Auricular Discovery

SimCity 2000 was probably the first game to strike me with the depressing realization that I have no creativity. I absolutely fail at these kind of god games. I know not how to create, but to destroy. Maybe if I grew up with a PC instead of a NES/Genesis, I’d have developed some different interests. Oh well. That’s why the game offered you wonderful catastrophe tools such as plane crashes, floods, and volcanos. The music is a delightfully cheesy jazz. It sounds like the kind of background music that would serve as a segue piece for an 80′s urban sitcom, as the camera converges from one setting to the other. Maybe it’s a retired genre, but I keep it for the nostalgia.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

When you’re tired of all the metal game arrangements out there, make your way over to The OneUps. For 9 years now, these guys have been launching classic themes into brand new genres of music, and with every release, they surprise me with how natural it sounds. The team is led by Mustin and Dale North, the latter of which is a very busy Destructoid writer as well. Their two self-titled albums are simply wide-reaching single track selections performed in a “Fusion/Funk/Jazz” hybrid style. It should grow on you. While their albums aren’t free, the obvious level of professionalism and the perfect recording quality should temp you. Amazon offers all the albums free of DRM, and lets you sample all the tracks before-hand.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I came across this album thanks to the massive listing over at Chrono Compendium. This is definitely the highlight of the set, giving new energy to the final battle with Lavos. Doujin (aka fan made) albums seem to be very hard to come across online or even hear about at all, unless you are natively Japanese and are within that scene over there. I guess the language barrier is quite literal in some cases. I think the big key difference here is that on the English side, the vast majority of remixers do it for free, while on the Japanese side, there are thriving markets for this stuff on physical media, instead of digital distribution. I wonder how they get around the legal issues or profiting off of others’ compositions… or are there any to begin with over there?

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

It’s not very often that game remixers can step up to the plate and provide vocals for a change. While I much rather prefer instrumental music over lyrical, Danny was quite impressive here. OCR gives a much better description of the track here. Also, Daniel was recently a guest on episode #295 of ChatterBox Video Game Radio, and he gave a fantastic rant on how game music is not only often ignored, but disrespected and ripped off by “musicians” in other mediums. Unfortunately the hosts, like usual, had very little worthwhile commentary on the subject at hand, and instead tried and failed to make jokes to fill air time.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Where he fails in creating internet aliases, he surely makes up for it in aural ass-rocking. You may have seen his works on OCR or DoD, but I can’t help but share this song some more. Not only did he take one of the most neglected pieces in the game and drastically improve on it, but he even shared a video of himself providing the guitar work. If you like what you hear, you should check out the Project Chaos OCR album, because within it, he arguably stole the show with “Walk on Water”.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.