So before I dive into the reviews, I think I should note here that the track arrangement issue I mentioned in the game score review master-post is not just a problem of game soundtracks, but also one suffered by movie and animation soundtracks. Disney, in particular, is guilty of putting songs onto CDs in an order that prevents any sort of connected sensation. 4-8 tracks of score at the end of 6+ tracks of lyrical songs isn’t helpful in terms of taking an audio journey that equates to the emotional experience of the story the music created in the original presentation of the story. I do have to admire Disney for knowing their target market, though. At ages 9-12 I didn’t care much about the instrumentals. They were ok, but I wanted so much more with Belle, I couldn’t wait to be king with Simba, and I was looking just around the river bend with Pocahantas. That was why I saved my allowance to buy their expensive tape releases. (Back in the 90s, if you recall, those tapes were 20-odd dollars, and that was three weeks of allowance, at least in my house. It got worse once I started buying CDs. I won’t tell you how much money I spent when I bought The Goofy Movie soundtrack a few years ago, but that is partly a function of Disney not having released a large quantity of that soundtrack when it came out, and not re-releasing it later. I assume that soundtrack is somewhere in their mysterious “vault”.) Of course I’m now one of the group of so-called adults who grew up on those movies, but the more music savvy maven I have become can feel the disjointedness of the layout. (See Anastasia as an example of the poor animation soundtrack layout if you want to see the problem somewhere other than a Disney soundtrack.)
There is an additional issue on animation and movie scores/soundtracks of the added or pop-cover version of lyriced songs from the score/soundtrack of the animations, as well as the issue of the ‘title track’ or ‘credits’ song’ of lyriced song from the end credits. (See La belle et la bête for an example of a score/soundtrack with a rather jarring instance of a two-language credit-song at the end of the instrumentals.) I get around this, at least on my iPod, by giving the pop tracks a separate genre and/or album title.
I do tend to personalize what my iTunes/iPod does so that it works the best it can for me, though. I find the supplied genres either limiting or inaccurate. I also know how I like to listen to music. If I’m in the mood for K-Pop, I do not want to hear J-Pop. If I’m in the mood for soundtracks, I don’t want score. If I’m in the mood for anime, I do not want stray Japanese videogame soundtracks to pop up. So I have arranged my iTunes setup to reflect my listening habits, and I find that taking control of that (the dreaded music management) has really made my music devices and music usage that much more dear to me.
From time to time that means that I have to go in and play an album through the genre grouping rather than the album grouping, but I’m a stickler like that.
Speaking of which, I need to reclassify some recent purchases.
[originally posted on tumblr]
#game music #game music review #original soundtrack #game ost #music maven
