Your Game Music is Bland and You Should Feel Bad

[Britisheagle]

i think Bioshock uses music to good effect, especially Infinite. Must agree about Saints Row 3, the very first time my character started singing along, I literally could not stop laughing and the final mission with Bonnie Tyler playing was incredible too.

Super Meat Boy is another good example of using music well, however I don't know if that is classed as a AAA game.

 

[zanzarra]

Umm... have to disagree with Yahtzee here.
For example, I could hum 3 to 4 Jeremy Soule tracks from different games without even pausing to remember - and that even if you count all Elder Scrolls themes as a single entry.

 

[Drefanator]

3 words. Ni No Kuni.

The main theme, over world theme, battle theme. All magical and amazing. Its one of the few games that i've played in years where i just sat and listened to the music over and over.

 

[piinyouri]

As a musician and composer, I have to say: I don't think a theme song being "humable" is a very good metric when determining how effective a soundtrack is. By all definition, a soundtrack's job is to compliment, not overburden. In the retro days of memorable, catchy tunes, game soundtracks were the most prominent sound effect - nowadays, aural atmosphere is achieved by so many disciplines that the soundtrack's prominence would act against it.

Orchestrations have produced many memorable game soundtracks, don't get me wrong. I think Halo Reach's is actually the best Halo soundtrack, Super Mario Galaxy has twice provided exhilarating scores, and games like Asura's Wrath and Rayman Origins have provided a uniqueness in full orchestral scores quite unlike their peers.

Not every game needs an orchestral score, this much is true. And simpler is often better, this too is true. But orchestral soundtracks have provided some of the best music in videogames, and I don't think I'm alone in thinking that.

Durn, beat me to it.

Just because the orchestral compositions aren't 'hum-along' catchy doesn't mean they aren't fulfilling their duty as a score.

That said, there's room for both. It's just that we've so much of one style for so long we're all fairly sick of it.
And I absolutely hate Two Steps From Hell.
Just....throwin' it out there.

 

[duck-man]

The last thing that stuck out for me was just after the Borderlands 2 credits. I skipped them but 'How you like me now' kept playing. It felt like I was playing the opening cutscene.

 

[tahrey]

Quick (though it turns out, not that short), not-even-skimmed response to original assertation:

Yep, I agree wholeheartedly.

Now, that doesn't automatically mean that all John Williams-esque orchestral game soundtrack music is inherently crap and unmemorable... but there does come a point where it all starts to merge together into one big sticky lump.

I can barely tell the difference between the themes from the different Star Wars prequels for heaven's sake, and wouldn't be able to spot the Avatar overture even from point-blank range. I've listened through to a three box set of the Halo soundtracks and still haven't a hope of being able to tell which one a particular piece was from. Or that it was from Halo at all. Or a videogame rather than some random film.
OTOH there are plenty that do stand out, though mainly in films rather than games (earlier Williams stuff, and Joe Hisaishi are good examples of the genre being used for effect, but unique and interesting composition still showing through).

Whereas I can identify a lot more older BGM pretty easily. When all you've got to work with is three pure tones, a noise channel and whatever glitch effects you can discover - or maybe a 6-voice FM synth, or 8-voice 8-bit sample tracker, both of which have to be shared with the SFX - the focus seems to end up more on the compositional side in order to both differentiate your tunes from everyone else's (who will largely be using the same "instruments", or at least sharing some common samples from the devkit because making new ones that don't sound like crap is expensive and difficult), and to actually make them worth listening to in the first place despite exhibiting otherwise unattractive timbres. Bizarrely, the opening of Streets of Rage on the Game Gear is still one of the more evocative bits of intro music, to my ear. You could probably make it better by using an actual flute and pop-orchestra back up to perform the same notes, but the soul of it is already there coming through the PSG.

And, well ... Monkey Island 1+2. The jury's out on whether the General MIDI or the CDDA version is better.

However there is also the third way - less cod-orchestral pre-recorded compositions. There's a lot of those which have their own character, and really help with the "feel" and identity of a game title. Gran Turismo did this well, for all its faults both musical and gameplay-wise... how many other games have a semi orchestral soft rockin' guitar solo intro with an actually identifiable leitmotif that continues down the series, but then switch to overbearing Smooth Jazz for the menus (... yet have pretty generic whoever's-in-the-charts licensed music and cheap-rate original compositions for the actual driving sections)? The SSX and even GTA series have soundtrack CD worthy selections of licensed and original work across many genres which somehow still manage, through supra-generic thematic content, to tie together a subliminal image of what the game's about. Every Final Fantasy has its own attractive musical identity despite spanning not only more than a dozen installments, but every major hardware generation since the 80s. And then we have the 22khz, mono, ADPCM daddy of the lot, the Command and Conquer series, where playing in silence just wasn't the same, and when you hear a bit of the music, having played the game at all, you know exactly where it's from.

But still enough people seem to think "I know what will make our game/movie seem more epic and timeless: SWELLING STRINGS, SOME TIMPANIS AND A HORN SECTION! Get me the number for the London Philharmonic, stat!"... but don't bother actually making something you can then find yourself humming on the way to work.
/facepalm

(post second-proofread self-commentary edit: wow, I don't know what was in that last cup of tea, but I'm going for another one as I've some difficult brainwork to do this afternoon and that level of (even if false) erudity will come in very useful)

 

[Whispering Death]

Another good example of excellent music in modern-day games; Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The soundtrack is so good it's being licenses for AAA movie "After Earth"

http://www.gamerevolution.com/news/deus-ex-track-used-in-after-earth-will-smiths-fatherson-scifi-movie-18079

 

[StashAugustine]

I don't think anyone's mentioned this yet: 80s song used to accompany a big moment in the game?

Turn up the radio!

Also, although themes are less "hummable" they're still pretty memorable. I couldn't hum "Icarus" from Deus Ex or "Vigil" from Mass Effect but they're both really good pieces.

 

[takfar]

I mostly agree with the article, and my favorite songs are mostly the ones from 8 bit or 16 bit games (Chrono Trigger is my favorite soundtrack ever). That said, I see three reasons to explain how un-memorable most soundtracks are these days:

1) Action: There's much more stuff going on than there used to be in the past. Back in the 8/16bit days, we had barebones graphics and sound, and music was much more prominent, especially in the slower-paced games. I recall reading from a videogame music composer that when they were making turn-based RPGs, they had to use more active, striking, music to keep the players engaged, whereas with more action-oriented games, it can take a seat back and let the game action itself set the tempo for the player. It makes sense.

2) Repetition: We (well, I, at least) tend to spend a lot less time with individual games nowadays. It was harder to have access to games, and back when we were "analog", we consumed media at a much slower pace. We used to play games for weeks, repeat single levels for hours upon hours upon hours until we were able to advance. I have the Rolling Thunder (NES) firmly ingrained in my mind because of that. And who doesn't remember the Top Gear (NES) iconic tunes? I spent months playing around with "build" for Duke Nukem 3D, playing and replaying levels, and I can hum all songs from the game's first episode effortlessly. The town music from the first Diablo is part of my psyche at this time.

3) Intention: It's not in most of the current developers' intentions to make a strong, identifiable melody/harmony, they simply treat the soundtrack as background noise intended to subliminarly increase or release player tension, so they're not really trying to make great songs, just psychological triggers.

That said, the modern soundtracks that I can remember best are basically songs I've heard over and over and over again continuously: soundtracks to grand strategy games, like Civilization or Total War (spent hundreds of hours on each, listening to the same songs). Some songs from Guild Wars (the only one mmorpg-ish game which I played for long hours, over 1000, in fact). And recently, the songs from Pushmo/Crashmo, the 3DS downloadable puzzle game, but that's a lot closer to traditional melody-crafting (I played them for a combined time of over 30 hours over the last month. Great little games).

Other than repetition, the other way to make a song memorable these days, I find, is to just include something that shakes up the aural landscape. A complete change of tone, or the inclusion of vocals on and otherwise instrumental only soundtrack. It works in TV/Movies: watch Collateral ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0369339/ ) and tell me the song segment in the middle of the movie isn't something to remember; and who else had goosebumps all over when they heard Johnny Cash in the first season finale for Terminator - Sarah Connor Chronicles (warning: spoilers in the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIIFQ42s_tM )? It works in videogames, too.

All that said, I do believe we have great composers in the current industry, Jeremy Soule being the most recognizable name, and Jeff van Dyck being another of my favorites.

 

[takfar]

I don't think anyone's mentioned this yet: 80s song used to accompany a big moment in the game?

Hah! That's exactly what I was describing in the Sarah Connor Chronicles link.

 

[fleischwolke]

Personal experience: Video games have some measurable impact on my musical taste, starting with Fallout's Inkspots ("Mayyyybeeeee....") and the ambient soundscapes of Fallout and Fallout 2. The later Fallout Games (Fallout 3 and New Vegas) introduced me to a lot of cool music as well, along with Bioshock. Without games, I would probably still listen to pop'nrock and not much else.

 

[RatherDashing89]

I'll admit it to you, simple peasant wearing short pants, [http://www.hrwiki.org/wiki/Rather_Dashing] that this song gets me infinitely more psyched than, say, Eye of the Tiger.

It's a guilty pleasure of mine as well. The main problem is that it plays on just about every menu screen--there's no alternate songs or playlist. Since it stands out more than, say, the menu music from Super Smash Bros, the amount of time you spend listening to it (in a fighting game, so a good percentage of your time is in menus) means it's very easy to get that song permanently embedded into your brain. The Marvel vs. Capcom song is even worse since it repeats the same line so much within the same song, and seems to be the only song that plays in the whole game.

 

[TheGrueHunter]

Here's a fantastic example of the music matching the scenario.


Months later I can still perfectly hear this tune in my head whenever I remember that scene.

 

[Norrdicus]

Months later I can still perfectly hear this tune in my head whenever I remember that scene.

Can't... contain... the quotes..... !!!

This isn't my fault.

 

[G-Force]

More people need to hear the absolutely bizarre choice in music present in Deadly Premonition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzvXBFwcyek

 

[Howling Din]

Okay, firstly, the song is called "Holding out for a Hero" not "I Need a Hero".
What the triple-A pimps need to do is spend some of their huge money on a composer of some renown, or better yet, one of some renown from a different country. Then give them a long, stretchy leash to stretch their creative muscles. They'll handle the rest. Ah but Triple-A is crippled from the get-go. When one mentality exerts strict control over everything, than nothing about the work can rise above that mentality's ability. And if said mentality consists of a group, like a board or a committee, then nothing about the work can possibly rise above mediocrity.

 

[duchaked]

the previous Halo games (i.e. Marty) had music that always stuck with me

in recent memory, Mass Effect 3's piano pieces hit me real hard. absolutely loved them

 

[oldtaku]

I will always remember the hotel level in SpecOps - the level and combat weren't that memorable on their own, but having Deep Purple's Hush blaring hollowly from the hotel speakers as the DJ taunts you, while you're fighting your way through the hotel, is the first thing I think of when I think of that game.

 

[thehorror2]

I have to agree with Yahtzee here; most modern games with orchestral backing don't have terribly memorable (or especially enjoyable) soundtracks. The only one that springs to mind is Modern Warfare 2, and that doesn't really count because they had HANS FRICKING ZIMMER compose for them. If you DO like orchestral stuff, I suggest hunting down the games Jesper Kyd did work for. (e.g. Assassin's Creed, Hitman 2, Freedom Fighters, etc.) He uses the standard instruments as a jumping-off point and adds craziness on top, and it's wonderful.

 

[Revolutionary]

I'm glad that he was specific about halo 4's soundtrack sucking..because the original score was fucking excellent. I know this song so damn well, I catch myself humming it all the time. I guess it helped that it was free Guitar Hero DLC.