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I'm not too proud to admit I enjoy the video game stuff The stigma against video game music can’t go away soon enough! Composers are creating some really amazi

I'm not too proud to admit I enjoy the video game stuff The stigma against video game music can’t go away soon enough! Composers are creating some really amazing stuff for video games and gamers themselves are an enormous audience for the wider classical music industry to draw upon. To their credit, a lot of orchestras have recognized this and have been performing video game music for years. Along with film scores (a trend started by John Williams), video game music has breathed an incredible amount of new life into an industry that might otherwise be in far worse shape now.

chrisfinazzo 4y ago
1. Go find any of the text commentaries that Austin Wintory has done about the Journey soundtrack. 2. Clear an hour off your schedule, close your eyes and listen. Edit: On second thought, keep your eyes open and enjoy the beautiful artwork by Matt Nava (taken from his book on Journey) as well as a selection of fan art which is equally stunning considering most of the people are probably not professional graphic designers. Fuck...it's so good it makes me emotional just typing this sentence. Also worthy of note: Tan Dun and Yo Yo Ma's recording of the Crouching Tiger soundtrack and his recordings of the Bach solos. Alas, I must end with the complaint that the current recordings of the original Star Wars soundtracks use track listings that are out of order with their "appearances" in the films. This is not accceptable.
- chongli 4y ago
  Thanks so much for sharing this with me! Austin's score is deeply moving. Now I can't stop thinking about it. I think I played the game a long time ago but I believe I was visiting a friend (who had already played through it) at the time and I wasn't in the right frame of mind to experience it. Now I want to track down a PS4 and play it again. This reminded me of another score I love: Endless Legend by Arnaud Roy. Similar instrumentation to Journey (albeit with lots of human voices). It has a different feel though, for a radically different game (a turn-based strategy game).
yamtaddle 4y ago
Film scores are so completely in the shitter and have been for going on two decades, that maybe they could stand to take some cues from video games. I miss films having memorable, distinctive music. At least for title themes. Even mid-budget films often had that, in the Olden Times of 2+ decades ago. It's one of my kids' favorite things about older movies—they noticed, without prompting, and they love it. Marvel managed, what, a single run of a half-dozen kinda-almost-memorable notes, over 40+ films? What a joke. It's so bad that their deciding halfway in to simply score everything with pop music was kinda an improvement, but is still a form of just giving up.

chrisfinazzo 4y ago

1. Go find any of the text commentaries that Austin Wintory has done about the Journey soundtrack. 2. Clear an hour off your schedule, close your eyes and listen. Edit: On second thought, keep your eyes open and enjoy the beautiful artwork by Matt Nava (taken from his book on Journey) as well as a selection of fan art which is equally stunning considering most of the people are probably not professional graphic designers. Fuck...it's so good it makes me emotional just typing this sentence. Also worthy of note: Tan Dun and Yo Yo Ma's recording of the Crouching Tiger soundtrack and his recordings of the Bach solos. Alas, I must end with the complaint that the current recordings of the original Star Wars soundtracks use track listings that are out of order with their "appearances" in the films. This is not accceptable.

chongli 4y ago
Thanks so much for sharing this with me! Austin's score is deeply moving. Now I can't stop thinking about it. I think I played the game a long time ago but I believe I was visiting a friend (who had already played through it) at the time and I wasn't in the right frame of mind to experience it. Now I want to track down a PS4 and play it again. This reminded me of another score I love: Endless Legend by Arnaud Roy. Similar instrumentation to Journey (albeit with lots of human voices). It has a different feel though, for a radically different game (a turn-based strategy game).

yamtaddle 4y ago

Film scores are so completely in the shitter and have been for going on two decades, that maybe they could stand to take some cues from video games. I miss films having memorable, distinctive music. At least for title themes. Even mid-budget films often had that, in the Olden Times of 2+ decades ago. It's one of my kids' favorite things about older movies—they noticed, without prompting, and they love it. Marvel managed, what, a single run of a half-dozen kinda-almost-memorable notes, over 40+ films? What a joke. It's so bad that their deciding halfway in to simply score everything with pop music was kinda an improvement, but is still a form of just giving up.