MetaFilter posts tagged with videogame and music

Heard it from a friend

Joe Beese — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:47:42 -0800

"Just when we thought we had done it all, along comes an awesome video game, where millions of people around the world can interact with us, and our music. How cool is that?" says Kevin Cronin, lead singer of REO Speedwagon. (via)

Ethnography of Rock Band Bar Night

k8t — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 21:56:02 -0800

Ethnography of Rock Band Bar Night. The Rock Band video game (and the similar Guitar Hero) are more than video games where players try to earn points and some are exploring the deeper meaning of such games. In this ethnographic study of a Rock Band bar night, Kiri Miller, discovers that Rock Band bar night is, surprisingly, a friendly, accessible musical scene with a tight-knit group of friends at its core—more like an open Irish session than a karaoke night, and with fewer barriers to participation than either of those other typical bar events. Miller researches GH and RB and is currently collecting data from players, if you're interested in participating. She keeps a blog on her research as well. Read her (interesting) thoughts on being a researcher on this topic. She also provides some audio interviews with players. She argues that "[a]nyone who has played Guitar Hero or Rock Band for more than five minutes will tell you that it requires a deeper level of musical engagement than listening to an iPod—intellectually, emotionally, physically, and often socially" and "the games have substantially changed the way they listen to popular music when they’re not playing." She also asks if GH/RB playing "authentic"? It certainly is a performance.

This balladry makes me spoony

grobstein — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:27:15 -0800

Final Fantasy IV remix project. This week the videogame music rearrangement site, OCRemix.org, released a new project covering Nobuo Uematsu's soundtrack to FFIV (originally FFII in the US). FFIV's was the first game soundtrack I fell in love with, back in 2nd grade. Maybe you feel the same. The musicians have generally eschewed crowd-pleasing statements of the original's iconic themes, which is . . . bittersweet. Try

this cafe-vibe take on Rydia's theme,
this rhythmically fractured version of the sweet "Welcome to Our Town,"
"Into the Darkness" transposed and remade as "Step into the Light,"
or this slight, anti-triumphal take on the series's traditional victory fanfare.
And here is the "Theme of Love" made up as what sounds like classical guitar.

All FFIV remixes on OCR. All OCR album projects (I recommend the Street Fighter project, which was used for the soundtrack to the "new" game, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix).

Dear Sweet Crap I Suck At This Game

tehloki — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 00:51:49 -0800

Fire up your NES emulator and get ready to ROCK, chiptune-style. 4 whole songs! It's D-Pad Hero. The controls are pretty visually explicit, but if you don't get it: If a circle comes down the left channel, hit the A button as it crosses the line (ala guitar hero). Ditto right channel, B button. If the circle has an arrow in it, hold that direction on the d-pad (or keyboard) while pressing the button. This game causes severe left-brain right-brain confusion, and don't be ashamed if you fail horribly at first. Also, it may cause you to unlearn how to play Dance Dance Revolution.

bits are fun

flatluigi — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 19:41:47 -0800

The Top 5 Game-Inspired Music Videos (via, with one more) Videos: Architecture in Helsinki - Do The Whirlwind Junior Senior - Move Your Feet Cadence Weapon - Sharks Xiu Xiu - Boy Soprano Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication

Bleep bleep bloop bloop.

zabuni — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 22:56:50 -0800

Video game soundtrack, sans video game. Cicada gives us two albums Technology Crisis, and Technology Crisis 2. Not that this is that unique, even Mefi's are getting into the act.

Mario's New World: Symphonies

ericb — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 14:17:54 -0800

The National Symphony Orchestra, celebrating its 75^th anniversary, "will perform this Friday about two hours' worth of soundtracks from hit games -- your Marios, your Halos, your Sonic the Hedgehogs -- as game highlight clips play on Wolf Trap's large video screens" in Vienna, VA. "Play: A Video Game Symphony" is the latest offering in the "new mini-industry of video game music performance," competing with "Video Games Live" (previously discussed). "The two companies putting on these productions -- Jason Michael Paul Productions and Mystical Stone Entertainment -- pretty much hate each other and are engaging in a fair amount of trash talk as they fight for the same gigs....Each accuses the other of stealing a good idea and of confusing the market."

DJ Format featuring Abdominal & D-sisive

Pretty_Generic — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 17:56:42 -0800

Witness the Whiteness as borderline-albino Canadian nerdcore MCs kick it Konami-school [Windows Media/Quicktime; more]

xoc - SMW

Pretty_Generic — Sat, 13 Aug 2005 06:46:03 -0800

SMW - The complete soundtrack to Super Mario World, covered by one man using dozens of instruments. Roughly in game order, faithful to the originals, with some bizarre artistic license thrown around. A private hobby made public. Dedicated to Koji Kondo.

Your favourite tunes. With a twist of lemon.

Mossy — Sat, 08 Nov 2003 18:45:23 -0800

Overclocked Remix is the home of some fantastic game music remixes in a variety of styles - from relaxing piano to higher tempo hybrid affairs. Have a rummage and a listen..

Video Game Music

riffola — Fri, 31 Jan 2003 10:25:29 -0800

Video game music is designed to heighten tension, and get you involved in the game, but it's come a long way from the days of Pong, now we have a single video game generating a 4 CD boxset & a greatest hits CD. Game Music Home, one of the first sites dedicated to gaming music is still preserved online. Now there's even a game music database and sites like GameMusic.com, VGMusic.com, etc specialize in selling video game soundtracks. Here's a brief timeline of video game music. Of course with original songs like "Taxi Drivers Must Die" (lyric), how long before we see a video game song on the Billboard charts?