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An Ode To Gaming Music
1up.com's never ending flow of excellent features has turned up a piece celebrating gaming music at its finest. The article delves into the past of gaming music and talks about the realities of today's soundscape. From the article: "Along with Space Channel 5's tracks, Katamari Damacy is one of the best examples of what musicians are doing with compressed audio today. Each song is lengthy enough so as not to repeat itself during the 5 to 6 minute stages in the game, and composer Yu Miyake let his imagination run riot, running the gamut of musical styles from introspective electronic music to big-band swing to power ballads to lounge singing. Just like its namesake, the disparate styles all clump together to form something awesome that's worth experiencing even outside the context of the game. "
All four have the best soundtracks in any game I've played. And the iMuse system is excellent.
Perhaps I'm being a bit hard on whoever wrote this article, but I don't think someone who doesn't truly know the history of video game music should be writing an article on video game music.
The first multi-channel sound chip was not that of the NES, it was of the C-64. In fact, the 64 was the first machine to really call attention to video game music, and it was the first to form a following of video game composer celebrities, such as Rob Hubbard and Ben Daglish.
90% of you don't care, but I find it just silly to write an article on game music without mentioning the SID chip
if you love music, and want to make a decent living as a musician/composer you'll have to go to the games industry. they are looking for good, and sometimes even original music because they know that good music will make the game look better. Record companies are usually not interested in music, they are interested in selling cd's (or mp3's).