent indie bands when every friggin' station in your area is Clearchannel.

In short, I can either piss and moan about how "this is wrong blah blah blah", or I can do something about it. Best I can do in my limited means is boycot. But I need music. What are some good indie bands?

Two of my faves - Rilo Kiley and Azure Ray. Their websites have MP3s of their songs (full length, no DRM bullshit, 100% cool) for you to listen to. Another favorite source of good music is OCRemix. A lot of the Castlevania 1-3 remixes are particularly good.

So, anyone else out there willing to share the music? =)

Let's take the Mario Bros. movie for example: The characters of Mario and Luigi are pretty well done, and more or less what you'd expect from a pre-Mushroom kingdom encounter. The movie plot? Relates NOT AT ALL to the plot of any of the games. A perfect example of game plot being disregarded as not worthy.

Huh? None of the Mario games had a plot beyond "save the princess".

And it's that kind of simplistic view which leads to a movie that is merely a "save the princess" flick, loosly based on names and ideas from a video game.

Let's look at the first game, Super Mario Bros.. The plot as I see it (there could be certain variations):

Mario is a plumber.
Mario is for reasons explained in The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, but never to my knowledge explained anywhere else, a sometime resident of the Mushroom Kingdom.
The mushroom kingdom's residents are all humanoid, animate Mushroom people.
The Mushroom Kingdom is ruled by the Princess (who may be called Daisy or Peach, depending on your preference in these matters). Despite the names, there does not appear to be any other royal family.
Slightly outside the Mushroom Kingdom is another land, this one controlled by turtles known as Koopa's. Their King is named Bowser.
The Koopa kingdom and the Mushroom kingdom are not friends.
One day, King Koopa invades the Mushroom Kingdom and attempts to annex it. He captures the military instillations, the castles, from the Mushroom people, who are not terribly good fighters.
He sets up minions in seven of the great castles of the land, and takes the eighth for himself. There he keeps the Princess, to help assure her peoples obedience. This has been a relatively bloodless takeover.
Enter Mario. By whatever means he does, he enters the Mushroom Kingdom (probably via a warp pipe to the world as we know it).
Finding the land overrun with marauding forces of the Koopa kingdom, he questions some mushroom villiagers as to what is going on. They inform him of the evil Bowser and the way he's attempting to take over the kingdom.
Maio, having a kind of a thing for the Princess, not to mention a thing for being heroic, decides to set off to rescue her and restore her to the Mushroom throne.
No one knows quite which castle she is kept in, so he sets off to visit each one, defeat its forces and commander, and rescue any princesses present.
Along the way he uses the wacky plantlife of the Mushroom Kingdom and the help of concerned mshrom citizens to enhance his already cosiderable power. He is opposed by various minions of Bowser, including Koopa Troopas, traitorous Mushroom citizens (whom Bowser has formed into a secret police, known as the Goomba), as well as relatively innocent animals (fish, squids, etc.) and the native foliage.
He meets with frustration at every turn as each castle he visits has no Princess. Bowser becomes alarmed with his progress and the rebellion it is stirring, and deploys more forces to block Mario and his brother Luigi, who has by this time joined in the fight.
Eventually Mario wins his way to the final castle, engages Bowser, a frighteningly large dinousar-like creature, in a battle to the death, and mannages to dodge fire breath long enough to drop him into the lava.

(Of course, Bowser survives his fall and lives long enough to plot about a sequel.)

Is this "Mario saves the Princess"? Yes. But not all plots which can be summarized as "Mario saves the Princess" are valid Mario Bros. plots, or have anything to do with Mario Bros. games.

Nintendo often does versions of their game music for full orchestras, and they're great. I particularly liked some of the Zelda music they did. You'll have to scrounge around eBay to find a CD of it, though.

Obviously you are unfamiliar with OCRemix.

The orchestral versions are good, no doubt there, but my intention was to comment on how unlikely writers and directors (who can't even deign to recognize the value of original video game plot) are to use that shitty video game music that they just KNOW is shitty, because video games just ARE, in a movie.

On the other hand, a lot of people do ;^)

(Check it out, remix of the entire Super Metroid soundtrack :^)

I would rather see it done more like a music video. Think Lobby Scene from Matrix, only with better choreography. Imagine a dramatic fight sequence to a score like this.

A soundtrack for Super Metroid:
Relics of the Chozo.

Many a tune from those games were composed by the amazing Dave Wise. If you look hard on ebay, you can find the promotional DKC soundtrack Nintendo put out some time ago. Otherwise, you have to do with rips from the game, or remixes.

DKC is what got me into liking trance/jungle. It was that good.

See? Video game music is an art form!

I buy what I listen to. I discard what I don't.

If you look on my computer, you'll see mostly songs extracted from CD's I own, and Remixes which are free.

I have absolutely no qualms whatsoever with downloading music for free. Doing so has been the source of every purchase I have ever made music wise. Maybe there aren't as many people like me. Or maybe the music industry should re-evaluate the fact that the $1200 or so in music I have comes from discovering it in a free medium.

In the end I end up buying music that I like and appreciate anyway.

If I had no honor whatsoever, I wouldn't own any CD's. They would be all burned CD's lined up along my wall.

Nice try, but my honor is in tact.

Have you looked around OC Remix? It's got tons of remixes from all kinds of video games, including a ton from (most of) the FF games.

I assumed that the language was gaelic, for no good reason. Hmmm *googles* at first glance the consensus seems to be that it's Saami, "1. A member of a people of nomadic herding tradition inhabiting Lapland. 2. Any of the Finnic languages of the Sami." So it would seem that you're mostly right.

http://www.ocremix.org
Perhaps the most famous remix is by DJ Venom & opens with the line:
"Lets play some Tetris motherfuckers"

Too bad its not on that site.

for how enduring the music is is at Overclocked Remix. A must-listen for those who know video game music never dies - it just gets remixed.

I do. Good music can provide a great atmosphere, almost to the point of making or breaking a game. I can assure you that I am not alone in my beliefs.

The Neskimos do punk rock covers of NES songs

Te Minibossses are more of a ska band. Like the Neskimos, they mainly cover NES era game music.

Hard rock more your style? Try Game Over, a self-described "Nintendo Metal" band. Not very much up for download on their site, but what's there is good.

And let's not forget OC Remix, the unofficial hub for remixes of game music.

The cool thing is, a lot of this music is actually quite good. Give it a shot. And by the way...yes, all of the MP3s on these pages are legal to download. Enjoy. :)

It's been around for a long time. There's a whole Internet subculture dedicated to remixing video game tracks (as well as at least one commercial effort), and a few composers (Nobuo Uematsu [Everything Final Fantasy that has a number other than XI after it] and Yasunori Mitsuda [Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Xenogears], namely) have achieved almost cult-like status. It's also customary in Japan to release soundtracks for video games on CD, as is done with movies in America and Europe.

I'd like to point out that new arrivals could just be sharing legal files, like me...I've arrived on Soulseek (same user name, EvilSporkMan) with about half of OCRemix.

1) The game music often comes with the game. Sometimes it's in some obscure file format, but these days many games (especially the moddable ones) have music in some standard format (many use MP3 - well, Operation Flashpoint used Ogg Vorbis...) Back in the day, many CD-ROM games also had soundtrack on the CD as redbook tracks. There's no point in selling soundtrack - you can get it from the game itself.

2) Even if games don't have rippable files, they often have "music test" mode. (Goes especially well for older console games etc).

3) If everything else fails and the music is reasonable excellent, there are a lot of folks who remaster or remix the music. Most of my Ultima stuff is in form of MIDI files sequenced by the fans. There's also sites like Overclocked Remix and RKO that have excellent, often delightfully creative remixes.

And I really don't think the game music soundtrack CDs would actually benefit anyone. In my opinion, the games these days are already the Ultimate Music Distribution Channel. I'm a game music fan and I prefer to get the music from the very source itself. I believe the separate soundtracks are just the kind of rubbish that can be expected from these people that Slashbots like to call "representatives of old-fashioned, outdated, dying music distribution models". I personally demand better game music, and I want it to come with the games themselves, or at least available without extra charges!

artistic level is a joke anyways. i think the guy means 'classical professional', and even on that it's obvious he hasn't seen/heard some games.

i still consider the best game musics to be in ultima series(especially when pc's got soundcards..) and STAR CONTROL 2, i mean, fuck, that game has so good techno soundtrack that i listen to the musics at least weekly and it's decade old too. and as musics i rate those over 99% of crap that's on films or on tv's, in which the music most of the time is just there so that it's not silent(and because they 'must' have it in places of excitement & etc)..

btw for great game music remixes check out ocremix.org . there's really some gems in there.

It's not official Capcom remixes, but OC Remix has some remixed Mega Man music.

I think the cd protections are more popular (among companies that is) in Japan. There always seems to be a big stink whenever they try that here (which is a good thing, IMO). Of course it's likely a moot point, since a game music soundtrack has a fairly low chance of coming out here anyway.

Neostorm, Are you the same Neostorm that remixed:
Crystalis 'House Leaves'
Double Dragon 'Hammers Garage' ?

If you are, guys, you gotta check outthis guys remixes. http://www.ocremix.org/detailremixer.php?mixerid=2 47