Reviews with references - spreading knowledge about the medium

I wrote some of what were essentially album reviews yesterday and it got me thinking about reviews in general. It's funny because this is primarily a video game-devoted website, yet I only ever bother to review music or movies. Mostly that's because I have more specific things to say about games, while reviews are the bread-and-butter of existing video game "journalism", so I don't feel any need to contribute to that end of the spectrum. There's also simply that I don't like reviews and think they're a pretty stupid approach to criticism that adds extremely little to the medium's body of theory. It's important to look at individual games precisely and in depth, but simply summarizing one's experience is just... I dunno. Book report shit. Just skip the review, go play the fucking game, and if you want to write about it, come back with a thesis. But I'm not that serious about writing about music and movies so I mostly review those as guideposts to future me (and other travelers) to remember my thoughts.

So of course in writing album reviews, I heavily reference other albums. I know I do this. I know there are people who strongly object to this or find it impenetrable or pretentious or self-absorbed. I make a conscious effort to throw in at least a few adjectives and phrases with each reference and never simply to namedrop. The thing is, I'm really terrible at describing music - I don't read much about it and I've only barely studied it formally, so the best vocabulary I have is comparison. And as with video games, I feel that references - as long as they're contextualized - are one of the most valuable tools for parsing an experience. They're limiting in that they assume the reader has some similar foundation to the author (or is willing to do further research), but all written descriptions of an artistic work are inherently limited - at the end of the day, if the reader wants to know what the album sounds like, the reader needs to listen to the album. There's no means by which a review can ever replicate that, no matter how articulate it may aspire to be.

Therefore at some point I have to choose how I want to limit my vocabulary, and frankly I'd rather be confined in expressive power to other concrete works the reader can look up (other records/games) than to proclamations about life experiences, emotional revelations, and philosophical insight. Greg L. pointed me to some dude's lengthy opine* that the video game community is in critical need of a wider diversity of voices, more anything-but-30-year-old-white-male-career-video-game-reviewers, to bring their unique perspectives to reviews. I certainly don't contend that'd be a bad thing, but I don't think it really addresses the problem. The fact is, there's as good a chance that a personal narrative ("How BioShock made me feel") will ring just as false or be just as redundant (no matter how "unique" the reviewer) as a historical diatribe littered with references ("Games BioShock plays like") - even if "anyone" can write the latter - and the benefit of the historically-oriented piece is that at least you learn something about games and take away a wider perspective of the medium. I imagine the aforelinked author would contend that a review by the former title might expand my knowledge of how a game can honestly affect a person and how persons different from myself experience games, but that to me reads as a sociological or psychological end. There's nothing wrong with that... it's just not why I read or write about games (to clarify: I'm more interested in how different games affect the same person: the idea of encouraging people to try everything in attempt to connect with the creators and the medium - versus how one game affects different people, which to me suggests that players should be looking for the "right" game for them, as if they can find a like-minded person who can prescribe their opinions - a mentality I feel discourages actually playing).

This is NOT by any means a subjectivity vs. objectivity debate - a false dichotomy if ever there was one - it's a matter of establishing that different kinds of reviews can present different kinds of information in different ways. Every piece is subjective and driven by some original creative initiative or insight, no matter how heavily it's tied to reference points. And grounding an analysis in comparison rather than raw responses doesn't inherently wring it of its character or individuality. In both cases the value of the piece is still determined by the novelty, veracity, and evidence of the presented insight. How could we possibly conclude that a reference-free account charged with opinion and reflection is the only way to make a review unique? Providing an original, well-researched analysis (that doesn't just recite the same three reference points as everything else - "this game is Grand Theft Auto with chickens") might take a little more work, but has equally as much potential to define its own identity. For example, I got just as tired of hearing people talk about how BioShock affected their ideals of freewill (reflection-based) as I did hearing them say that it was a rehash of System Shock 2 (reference-based). But if someone talked about how the mini-labyrinth/hub structure is indebted to Dark Forces and compared the mixture of melee and ranged first-person combat with those old Raven games, hey, that would be an original analysis based on references that is much more interesting to read than another personal rant about Ayn Rand. And thus a preferable review. Again, to me.

That's why - as far as I'm concerned - there's no reason a good review can't heavily reference other works. I like reading stuff like that. I want to walk away from a review with ten more things to look up. It's how I expand my knowledge of these art forms. And I want to be a stepping stone in expanding my readers' knowledge. Not that I'm going to start writing game reviews - just generally speaking. I think it's fair to say that it's impossible to completely describe an experience without context. The easier it is to make the reader understand my context, the easier it is for the reader to understand my experience. My personal context is defined by the other media echoing through my brain, and the best way I can express a new work is to relate it as thoroughly as possible to other works, the great benefit being that you too may share knowledge of those others or can at least look them up. Or may be inspired to look them up, and learn that much more yourself.

The way I switched from albums to games makes this confusing to read. But as I said, I don't read or write much about music so I was more interested in tying the point to Tevis Thompson's criticism of game reviews.

*that wasn't exactly the hard sell, but that's a highly recommended read (or at least skim - very long). Thompson's criticism isn't particularly refreshing to like-minded individuals, but's it's well-articulated, even if he definitely loses me once he moves on to proposed solutions. Personally I believe that the salvation of video game criticism lies in the abandonment of the "review" altogether (we need design-focused past/present comparative criticism), but that's a different subject for a different day. 

Music Haul of the Month, January '14

Look! This thing came back because the other day I bought exactly five albums and that's a really appropriate number to talk about. All of these bands are new to me with one obvious exception. We got:

Brainiac - Hissing Prigs in Static Couture (1996):

Now there are some words I like to use.  You fucking couture! Go back to your goddamn prig! I'm kinda surprised spellcheck is okay with that. Spellcheck still doesn't even like franchisedmemd. This is the part of the album review feature where we learn to pay attention to the album title - there is literally a lot of hissing and static in this music. This album knows how to rock, but it also has its share of buttered rolls. It kicks off with a "straightforward rock assault" - to quote the generic music critic lexicon - that has a garagey stompin' sound that reminds me of The Damned Stooges with a funkier James Brown sensibility. Then there are some heavier emoier tracks reminding me of late Dillinger Escape Plan and a Kid A ripoff from way before Kid A (these are the buttered rolls).

The hissing/static thing sorta takes the place of normal distortion - it's not that the band has clean guitars so much as they make a different, more Digital Age noise than you're used to. Occasionally it feels like a Devo-esque gimmick, like the band is supposed to be "part-robot" (see "This Little Piggy", where a computer voice actually echoes the lyrics), most the time it's just cool. You figure with the '90s and digital telephony and all that, why not replace the scuzzy, scrungy-sounding feedback noise on guitars with something a little more lazeresque?

Also this album invented 1337 afaic (as far as I care) - all the song titles are spelled like "1nd1an Pok3r" etc. So... sw33t on that. 

Heroine Sheiks - Out of Aferica (2005): 

That's pronounced "Out of uh-fay-rick-uh" (rhymes with America) - here, just look at the cover:

You may know The Heroine Sheiks as "the band that got the singer from the Cows after they died", or maybe you don't care about that. The dark and menacing sound of later Cows records (particularly Sorry in Pig Minor) follows Selberg here but naturally takes different form - instead of a wall of angry guitars led by riffs tearing out of control, The Sheiks take similar screeching feedback and lead with haunting keyboards (even piano!), stacked and looping samples, and a more restrained vocal approach that fumes, broods, and raps! more than wails.

The album seems a little long, you know? It's about a million tracks and after about eight I'm like "I wonder what more songs could be after these ones?" and I still don't really know. But yeah length sometimes grows on you after more than five listens - it's just that the tone is pretty oppressive, even if the vocal approach does vary significantly from track to track. In fact, there were times I had to double take to believe I was even still hearing Selberg with all the wacky characters he pulls off. 

La Machine - Phases and Repetition (2000): 

This is Pay Attention to the Title Round 2: This Time It's for Real. La Macho is a sort of Six Finger Satellite side-project, and as Six Finger is basically my favorite discovered band of the last five years and I wish more than anything that they had recorded more than four albums, I couldn't help but have high hopes. Particularly because the few reviews I read of Fingers and Repetition awarded it startlingly high scores. What I wasn't expecting was a series of seven looping drone-tunes composed entirely of phasing and repetition. This is because I'm an idiot. 

Not that this is relevant, but I actually love the three or four drones on Six Finger's Law of Ruins because they're sandwiched between real songs - you get a sort of echo effect where the drones recall aspects of the rest of the album and tie it together by leaving space for the hooks to mentally replay. But when every single track is constructed from a 10-second loop as on PaR, I don't know how to react. The fact that they're drum-and-bass grooves (rather than some industrial bullshit) is definitely a plus for someone like myself who enjoys traditional instruments. That definitely adds to the toe-tapping hypnotism factor. And I have to admit that as background music (weirdly enough, at work) I was kinda grooving into this stuff. But I find it pretty hard to listen to a whole album's worth (the same way it's hard to listen to a whole album's worth of Hawkwind) at any particular time because the slight variations just leave me wanting to move on to something else. Still - for drone music, I like La Machine. And in certain states of mind it's probably got an extra edge, if you know what I'm saying. IF YOU KNOW WHAT I'M SAYING!!! ALL YOU "POT BROTHERS" OUT THERE!!! HAHAHA! Not that there's anything wrong with that!

Happy Family - Happy Family (1995): 

We're a Happy Family, we're a Happy Family, we're a Happy Family, me, mom and daddy! Yes, finally it's the album based on the band based on the Ramones song. Happy Family is a Japanese electro-avant-noise outfit spun off from the Heisei Godzilla series of the 1990s featuring Destoroyah on guitar, Basketball Jones on the kazoo, and Stevie Nix. Wait, that doesn't sound right. Where's my sheet? Really they're just instrumental progressive rock. Jazzy prog rock, but the only bizarre thing about this band is that anyone would think to compare them to anything but King Crimson. 

The cool thing about this here album is that the band goes through a bunch of different styles of prog from the ages, each track reminding me of a very specific influence. Whether or not it's intentional, we're talking changes of instrumentation, tempo, time signature, compositional style - there's a jazzy horn-centric song bursting with solos that sounds exactly like Hot Rats-era Zappa, a song build around fierce, distorted guitar that plods it's way up and down scales as if it were "Larks' Tongues in Aspic Pt. 3", etc. There's even a 19-minute "epic" that sounds more like a string of breakdowns - like they took all the middle parts of sidelong suites and strung them back to back! 

My biggest objection to Happy Family is that it occasionally ventures into latter-day styles of prog that have never really pleased my palette. Particular moments "shred" a little too hard or call upon squealing synths that remind me of Dream Theater, Colosseum II, or Liquid Tension Experiment. That kind of rhythmless nonsense noise that tries to up the ante on technical proficiency really just annoys the shit out of me and is embarrassing to listen to. But there are only a few snippets on this album and only one track built around it.

Rush - Vapor Trails (Remixed) (2013):

As any self-respecting American knows, Vapor Trails was originally released in 2002 to like okay reception. It's one of those albums I never really put on, but like a lot when I hear - "Secret Touch" is as great a technical showcase as Rush is known for (was a real treat to get to see it live), "Earthshine" rocks asses, and "Ghost Rider" is a real heart-toucher. "How It Is" is also one of my favorite Rush songs of all time that gets absolutely no love whatsoever despite being the catchiest song that anyone has ever heard in their life with its jangly almost REM-like guitars and carefree-go-lucky attitude. People don't care for happy poppy Rush songs (can't blame 'em after Presto) but "How It Is" is up there with Test for Echo's "Totem" for me (another that everyone loves to hate). It at least provides a nice counterpoint to the doom and gloom and provides what is one of Vapor Trails's greatest (and Rush's waningest) strength's: variety.

Vapor Trails has a lot of great variety, from speedy metal to bubble-gummy fun to slick grooves and tear-jerkers - its greatest fault, then, is that it double dips on a lot of this variety. "Ghost Rider" is a beautifully melancholy and atmospheric ride across the American countryside. So is "Vapor Trails". They're both great songs, but do they really need to be on the same album? "Ceiling Unlimited" and "Secret Touch" are funky fast-moving bass grooves that definitely weren't both needed. A LOT of the songs have a partner like this, most paired between side A and B. I know this was their first album in 6 years and maybe the boys wanted to give their fans a double dose of a Rush Lethal Injection, but I can't help but wonder if this wouldn't have been as singularly amazing as the classic Signals, Power Windows, or Moving Pictures if it'd been trimmed down to eight tracks as were those. There's no lingering with those early '80s albums - they hit you fast and they're out, each song with a distinct purpose. That's just not the case here, and while I find it impossible to complain about the quality of the songs, Vapor Trails is just not that memorable a listening experience because of the dilution. I think that's exactly why I say it's an album that doesn't pull me back, but is still a great listen.

As for the remix, I don't have a ton to say. The common complaint about everything since, uh, fucking Roll the Bones I think, is that the albums have been "ruined" by production (that's 23 years that fans have been saying that). The original mix of Vapor Trails was definitely not great, but I never felt like it significantly detracted from the album. The bass-driven tracks were still bass-driven, the heavy drum-hitters were still heavy drum-hitters. It was just kinda muddled. Then again, I've never been an audiophile. I listen to music on cheap $20 headphones, bottom-shelf computer speakers, and a single unit iPod dock. The remix honestly just sounds like they fucked around on purpose to make songs sound different - like "How It Is" got the distorted guitar turned way up and "tougher" vocals despite still having the cheesiest happiest melody in the world, "One Little Victory" has even LOUDER drums than it did before, etc. Then again, I haven't listened to the original and the remix back to back, so I might not be noticing as many changes as I could. All I can say is that it didn't change my opinion on the album, and I think that's all that matters. But it's good that it got me listening to it again.

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So go listen to all of these! They were all good! Except Phases and Repetition I guess, that was a maybe - only if you're okay with drones or looking to experiment there. Give it a go on Youtube first (if you can find it I guess). 

Songs of Snow

It's snowing here in East Coast today so I thought in tribute to the original Rain Song post we did for Hurricane Sandy, I'd do a post with some songs about some snow. Then I couldn't think of any good snow songs because when it snows I just listen to:

Anyway then I remembered the BEST song from a snowy stage, a delightful track from an overall wondrous soundtrack with the thumpingest bassline I've ever heard on the SNES:

So admittedly that probably doesn't get you in much of a mood for snowy relaxing times. Here is one that is a little moodier, a little more touching, for when the sun goes down over those icy glacial cliffs (that appear every time it snows like three inches in the city):

I'm sure as you listen to this next one you'll almost be able to feel the bitter wind gusting against your face as you attempt to push on through a blizzard... of robots.

And one for Ezio here, from certainly the coolest region of Metroid Prime, the most atmospheric region, almost certainly the best part of the game. 

Next time it snows, someone remind me to do this again and do a not-sucky version. This was like fucking worst picks ever. Don't know why I'm blanking, I think either I don't like snow songs very much (the ones I sorta remembered like Freezeflame Galaxy and Flanoir from Tales of Symphonia weren't all that great) or that the tracks that play during snow regions aren't always all that suited for actually snowy days ("Battle on Snow Mountain" from Odin Sphere, "Pitch Black Intrusion" from Dawn of Sorrow).

I just found out Ogre Battle is a song

ah
ah
ah-ah
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

wait no i didn't i already knew

Musicommendation: Laika & the Cosmonauts

If you're playing XCOM: Enemy Within this week (and who isn't (me for one - haven't had time)), I'm sure you're desperate for some great future-surf to replace the game's nearly non-existent ("scary") soundtrack. For the original game I found Man or Astro-Man? to be the perfect complement, with their array of pumping guitar riffs, eerie electronic effects, cheesy B-movie quips, and MST3K theme songs. Hanging around the same tree farm as MOAM one might find Finlanders Laika & the Cosmonauts, who I'm here to tell you about today.

Now I know what you're saying to yourself. "Wait on a second - Finland? Isn't that the world's musical toilet? The country where they listen to this kind of music?" (that band I linked is Norwegian, but apparently you're a racist who thinks all Scandinavians are the same - a fair enough conflation). But this ain't no cringe-inducing "folk-metal" dreck, nor is it "viking-metal" human waste, nor even "pagan-war-funeral-metal" I'm not even making these terms up. Laika & her Cosmonautic Buddies are a group of very small instrumental surf rockers who incorporate some sweet elements of awesomeness into their music. Honestly I'm not going to describe it. I'm no master of the musical vernacular and you can listen to a song in the same time as you can read a heavily-cribbed-from-AllMusic paragraph. 

My biggest problem with a lot of older surf rock like Dick Dale and the Ventures is that it's like a boring single guitar line that doesn't feel like a song. Thus '80s/'90s covers of surf classics which fill out the mix with multiple leads and neato-FX tend to be light-years more enjoyable than the originals. Luckily Laika is on par with their latter-day contemporaries - their songs are deep, layered, and full-bodied, like a voluminous head of hair using Head & Shoulders, now with conditioning action.

I realize the other #1 ranked shortcoming of surf rock is its tendency toward repetition, but with covers like Laika's of the Pygmies' "Don't Monkey with Tarzan", who could ask for more? 

Anyway, the "unoriginal genre" complaint is a "labels are stupid" problem, not a problem with the music itself. It's like when Greg L. told me Sin & Punishment couldn't be an arcade third-person shooter because it's "too clever". That's an inherent bias against the label, the same as when the Dead Kennedys or Secret Chiefs 3 are excluded from surf rock because they're "too unique". So are the Beatles not pop because they're "too crappy"? Bob Dylan not folk because he's "too revolutionary"? I think people forget that genres are adjectives that lend partial description to artists and works, not boxes that fully contain them. Some genres are more precise than others - obviously "surf rock" has a more specific meaning than "blues" and thus boxes in less bands. That doesn't mean it's limiting, it just means there's plenty of room to build music upon the basis of surf rock. 

Good tangent. Anyway - I highly demand you grab at least Surfs You Right from your local music repositorium. It surfs you write!!!!!!!! If you like guitars, rock, music, things to listen to, sound, or "Sloop John B", Laika & the Cosmonauts is indeed the band for you!

It's that special day: Hallowed Ween

Why not everyday?
Are you so afraid?
What will people say?

Why don't you take your social regulations and shove 'em up. your. ass.

Let's Listen: Transitions

Game music sets the mood, puts you in the right mindset. On rare occasions, one piece will transition into another. The effect lends dynamism. Rather than experiencing two disconnected situations with two different themes, you're shifted from one state to another by the transition.

Super Spy Hunter - Levels 1 and 4

To get a good idea of the transition here, you can start listening at 1:13. Super Spy Hunter music is, as ever, pretty badass, with a deep bass and chill lead melody. For excitement, they're accompanied by a driving drum beat and dashes of high pitched squares.

You can hear the transition start at 1:34 in the percussion. Not only is this the exciting channel in the tune, but as a source of rhythm, it's what keeps everything going. When the drum track changes and the melody remains (until 1:39), it's like the rug is pulled out from under you. That said, it still plays nicely with the old melody.

The drums are the bit that change, so they draw your attention, and it makes sense that they get a solo part from 1:39 to 1:44. That bare portion of soundtrack matches the insecure feeling at the height of your car's jump: you're suspended in midair, and somehow you're safe. Somehow.

Your new melody comes in at 1:44 when you can spot the road below you, and you get the direction that gameplay is taking. From here on out, you're jumping from one bit of highway to the next, weaving through enemy fire all the while. You'll need focus to manage this feat, so the music pares it back, focusing more on the cool end of things. You won't find the twists and turns here that you did in the music for the first half of the stage.

You have two moods bridged by a moment of uncertainty. The drums keep you going while you scramble for a new melody.

You can listen to it without sound effects here.

Banjo-Kazooie - Gruntilda's Lair

Any good mansion is a character unto itself, and with a character comes a theme. There's a version of Gruntilda's Lair for every area in the game, and you can hear it transition a few times over the course of this video. Of particular note is the bit from 3:30 to 4:30, where you can hear it go from the regular theme to the Treasure Trove Cove version (3:46) and back (4:23).

No matter where you go in the Lair, you can always hum along with the melody. It's just that you'll get a different rhythm or instrumentation depending on where you are; the regular theme is lonely and creepy, while the Treasure Trove Cove version has all the sing-song bounciness of a pirate shanty. Rather than draping every setting in Grunty's witchy character, this approach takes the theme of Gruntilda's Lair and makes you think of a million different things with it--drunken singing pirates included.

It highlights both the cohesion and the disparity of the Lair construction.

Paper Mario Sticker Star - Gooper Blooper

Music begins at 0:17.

Gooper Blooper marks the climax of, or at least a pretty serious turning point in, Sticker Star. The game up to this point has built up its puzzles (granted, they're still Paper Mario puzzles), and you've just cleared a hefty brain teaser spanning multiple stages. From here on out, the game grows more and more action oriented.

As the battle progresses, Gooper Blooper becomes more agressive, marked by his clapping tentacles. At first his clapping tentacles are in the background (0:37), then the foreground (1:10), and then he uses all four available tentacles (1:43). When he starts slamming the ground (2:20), it's serious time. This is a transition worthy of consideration in itself: over time, the percussion strikes harder and more often, matching the growing tension of battle while Gooper Blooper's tactics become fiercer.

That slamming is a great touch that nails the concept. Slamming the ground not only demonstrates the power of Gooper Blooper's appendages, it also puts Mario in the uncomfortable situation of being surrounded by tentacles. Plus, the sound it makes--both for its bass and for its unconventionality as an instrument--is threatening in and of itself.

But the real transition comes when he gets a taste of his own medicine. At 3:00, Gooper Blooper feels the sting of his ink. Mario's been doing piddly damage so far, and this status effect lets him really lay it on Gooper Blooper. So, it's only fitting that the music switches to Mario's own theme. In a humorous gesture, Gooper Blooper keeps clapping along to it, as if he's cheering Mario on.

Admittedly, it's the thinnest of the transitions listed here. The melody and rhythm are uprooted, and the two portions are only related by their instrumentation and that clapping. The transition itself doesn't graduate from one theme to the next.

You can listen to it without sound effects here.

Skies of Arcadia's boss theme was a runner up for this spot. It changes depending upon your state in a boss battle. There's a normal theme, which then turns sour when you're low on health and optimistic when the boss is low on health.

Let's Listen: TV to Pocket

The Game Boy saw three generations of Nintendo living room consoles before changing its sound hardware. That means three generations of handheld ports and three generations of ported tunage.

DuckTales 2 - Egypt

NES version:


Game Boy version:

It's easy to assume NES and Game Boy music must be pretty similar. They've both got two melodic channels, a bass channel, and some room for noise and sound samples.

However, right off the bat, you can tell that the instruments in these two have drastically different timbre. The NES version sounds normal, while the Game Boy version exudes, uh... weirdness. The easiest track to spot this is the background bass track. It keeps a simple, rhythmic background melody going to complement the drawn out, wavering main melody. Its unusual sound gives it more prominence in the Game Boy version, however. I'm also not sure why the noise drums are missing from the Game Boy version.

Comparing the two, it's easy to see how we got the unusual Wario Land soundtracks.

Donkey Kong Country and Land - Voices of the Temple

SNES version:


Game Boy version:


Like the previous track, Voices of the Temple aims for a slow, mysterious feel. As you'd expect, the Super Nintendo's sound hardware allowed for greater subtlety, with greater attention to dynamics and instruments that sounded like actual real life things.

But the Game Boy, she didn't have the benefits of superior sound. So, when Rareware took Donkey Kong to Game Boy, they retooled Voices of the Temple to work with the ol' chiptune sound. The track begins with a familiar melody for the first 33 seconds, but from there, it launches into an adventuresome bridge for the next 20 seconds or so. There is a little bit of production to lend the feel of a crumbling ruin (note the echoing), but most of this song's flavor comes from its melody.

Donkey Kong Land's soundtrack is worth remembering if only for its ability to reinterpret the SNES version. Unfortunately, the graphics aren't as graceful, choosing to rip every asset from Donkey Kong Country and paint it in four colors. At its best, it's ugly, and at its worst, it's an unviewable mess.

Magical Tetris Challenge - Minnie's Theme

Nintendo 64 version:


Game Boy Color version:

Just for full disclosure, I don't know the difference between Game Boy and Game Boy Color sound.

I've never been fond of the Nintendo 64's sound in general, but Magical Tetris Challenge makes it sound like a friggin PlayStation. This is the best sound you'll get out of it this side of a Rareware title. Granted, it's also sickeningly poppy. At the very least, it's got a superfunky bass that would make Toejam and Earl jealous. I guess, when you put it all together, it's a soundtrack for people that really like My Sweet Passion.

The Game Boy Color translation is hit or miss. Being a poppy, melody-friendly soundtrack works in Game Boy's favor, meaning that the core of each song easily translates to a square wave. The trouble comes when Capcom tries to approach the richness of the Nintendo 64 music with its overabundance of tracks. Minnie's theme in particular works well because her background tracks remain just that when they're translated to the Game Boy Color. You get some of the Nintendo 64's depth without going overboard.

Unfortunately, there's no Game Boy Color version of Wolf's theme. There is this fan creation, though, using Konami's NES VRC7 sound to capture the appropriate funk.

DuckTales Remastered's theme song tells you everything you need to know about the game

It is pretty remasterful. It goes without saying that Dave Marcus and Phil Ryan's classic DuckTales TV theme is largely at fault - any arrangement of that earworm is likely to be gold. But Remastered composer Jake Kaufman does a perfect job of rearranging the jingle for this game. It's not just a random instrumental permutation, but a translation of exactly what the game is - a union of Capcom's DuckTales gameplay with a full-fledged DuckTales (TV) narrative complement. I've mentioned before that an RPG's title theme is paramount in setting the game's tone, but there's no reason to limit it to RPGs. In fact, Greg L. already covered the subject of title themes in a Let's Listen. It is undoubtedly the most important song on the soundtrack - it's what tells the gamer "this is what you're about to play". 

When dealing with an adaptation, the first things I want to know are how faithful the conversion is and what's new about it. DuckTales Remastered is actually a double adaptation - a remake of a '90s game that was a tie-in to a TV show. The original game was smart enough to directly convert the show's title theme into a chiptune, which saves the remake from needing to adapt two songs. Remastered's title theme pays homage to both tunes anyway - instead of using modern "lazer disc-printing" technology to include the original cartoon theme or update the chiptune's instrumental take with real instrumental recordings, Kaufman splits the difference and merges the tracks. The alternation between 8-bit and orchestral sounds blurs the line between show and (NES) game, which sets the stage for the rest of Remastered to attempt the exact same thing.

And attempt the exact same thing it does - Remastered takes the stages and gameplay from the NES original and melds them with a more direct interpretation of the show. It thus fulfills the promise of a DuckTales video game: it is a playable episode. The theme music hints at this fulfillment - the chiptune skeleton from the classic game is complemented with the instrumentation from the show theme. Likewise, Remastered injects treasured elements of the cartoon (the voice actors, the art-style, the humor) into the framework of the NES game to draw the original adaptation closer to its inspiration while still preserving its successful innovations.

So the remastered theme song does the exact same thing as the remastered game. It uses an aural experience to communicate the same effect as the interactive story, guiding the player into a singular mindset. And that is exactly what a great theme does.

A filmic tribute to the only true hero I've ever known

Scenes taken the 1988 movie Peaches.

Aw man the final boss music in KID is the New World Symphony!

just plain cool.

for contrast, the other final (credits) music I heard last night was this :(

Let's Listen: Unreleased Games

A game might go unreleased, but with the power of the internet and dealings of dubious moral standing, we have the power to hear what it would be like to play many unreleased games from yesteryear. Here's three of them.

Sonic Crackers

We start today with a chill track. Sonic Crackers is the beta form of Knuckles Chaotix, or at least, it's an unreleased game strongly resembling Knuckles Chaotix. If this song sounds familiar, it's because Knuckles Chaotix spiffed it up to get Evening Star.

None of the tracks from Sonic Crackers are long--most loop before 30 seconds are up--but they all feature the same main theme. Maybe it's because I've heard it repeated so much, but I find it a particularly memorable one. Not to say that Sonic isn't chock full of memorable melodies, but this one is terse and distinct like few in the series are.

The melody follows a funk-ish beat that's aided by a wistful, echoy high-pitched synth and a simplistic bassline that's there for no reason other than to hear the Genesis slap bass one more time. For the number of things going on at any given time, Evening Star keeps a relaxing tone.

Sunman

With Sunman, Sunsoft had another superhero game featuring Batman-esque combat. Originally planned for the Superman license, Sunsoft lost the license, turned "per" into "n," and eventually buried the game never to sell it. Sunsoft also lost the Terminator license, but at least that game came out as Journey to Silius. Plus, they got Gremlins 2 and Fester's Quest.

Anyway, most of the Sunman soundtrack keeps an uneasy beat, as you'll notice right away here. While the tune is catchy, it's also not as well produced as most later Sunsoft NES tunes. Bits like the twinkling at 0:17 evidence that someone who knew some NES music tricks was at work here, but that person was unable to finish up the track. As it is, we've got a nice basis for a song. To be fair, this is one of the least released Sunsoft games of all, having never been released.

There's also the Superman version of the soundtrack, which sounds much more complete and ready to go to stores.

Time Trax

Time Trax was an early 90s science fiction TV show. It received a game on Super Nintendo and Genesis, each version with its own soundtrack. The Genesis one never surfaced, however, only showing up last month and bringing with it a Tim Follin soundtrack. Tim Follin, along with his brother Geoff, are known for fantastic OSTs such as Solstice and Plok.

Tim has a track here chock full of swagger. In the opening, two FM guitars shred it out, taking their time to explore the theme at hand. I'm not entirely sure why when it comes to the details of this track in particular, but I find myself focusing on the time spent varying each theme. Tim Follin has a way of going crazy with his songs, and you'll see what I mean here.

Music Haul of the Month, July '13

I dunno if I'm necessarily gonna make this a feature (at this point I don't know why I claim anything's going to be a feature), but it's something that happens a lot in Life and is appropriate enough to describe. Every once in a while I take a Saturday afternoon to collate a bunch of new music to put on my iPod to check out. Here I'm going to describe the results. Remember, I never claimed to be a music critic. And by "never claimed to be a music critic", I do mean that I'm publishing my critical opinions of music online for anyone to read as if I were a music critic. But I never claimed to be one. That's the difference. Proclaimed "critics" constantly proclaim that's what they are (...). I am gonna sell this article to Pitchfork though, I imagine it'll be quite to their liking.

I've been in a real punky mood, but the thing about punk is that the albums are so short that unless you want to listen to the same band (Ramones) a million times in a row, you always need more. And luckily, since I like to take my time moving on to new bands, there are plenty of classics I'm still missing.

Adolescents: like a 50/50 mix between shouty early hardcore (a la Damaged or GI) and Fugazi/Bad Religion emo. It reminds me of Fugazi because of long Mega-Man-y instrumental segments that hit the same awesome-sounding guitar chord for like a minute. Actually I guess emo mixed with hardcore is Fugazi. So this is very much along those lines, if you were to crank up the percentage of time given to hardcore. Because it was like 1980. Sadly these guys only have one real album. They then disappeared for most of the decade and returned in some highly embarrassing ways (IIRC they became a hair metal band in the late '80s).

The Damned: Call me American, but I usually steer clear of bands where the singer dresses like a comedy vampire. I don't want Danzig to come beat me up, but come on gang. What is with the goth/horror/tuffgay rock culture? I usually try to draw the line at face-painting.

In his defense, at least Damned singer Dave Vanian's Bela Lugosi look is funnier than the later hooker threads sported by every goth and hir androgynous sister-brother.

Anyway, I also usually eventually give up my prejudices and give something a try. Lord knows the seal is already broken on goth rock now that I like Bauhaus. There's no coming back from that. The Damned didn't start as a goth thing anyway - turns out they started as a scuzzy '60s garage rock thing. When I put on Damned Damned Damned, I was all, "hey - it's almost like the Stooges finally recorded a second non-sucky album!" and/or "hey - it's almost like the Animals if they had even written a good song!"

Angry Samoans: The first of the two proper Samoans albums feels realllll teenagers-in-the-garage - it's fun and has a catchy chorus here and there, but the writing is so religiously "four chords == song" and the tone so monotonous that it doesn't convey a lot of musicianship. The follow-up, Back from Samoa, carries the same attitude and approach, but shows that the band has gotten out and encountered the musical world a little bit. Maybe heard another punk bank. They play faster (hardcore at this point), vary their dynamics all the way from screaming to balladry, and have an actual identifiable sound. Their evolution is pretty obvious just by listening to the two versions of "My Old Man's a Fatso", a track from the first album re-recorded for the second. Still, I don't know if these guys are striking me as indispensable punk classics. Maybe it hurts that I heard the Dwarves first (who were of course playing an entire decade later than the Samoans).

Buzzcocks: Sporting the squealingly high-pitchedest singer this side of Bad Brains' H.R., the Buzzcocks do threaten at first to get annoying, but their raw, fast guitar-playing is actually a heck of a lot tougher than first-wave punk contemporaries like the Ramones and the Clash. They've got an almost metallic edge reminiscent of (personal favorites) D.O.A. paired with a Fall-esque bounciness that keeps the songs poppy and memorable. Honestly after just two or three listens to Another Music in a Different Kitchen, I would've sworn I'd heard "Sixteen" and "I Don't Mind" somewhere before - they're just that catchy. There's something annoyingly British about the band that I can't quite put my finger on - completely subjective, but I just get an unpleasant sensation from listening to them for too long that reminds me of Public Image Limited or Wire or something. Otherwise I'm definitely digging 'em.

Let's Listen: Sound Samples

On olden game consoles, sometimes synths alone didn't do the trick. In that case, you'd load up a real live sound, compress it to fit on the cartridge, and slap it on in a song.

Snake's Revenge - Metal Gear

When I mention Konami NES samples, you might think of Double Dribble's opening voice clip. However, Konami had some great snare samples that they used in their shmups, brawlers, and, well, this game. Snake's Revenge is the sequel that never should've been to the Metal Gear port that also never should've been. While its soundtrack is rough around the edges (for Konami fare), it's still enjoyable.

This track in particular must understand that all you want to hear is the snare, because at 0:29, it just piles on as much as possible. Aside from that, the track is one of those quick and shallow tunes that keeps your blood pumping with a few really tight bars.

I know I said that it's rough around the edges, but that's not a knock against the soundtrack's production value; that aspect is just as top notch as your standard Konami NES OST, and you can really hear it in this song.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 - Mid-Stage Boss

Who doesn't like getting to join in music? Maybe you whistle to the Mario Kart Wii tracks that have whistling in them. Or, maybe you listen to the Sonic 3 midboss music and join its voice samples, the Michael Jackson yelps and "come on"s. I've always preferred the funk edge of Sonic 3's soundtrack to Sonic & Knuckles' flavor, and it was a shame that Sonic 3 & Knuckles ditched this track in particular. Anyway, don't let anyone hear you enjoying this song.

Gimmick! - Happy Birthday

Sunsoft has some killer bass samples that create a sense of badassery in Blaster Master and gravity in Journey to Silius. (Also check out Sunsoft's Batman games on NES.) However, I recently realized that they used the same bass in Ufouria, a relatively cheerful game, so I wanted to see how happy Sunsoft got with their bass.

It's harder to get happier than a birthday--in fact, "happy" is in the track name. The bass here doesn't sound bad, since it's well composed and plays a decent role in the song. However, it still feels out of place to have such a deep, gritty bass in an otherwise upbeat, happy-go-lucky song. Maybe I've spent too much time playing Journey to Silius.

The only song ever made

Dragon Quest IX on failing to set an appropriate tone

Dragon Quest IX must have the worst title screen music of any RPG I've ever played. Almost of any game I've ever played, except that Cotton 100% just had "Ode to Joy". I mean, come the fuck on. This sounds like a song that would play during a tutorial for a cooking minigame in Harvest Moon, not over the start screen of the biggest entry of the most popular Japanese RPG series of all time. It doesn't get me excited or in an epic mood; rather it starts me off annoyed and slightly embarrassed. Compare that to Skies of Arcadia, Phantasy Star IV, or Xenoblade Chronicles, where almost every single time I boot up the game I sit at the title screen for at least a minute to listen to the music, both to indulge and to get in the heightened state of mind best to engage in the adventure. I only complain because this is fucking Dragon Quest. How can they fail to get even the very first piece even remotely correct? What does that say about where the developers' heads are at? Is their opinion honestly "who gives a shit about the title theme", or is "shallow farce" the tone they were hoping to effect? Whether the game is intended as silly fun or not, I still don't want to believe either answer. Just because Super Mario RPG and Earthbound are silly fun doesn't mean that they trivialize themselves.

Enjoy some good old-fashioned American Music on this holiest of holy days!

"Bob Dylan's 115th Dream": http://vimeo.com/35540786

Depressing ways to close an album

This started as an idea for a Top Ten, but I realized it's kinda stupid to try to list the "top ten" "most depressing" closing tracks. Would that mean the best ten closers that happen to be depressing, or the ten depressingest? The depressinger, the better? I'm not sure I need to be a trailblazer into quantifying emotion. Positive or negative, it is what it is - as would say the famous Joe Baker, pre-calc teacher at large. Instead, let it suffice for me to mention some particularly effective works which have left an impression on my own personal emotions brain, which will forever characterize not only their album and artist, but the very state of mind that drove their creation.

These songs are particularly haunting as they're the last sound the respective albums offer before the air goes dead. The lyrics linger in our brains, the notes continue to loop, and the mood hangs with us.

"Sara" - Bob Dylan on Desire (sorry I couldn't find the studio version on YT, Bob Dylan is a sellout/etc.)
This is one of those songs that simply can't be separated from the songwriter's biography. I mean it's titled for his ex-wife, for chrissakes. "Sara" is something of Dylan's final elegy to his first marriage, an empty-handed lament of their highs, lows, and the little moments in between. The line "staying up for days in the Chelsea Hotel / writin' 'Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands' for you" is utterly heartbreaking - Dylan is reminding us of a love song he wrote a decade ago, telling us it was based on his life, and telling us it ended in unhappiness and despair. Jesus Christ, that's awful! That's like the writer of Toy Story writing an autobiography in a few years about how Toy Story was based on his real childhood experiences and how he grew to hate the toys and destroyed them, and then killed himself.

"Here Comes a Regular" - The Replacements on Tim

A lot of what we find emotionally effective derives from shared experiences. A song about substance abuse is certainly more likely to hit home with someone who has struggled down the path of substance abuse. I'm not sure this would be the time or place to talk about whether I've had such experiences, but "Here Comes a Regular" works equally effectively at a broader level - it's a song about falling into a rhythm and becoming estranged from that rhythm, completely losing sight of why we wake up and do the same thing everyday and who the hell the people surrounding us are. "Am I the only one that feels ashamed?"

"Stones from the Sky" - Neurosis on A Sun That Never Sets
I can't honestly say I've ever paid much attention to the lyrics of this song - I know he says "walking amongst the stones from the sky", which conjures an image of a lonely wanderer amidst either a field of meteorites or the Moai statues. But isn't the most successful song one that resonates aurally, not by conjuring visuals or poetry? "Stones from the Sky" presents a series of unforgettable sounds - first the soft, summoning peals of bells, shredded apart by a buzz-saw guitar tone, as if we've arrived to something hideous and destructive. Then the song seems to literally destroy it's own reality - we start hearing static, tracks warble and drop in and out, and soon we abruptly cut to silence.

"The Mosquito Song" - Queens of the Stone Age on Songs for the Deaf

Hey, it's a song that in five minutes conveys the same metaphor that vampire culture has been working on for the past six or seven years! "All of us food / that hasn't died". There's really not much point in writing these songs up except that I write this site and feel some obligation to put some words on the page. Wait, the depression is getting to me! Listen to that negative attitude!

"Desperados Under the Eaves" - Warren Zevon on Warren Zevon
This echoes some of the same themes as "Here Comes a Regular" - the narrator is trapped in the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel - not a permanent residence or a particularly desirable destination, just a kind of lie. The great moment that sells the tragedy of this song is one of levity - the classic "I was listening to the air conditioner hum / and it went hmmmm hmmmmmmmm hmmm hm HMM HMM HMM". What a genius way to cut the tension of what otherwise threatens to be an overly serious violin assault.

"Living in Darkness" - Agent Orange on Living in Darkness
The early '80s post-Germs American punk scene was bursting with raw youthful emotion, teenagers screeching out as honestly as any musician ever did. While Minor Threat was all pent-up aggression and Descendents were pure virginal lust, no one quite embodied desperate melancholy like Agent Orange. Not melancholy of the mopey, romantic British variety, nor to the nihilistic degree of Philosophy Majors - just a sort of day-to-day existence at a distance from what we're told is "reality". The song (and album) is called "Living in Darkness" - not "Killing Myself in Darkness". It's an active acceptance of this distance from the world, almost a kind of affirmative depression. I love this lyric, which fantastically shrugs at the notion: "Everybody's askin' me, 'what's it like down there?' / The concrete floor is cold, the walls are bare".

"One by One" - Flipper on Gone Fishin'
Some have said Flipper is the most soul-crushingly depressing band of all time. Probably not true, but a song like "One by One" will certainly take your day down a few pegs. One of the particularly effective aspects of Flipper showcased in this song that really puts their industrial peers to shame is the sheer chaos of it all. A lot of proclaimed nihilistic bands like Throbbing Gristle like to show off how meaningless the world is by putting a lot of effort into playing really mechanical rhythms in extremely precise time signatures. Flipper is so done with it all that they're just kind of playing whatever, however, happy just to get out of the studio and back home to their loving syringes. The mess, the incoherence... it's like the world really is crumbling, starting with this song.

edit:
I didn't do a great job of expressing this, but these songs are particularly effective at the close of their respective albums. Don't just click on the youtube links I provided here. Or, do, but just as an introduction. These are fan-fucking-tastic albums - some of my favorites of all time - and the idea is that these songs elevate them to the next level in the way that they send them off. Great albums take us through a variety of mindsets and moods, and these particular albums are united in that they end with this particular feeling. As different as the rest of the tracks are, they're brought together by the atmosphere they leave behind.

edit 2:
okay A Sun That Never Sets isn't exactly "fan-fucking-tastic", it's more like "good". Still worth listening to, particularly thanks to the aforementioned closer, and a few other standouts. But the others. Whew. 

Let's Listen: How I Learned to Love the SID

Commodore 64 games ran their music on something called the SID chip. I don't know much about it, but it emits delightful sounds. This time, I've picked three great tunes from three great SID composers worth researching.

Flimbo's Quest - Reyn Ouwehand

The melody and instrumentation may be saccharine, but Flimbo's Quest also shows off just how well the SID could thump its bass. The structure isn't amazing or anything, but there is a bit of theme variation to keep an ear out for. Most of the joy here is in how full the SID sounds compared to other competitors such as the NES' 2A03 or the Atari 800's POKEY.

Cybernoid - Jeroen Tel

This is one of the few Commodore 64 games available on Wii's Virtual Console, and it's not a bad idea for a game, but the end product is too frustrating to take seriously. Anyway, Mr. Tel here does a good job of demonstrating how well SIDs handle the crossroads of moody and dancey. The drums here will keep you going while lingering tremolo notes ponder high school-quality philosophy. Stick around until 4:51 for a melodic treat.

Monty on the Run - Rob Hubbard

At 0:33, a methodical, foreboding intro finally creeps its way over the ledge of a cliff. Its fall is broken at 0:37 by classy SID drums, and the whole song is set in motion. From here, the melody is more or less strapped to the back of frantically--though regularly--paced drums. Notes vary a little in length, but notes that stray too far from the normal length are only used to punctuate phrases. By 1:45, we've had enough, and the tune lets up with gradually longer notes and a lower pitch (compare it to 0:39). Finally, we're let off the ride at 2:06, ready for another go 'round. The tune seems to be going normally until it runs off the tracks at 2:40, resulting in a guitar solo at 2:49. Monty on the Run already has a good melody, and this solo is okay, but its placement and production put it over the top. It's hardly out of place, but it is a surprise, and it strikes a strong contrast to the tightly-structured first half of the song, which felt married to the rhythm. There's also new liveliness in its production, since it shows off long, winding pitch bends unheard elsewhere in the song. (And if that wasn't enough to top things off, try the violin solo at 4:51.) Chiptune instruments commonly take after real world instruments, but rarely are their identities conveyed as strongly as the ones here. Between that and the diverse structure, this is Rob Hubbard's most impressive SID; it may not be his best, but it scratches the most itches.

I regret not knowing enough about these guys to comment on their general style, but this should at least give you an idea regarding whether or not you're interested in SID.

Let's Listen: Don't Press Start

Game music assists role play, getting you in the mood to take on the role of Samus, Toejam or Master Chief. If Streets of Rage was accompanied by the Parodius soundtrack, the tone of Axel's mission would be entirely different.

The music that plays before you even start up the game occupies a special role, introducing you to the role and preparing your mindset before you get a chance to take it on.

Donkey Kong Country 3

Are you ready for an energetic funtime adventure? That's what this track asks you, the player. My feet are a-tappin', and I'm ready for this to be a fun game.

It takes an already strong track, the bonus theme from Donkey Kong Country, and gives it a new coat of paint. In this case, the opening song is drawing on the memory of a previous game to set the tone, but the track is also good enough to stand on its own--otherwise, it wouldn't be worth remembering from the first game.

Also worth noting is that this is one of the few tracks on the DKC3 OST composed by David Wise. You can view the game's intro to accompany this song here.

Sanxion

This one breaks the rules a little. Yes, it's an introduction tune, since it plays before you play the game, but you can't press start to skip it. This is the loading theme for Sanxion; you'll hear this every time you boot it up. I don't know how much of it plays before you get to the actual game, but I've heard it's pretty bad.

Which is a pretty good thing in Sanxion's case. Within the first 30 seconds, you've got an extremely hummable hook. You'll hear that hook quite a bit, but different phases keep the tune fresh. For instance, I don't think there's any particular reason the breakdown at 1:21 is followed by the haunting bit at 1:29, but it maintains the rhythm and general mood of the song, so I'm happy. It keeps coming up with new bits right up to the 5:36 completion time.
The job of Sanxion's loader tune is to keep you interested in blowing up space ships while it loads the actual game, however long that may take. In that sense, this is a great tune.
Also, those interested in focusing on some awesome SID drums should stick around for 2:19.

Crusader of Centy

For these writeups, I like to lead with something catchy, put the stuff I'm not sure about in the middle, and close with the cream of the crop. In its four minutes, Crusader of Centy's opening manages to cover a wide scope, from foreboding omens (0:00) to a world of temporary peace (1:20), finally ending on a grand sendoff to adventure. And there's plenty in between.
Fantasy commonly relies on a storied setting to draw readers, and that's what this opening theme affords Crusader of Centy. The tune strings together a series of moods, taking the listener on a journey through the land before so much as creating a save file.
And it does a good job of matching the tale told by the opening scrawl, as you can see here.