Yeah, I’m not really down with remixes and all that. I will not participate in that sort of dome.
I’m with Dave. There is still a TON of game music that wasn’t nominated. I like that this round cleared out some big hitters. A quick export to a google doc of the list and I think we should roll with the same for round two, new thread or not.
Remixes blur the line from game to just music. We could do that, but it’s wide open for too much ambiguity. Think of how many covers of Skyrim, Still Alive, Baba Yetu, Super Mario, Ocarina of time, etc that there are. It’s insane.
Besides, we can’t have a Thunderdome All-Stars battle without a few normal game music battles.
Thanks for running this. Loved it. How about we have a new poll on what game is the most “fun”? @tomchick can nominate first!
I could provide great noms for another 10 domes without breaking a sweat, personally.
If we do a remix Dome it’s gonna be real damn hard not to just do 4 Powerglove tracks IMO :-D
That’s part of the fun, though, seeing wildly divergent takes on the same source material:
But sure, let’s do a poll and see what there is enthusiasm for. Please select all that you’d like to see. I don’t promise to strictly abide by the results though – my preference is to avoid doing the same thing twice in a row.
- Original Game Music 'Dome - same rules as this time, open to any track created for inclusion in a game.
- Remix 'Dome - open to arrangements, remixes, orchestrations, etc.
- Themed 'Dome - original game music, constrained by some theme (i.e. battle music, intros, endings, chiptunes, '90s, portable systems, etc.)
- Something else altogether - write in with suggestions
- Shitbonerz
0
voters
Whoops, didn’t realize that was a multiple-choice poll!
I’d be down for a remix battle, except I’d want to restrict it specifically to official remixes and covers of video game themes, appearing in-game or otherwise. This would mean that, say, music from Super Smash Bros. (except for original themes made specifically for a given entry in the series) or a Black Mages or Distant Worlds album would be eligible, but OCRemix #30948 of the Super Mario Bros. athletic theme wouldn’t. (“Video game music” would also exclude remixes and covers of anything not originally made for a video game, as established with the original Game Music Thunderdome.)
Beyond that, a themed battle sounds like it could be cool. Arcade Thunderdome, go!
That’s me out. I don’t think I even know of any official remixes.
How would I know if it’s official. Does it have to have the word official in the title of the video? What stops someone from just putting the word official on anything they want anyway?
Any particular rationale behind this? Just that album releases put out by a company will have higher quality control than OCRemix / random YouTubers? If so, I’d think that having to have someone actually choose to nominate a track over all other options would be a pretty good quality filter.
Most of the tracks I’d want to nominate are from official albums, but I’d tend to want to leave it open to anyone because there have been some great unofficial covers and arrangements over the years. I’d be willing to go with your idea if that’s what a critical mass wants, though.
…though it’s probably moot given that remixes are trailing pretty severely in the poll at the moment.
“Official” would obviously mean “made or authorized by the game’s publisher or composer.” I gave some examples that should’ve been pretty clear there - Super Smash Bros. being a game series full of official remixes and covers of themes, the Black Mages being a band that primarily covers Final Fantasy music led by longtime series composer Nobuo Uematsu, and Distant Worlds being a series of albums of orchestral versions of Final Fantasy themes published by Square Enix.
Stuff like the music on OCRemix (excluding very specific cases, like the Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix soundtrack) or GaMetal isn’t official, though a lot of it is very good.
Baba Yetu has a gazillion versions of it. Christopher Tin even shares some of them. I am not aware that any of them are on some sort of official remix album. You say it’s obvious but I don’t think everyone approach their work the same way the tracks you like did… not that obvious.
I would be opposed to this restriction.
Beyond QC, there’s the simple matter that a lot of the covers seen on sites like OCRemix and YouTube are just the same handful of songs from the same handful of games over and over, and the pool of choices tends to be a lot more interesting when people don’t have the option of just submitting four different choirs’ versions of Baba Yetu or four sweet arranges of the main theme from Ocarina of Time.
I don’t know what @WarpRattler is envisioning, but if we have remixes, I imagine you would pit them against each other and only one version of any particular song would move forward. There are too many great versions of songs to just arbitrarily cut them out.
Fair enough. I’d probably trust people to make more varied nominations, or follow @Nesrie’s suggestion of pitting remixes of the same song against each other in the preliminary round. A possible compromise would be to allow anything that’s been on a commercial album release, which would cut out the OCRemix/Youtube crowd while still allowing for artists that are more established but still unaffiliated with the publisher, (Powerglove, the Consouls, The OneUps, Taylor Davis, Eminence Symphony Orchestra, etc.)
But if the voting results stay how they are now, I’ll probably go ahead with a themed 'Dome.
Now I’m back in front of my keyboard I can give you a proper response.
So I love the sound of the remix 'dome. There’s so much incredible work out there that can elevate the source material and tease out different emotions and atmospheres. Often it can be the only way for some people to enjoy certain pieces!
I’m opposed to @WarpRattler’s suggestion of restricting submissions to official recordings. I’ve got access to all Chris Huelsbeck’s remixes of his Turrican soundtracks but one of my favourite remixes isn’t by him, it’s not official and the quality of the recording isn’t studio level either. Some of the best remixes I’ve stumbled across aren’t official and are so exciting and… irreverent, I suppose. Cutting them out I think would be a huge disservice to the 'dome and folks listening, and indeed the musicians and their efforts. It just sounds too stuffy to me and would stifle the diversity I love game covers for.
I mean, if you’re looking at the same games then yeah! I’m listening to a Shadow of the Beast III suite on YT at the moment and there just aren’t many remixes of that game’s soundtrack. Besides, I suspect official albums and remixes are only going to stretch so far back in time or cover more popular games.
All that said, I’d prefer to see more original 'domes first because there’s gold in them there hills. So much gold. We can always shift to remixes later down the line. A themed 'dome might be a nice departure from the norm and a good thought exercise in the process.
I’d play that Rayman: Mario game!
I gave up on remixes alltogether about 20 years ago, because there were more and more of them, to the point it felt like trying to surf a black hole. Nothing against a competition of that… if midi submissions of dubious standards (that Roland vs XG web plugin war!) are accepted, I may even participate!
But themed domes has my preference, as an anti-cutscene and other title songs activist. There would also probably be fewer entries, which would make it more manageable?
We should have a MIDI themed 'dome!
(I’m joking. Maybe.)
I’ve seen it, and have happily ignored it, but have finally decided that I must state my undying bewilderment for this topic/thread. Game music for me is very much like that in an elevator. It is “just there”, not enjoyable in any way, just background noise, in most cases annoying and unnecessary. How anyone could find actual enjoyment and/or find pleasure in it is beyond strange to me. There, I’ve said it, and I’ll now go back to ignoring this topic, and shut the hell up. No, I will not apologize either. So there! Weirdos!
EDIT: ok, sorry
Hey, I have a friend very similar to you. He won’t even play games he can’t disable the music for. However, he pipes his own music while playing the games (console or PC) and enjoys the hell out of that. So I guess if there were ever a game with the same type of music he listened to, it -might- hold his admiration, at least for a little bit.
But you are certainly not alone, @nogwart