[Music] Worth Mentioning - Nov. 1st, 2011 to Nov. 8th, 2011

Are you starting to recognize the name Inon Zur?

The man responsible for the music of The Lord of the Rings: War in the North has quite a resume and a pretty odd moniker, one that has popped up on your screen if you've played a Prince of Persia title in the last ten years, Fallout 3 and it's sequel, or if you were into the anime classic Escaflowne or the Power Rangers in the nineties. In this case, he's once more stuck in that difficult position where a composer needs to create original score pieces for a property that has an established musical style. Success is a fine line between imitation and irrelevance. Inon Zur is a master, however, and the background for War in the North is perfect. You'll be listening to original pieces but you will feel like you've entered the Peter Jackson inspired Middle-Earth. I have friends who still listen to the the movie scores – if that describes you, you should check out the soundtrack for Lord of the Rings: War in the North, available through Amazon.



When it comes to authentic James Bond music, nowadays you can't do any better than David Arnold, the man behind every Bond movie score from Tomorrow Never Dies to the upcoming Skyfall, and some pretty awesome movies and television shows that demonstrate his stylistic range – this is the guy you heard in Independence Day and more recently in the new BBC Sherlock. Arnold composed original variations on his pieces for Goldeneye 007: Reloaded and they sound amazing. Kicking ass while the Bond theme plays is a necessary part of any good James Bond game, so it's nice to know you'll be getting the authentic experience here.



Otomedius Excellent is a phrase that just may have slipped under your radar. It's a pretty unique game, a Konami side-scroller bullet hell shoot-em-up featuring female versions of classic Konami spaceships. Yeah.

The soundtrack is comprised entirely of remixed tracks from past series releases, mostly Gradius Gaiden and the Gradius arcade themes. This is video game music that sounds great as you are playing, frantic and fun, but it's not something you'd want to listen to on its own.



I've been hearing good things about Sonic Generations, and while I can't speak for the gameplay, the music is definitely working for me. The game involves both classic Sonic and modern Sonic levels, with a different track for each version of the level, so we get excellent remasters of classic sonic themes as well as some truly well-produced modern remixes of Jen Sonoue's original music. A lot of the “Modern” tracks are heavily club inspired, with a nice fuzzy techno sound, and that crazy upbeat Sonic the Hedgehog tinge that Sonoue's music always brings to mind.

Remember that drowning theme that would kick in when you were just seconds from death, struggling to push a sluggish Sonic towards that next air bubble? Oh God, gonna die, gonna die...

If you're looking for the song from the Sonic Generations trailer, it's Tenderoni by Kele Okereke from his solo album “The Boxer”. Kele is known primarily as the lead singer of Bloc Party.



So let's talk about the music of Uncharted 3, featuring the series' returning composer Greg Edmonson. Uncharted, as a series, has a rare thing going for it – awesome graphics, a stellar story, great voice acting and to complete that package, some epic music. When a game offers visual treats that are so spectacular, you're going to notice if the audio doesn't hold up its end. Most of my experience with Uncharted 3 this week has been as an observer but that didn't stop me from noticing that the music retains its Saturday matinee movie-magic charm and the ability to mesh well with the constantly changing nature of the game. Edmonson was the composer behind Firefly's television run, as well as the Fox cartoon King of the Hill, so he's demonstrated his skills when it comes to scoring a variety of styles. Providing compelling score for a video game is a different challenge, even for a game as cinematic as Uncharted 3, and yet not once in the eight hours I've experienced did I feel like the music was out of place, irritatingly repetitive, or awkwardly inserted. I have to say that the score Edmonson provides is a key ingredient to the Uncharted experience, one that often goes overlooked, but the next time you're playing Uncharted 3 take a moment to appreciate the way the score keeps pushing Nathan Drake along like an explosion in slow motion.



Maybe You Missed It

It takes something special for the excellent chiptunes of yesteryear to hold up among today's symphonic scores. If you didn't fall in love with certain sound effects back when they were the best available, it's hard to see the appeal. Some games, however, had music so catchy, effective, or downright interesting that it begs to be mentioned. In the case of the Super Nintendo RPG EarthBound, the music composed by Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka isn't limited by the restrictions of the hardware – much like a Haiku, boundaries provide freedom, and beauty results. Suzuki played for many years in a Japanese rock band called The Moonriders, and scored the award-winning Anime Tokyo Godfathers. Tanaka is probably best known for writing the original Metroid theme, a seminal piece in gaming culture, known for being successfully ominous using eight-bit instrumentation. There's a skill there, an ability to sculpt and work with music, that comes out when you look at what some of these masters have done with a few square waves and a 16 bit cartridge.



EarthBound's soundtrack is so good that it has led to the release of multiple albums and a whole hell of a lot of remixes. It's a popular choice for live instrument performances and remains a top source for OC Remixes. Check out one of the better renditions.



All of this great game music and more can be found streaming on rainwave 24/7 through the magic of... I dunno, electricity and stuff. Check them out and I'll see you next week!