Video Game Music Recognition Gets a Boost

kghapa writes to tell us that for the first time ever, video game music is getting a much higher level of recognition through inclusion in this year's Ivor Novello Awards in London. "With the growing recognition of the immense detail and complex music compositions that are dedicated to video games, it seemed only a matter of time until game music was given some rightful spotlight. As the huge success and popularity of the fully orchestrated 'Video Games Live' concert has proved, modern and even classic games of days past have truly awe-inspiring musical scores. This concert alone has sold up to half a million tickets and featured music from a wide variety of games and gaming eras, from World of Warcraft to Zelda."

Comments

Has the music gotten better?

[Andy Jensen]

Honestly, I'm not to surprised. The music in video games have increased in complexity and quality on an exponential scale. Now full orchestras are making music with real instruments versus the previous 8-bit simple tunes. But I still prefer the classic themes. Maybe I'm just overly nostalgic instead of knowing my music...

Re:Has the music gotten better?

[musicalmicah]

The old Mario themes were actually pretty complex and really pushed the envelope with what you could do with limited polyphony. Their reggae-inspired rhythms let the composer work around the problem of only being able to play a few notes at a time by using staggered rhythms. Sometimes a limitation can be an inspiration!

Mechwarrior II: The Trend Begins

[RobotRunAmok]

Jeehun Hwang's soundtrack to that Activision 1995 Game of the Year stunned me when I first heard it. Each track was an mp3 on the game disc, and I played it like CD for years in my car. It transformed a giant robot game into Wagner.

Is the music sometimes being ignored?

[John3]

My daughter (16 yr old) plays a lot of video games and about 50% of the time she plays music from her iTunes collection rather than listening to the game soundtrack. For example, she plays World or Warcraft and rarely has the music or sound effects from the game playing. Even while in raids she'll listen to a mix of vent dialog and iTunes music. On Xbox 360, she uses the game soundtrack only when necessary (i.e. Rock Band), but at other times uses her own CD's or iTunes shared library.

This probably has less to do with the music soundtrack of the game and more to do with the multi-tasking that teens are doing. While playing Warcraft she has iTunes playing, AOL IM running with a dozen friends online, vent running with raid members, and her cell phone handy. When I play Warcraft I listen to the soundtrack and effects, but it's probably because if I had iTunes playing as well I'd get distracted. :)

Re:Game/Orchestral/Movie Scores are the new Classi

[Qzukk]

I just wish the likes of Nobuo Uematsu, Martin O'Donnell, Michael Salvatori, James Horner and the like would release the scores

Sheet music exists (at least for piano), you just have to find it before it goes out of print.

(note: I use cdjapan a lot and they're fairly decent, but I've never ordered from vgmworld, so I don't know how good of a store they are)

Re:Slightly Tangent

[lennier]

"What are we going to do when every possible piece of music (words excluded) exists?"

We become melancholy elephants.

Re:Finally

[KingAlanI]

"They say Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil / I can beat Through the Fire and Flames on Expert level" ...

"Beating Mario Paint doesn't mean you have perspective."

MC Lars, Guitar Hero Hero
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7V7BaRAy0k