f13.net

That's right, you too can enjoy the music of WoW from a live symphony orchestra! (http://www.play-symphony.com/)

Seriously, staging concerts around video game music? Are we REALLY that pathetically addicted now?

Been happening for years. The Squaresoft tour with Nobuo Uemetsu being the most popular by far. I think it was called Dear Friends.

I'll go on record again to express my rage at Square-soft-enix-foozlefuck.

That being said, have any of these fuckers heard of Bach? Play the classics, and get off my 18th century lawn!

I really like the music of WoW. I used to have Seasons of War (the music track from the intro movie) on endless repeat when playing. And yes I know plenty about classical music -- I was in a youth symphony for over six years.

It's just the next logical step after concerts with film scores & tv themes.

Nobody goes to concerts for that anymore, though.  Hell, they can't even get huge crowds to the free concerts in the park here in town, and you expect people to pay?   Just keep reminding yourself that raging like this makes you one of the guys to have called Mozart and Bach punks. ;)

Everytime I go to the opera or a musical I wish they'd end with a rousing rendition of "Charles in Charge".

I wish every game had a theme as good as "Hawaii Five-O".  That'd make the cat's ass.

And that's a goddamn shame. Classical music is good to listen to recorded, but hearing it live in the building is just orgasmically good. Hearing WOW music played by a symphony? Goddamned sad. Pathetic. Hearing Squeenix-angsty-fag-boy shit played by a symphony?

/sadf ^ cubed

Well, I know I'm a complete looser, having paid money for the actual soundtracks for half of these games, but I gotta say, if they put on a concert near me, I'd be way more likely to see it than if they played some Bach or something.  I got a kick out of hearing the orchestral version of the Mario Bros. theme.

But, on the other hand, looking at the list of games they're sampling.... ugh... World of Warcraft?  Battlefield 1942?  Morrowind?!  Who chose these?

Ugh, if a wine was sponsored by a video game some of you guys would drink it.

Your taste is questionable.

It has nothing to do with franchise sponsorship.  A lot of high-talent composers work on videogame and movie scores, and I happen to like composed music.  Brahms and Tchaikovsky are fine and dandy, but every now and then I look for something more modern.  I wouldn't even know about Ligeti if it weren't for Kubrick movies.

Man, sometimes this community really suprises me.

We bitch that games aren't considered "art", and we bitch that people blame games on all sorts of things, yet when game generated/focused music is actually considered quality enough to be arranged for an orchestra and performed, you bitch yet again?

It's music, it's expression. So what if you don't like the game or whatever, it's a GOOD thing in the long run that those that otherwise would have zero exposure to a video game give credence to it in whatever format by performance art.

IMO, the aria played in Everquest: Planes of Power's "Plane of Torment" zone was not only one of the best themesetting tracks I've seen in a game personally, but IMO worthy of being played in a concert. Call me whatever you wish--it was well composed, and would be a pleasure to hear arranged for symphony.

If it was a good wine I would.

I can think of maybe 5 games I've played in my life where the music was good enough to be memorable as more than fucking background noise. The Lucasarts games don't count, because it's Star Wars music so not built specifically for the games. World of Warcraft, nor any Final Fantasy is not on the fucking list.

The first Command and Conquer is the only one I can come up with right now.

I really like the Civ IV music, FWIW.

Monkey Island and Star Control II pop into my mind.

I really enjoyed the first C&C music tracks they had some good stuff. Honestly the music in games now is getting quite nice both wow and eq2 have very good music scores. I think of all the mmrpg though anarchy online and their shadowlands expansion had some of the best background music.

I was quite impressed when eq2 rescored their main theme music in game for the christmas holidays it was cute and very well done.

While I may not go to see a concert it would not be because of the music but my utter distaste of concerts in general. Hell I still listen to the eq2 sound track that came from my collectors edition when I am at work from time to time.


kaid

Final Fantasy Tactics.

Every single game using the Infinity Engine.

I like OSTs, and a good one is the difference between a good game and a great game.

A quick glance at my shelf : Total Anihilation is a long tme favourite, Harry Gregson-Williams MGS2 soundtrack, I have some of Trent Reznors Quake 2 in my mp3 player and its still sounds good, Gradius V's awesome techno shmup music, Serious Sam's egyptian stuff, I76s funk, and is some great tunes in Diablo 2. There was a wonderful piece of music by a Czech composer in Mafia too.

Maybe I am uncultured since I have seen John Williams conduct the Chicago Symphony and enjoyed the evening.  I am not sure that any game soundtrack has captured me, but I thoughly enjoy some contemporary movie soundtracks.

If there was a local performance of either Conan or Pirates of the Caribbean scores I would be there.  

HoMaM III.

The recordings from Dear Friends I've heard could easily be considered art.

It's good music, sorry.

Some people consider a urinal "art".

I know you're a "musician" or whatever. But knocking Uemetsu's stuff is just amateurish of you. Take a listen some time. The guy is a fucking prodigy.

Edit: I'd like to see the Deus Ex theme performed by a symphony. Also, a mishmash of music from the Castlevania series - particularly the stuff from Castlevania 2.

Edit Edit: Also, I'd just like to address Paelos' original complaint. Playing the classics bores me and you couldn't pay me to go hear the "classics" ever again. I don't have time to waste on shit I've heard a million times BY SYMPHONIES that is just a chance for them to show off their technical proficiency and ability to perform what society considers the "greatest music ever written."

One could speculate that if you were to grab Bach, drag him into your time-traveling phone booth, bring him to the present, and force him to find a job, he'd end up doing movie/game soundtracks.  There aren't too many rich nobles in the business of being patron to talented composers in this era, you know?

The music is all I have left of the FF franchise.

EDIT: LOL, so we now have the f13 equivalent of Triumph the Smoking Dog Puppet.

EDIT Part Deux: Morrowind was Jeremy Soule, whose credits include other games with the exact same tracks, such as Guild Wars, Azurik and Dungeon Siege.  Also Total Annihilation, Icewind Dale, Dawn of War, KOTOR, NWN, Kabuto, Unreal II, and some other stuff.  The John Williams of games, no doubt.

My god I would give limbs to see Bach, Klaus Badelt, and Danny Elfman in a cage match.

I don't even know who he is. I was just sayin'.

You should really hear some of it then. He's a goddamn virtuoso.

$.99 per song on iTunes.  You know you want to.

That's not safe. We'd have to recommend certain songs. I guess I could uhm, upload one or two as "samples."

Uematsu.

His friends call him Nobuo and don't care about the last name.

Nobuo-chan.

I was actually making it easy for Sky to do an iTunes search.  You know he will.

And he'll probably listen to "Samba de Chocobo" or "Theme of Love" or the vocal version of one of the songs and be like "What the fuck, those guys got me GOOD."

I know, I was trying to make it hard for him to fuck it up, but I can only do so much.  Plus I have zero musical talent so there's a chance I totallly suck; I have no ability to defend myself in a musical discussion other than "me rikey".

After 12 beers and an hour long car ride, I would be inclined to agree with them.

None of those I would go to see in concert, though.  The issue I have with Morrowind (and WoW) is not that the game music is bad per se, just that it's very ambient stuff.  It's good at what it does, and what it does is set an atmosphere for the player whilst he goes about the business of chopping stuff.  I played WoW for hours this week, and last week, and for most of the weeks over the past freaking year, but I'd be hard pressed to remember five minutes of music from that game.  Or from Morrowind or from Warcraft III or Baldur's Gate or any number of other titles.  It's all reasonably well done, it sets the mood fairly nicely, but it's mostly just ambient filler stuff, and it's just not something I'd pay money to sit through.  I imagine that everyone's list of game music they DO enjoy is rather different, but I really can't see people hoofing it down to the orchestra hall in large numbers to sit through a rendition of the Neverwinter Nights Peninsula District background music.

It depend's how its marketed. Ok it isnt a crowd of people hoofing it down to the local concert venue but The Barbican, an arts centre in London has held concerts featuring video game music. Rob Hubbard (http://www.freenetpages.co.uk/hp/tcworh/hom_news.htm) has been doing them that for years. It's definetly niche stuff, but this kind of thing always will be.

Classical meets crap, eh?

I'm now officially boycotting Wendy's (http://microsites.ign.com/wendys/taste/). And I thought their classic hamburger was the shizzle.

OTOH, the intro music for WoW (from the cinematic) - or any of the WC3 cinematics, for that matter - are fairly recognisable.

Anyway, back to the original topic: have a link (http://forums.cybermanx.com/viewtopic.php?t=9). About four and a half hours of game music, in four chunks.

IGN continues to do things that make me go, what?

"What toppings do you ROCK on your burger?" - phrases like that one which are supposed to be cool and edgy just piss me off.

6.  What is your favorite smell?
The asscrack of anyone that gives me money.

If you are rocking burger toppings, you must have your own special sauce. What a bunch of whoremop retards.

I'm pretty sure that IGN has had ads for all the major fast-food places at one time or another.  I know they've done McDonalds(the 'I'd HIT it!' ads come to mind), and prolly BK and others.  It's advertising.  IGN does get a lot of hits, no matter how much we know they suck.

Alkiera

He played to his real friends in your old stomping ground of Maryland on Saturday. You missed him, because you're a fair-weather friend.

I have no idea about this guy's music, but I Googled that and found it amusing.