Thanks a lot to everyone for making the 10th Jukebox such a success! The double-plus-good winner last time,Mark Steward selected a remix of the Bionic Commando theme, so in the spirit of the last Jukebox - and continuity - I've selected Capcom's own remix of the song from Bionic Commando: Rearmed to lead things off.
Again, thanks so much folks!
Also, to any newcomers, make sure you check the submission guidelines listed after the jump.
For all you newcomers, here's how it is. Even though I've done a Meet the Mob, there is something important you should know about me.For some reason, over the years, my mind has acted as a sort of a Roledex for great videogame ditties. (For all you youngsters out there, a Rolodex is an archaic device that people used to keep important contact information on. I guess it's sort of like an abacus at this point.)
Because of this, every Monday I will be posting fifteen well-known and not-so-well-known video game songs.
There's a catch however; I will not be providing all of the songs; I'll provide only the remainder of the total fifteen. To clarify, most will be suggested - hopefully songs I've never heard - and hopefully only a few will be chosen by me.
Ultimately, I would like enough suggestions to have it so that five, or even one song is donated by myself, thus truly making it the Community Jukebox.
It's important to note that all submissions will be credited to the community members who provided them.
The only guidelines are that any song chosen must be from a non-music game, or from a music game with original content. Licensed songs are also OK, but they must be from something other than a music game.
This means that Fallout and Grand Theft Auto songs are fair game, whereas Guitar Hero and Rock Band songs aren't. If licensed songs become too prolific, however, I may stop taking them as submissions.
Also, to note, I will try my hardest to find the original names of every song, yours or mine, but if I can't, I will give it a name, and mark it with an asterisk. In addition, all songs are set to open in a new tab, so feel free to click away and have them play in the background as you surf Bitmob or get some work done.
Songs appear in no particular order whatsoever, save that community submissions will be segmented from my choices and shown last.
Each week, I will also be choosing my favorite submission, The Double-Plus Good Pick of the Week. The winner will receive exactly nothing, except being last song with this beside their entry: ++good.
As a small guideline, if you'd like to win the The Double-Plus Good Pick of the Week, try to pick something obscure or, at the very least, recent. We all know titles like Mega Man and Final Fantasy had great music in the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, and I will be featuring songs like these every week (that's my bread and butter).
But, in the interest of keeping the Jukebox new and surprising, if you can come up with a great song that I've forgotten, or, better yet, never heard, you'll have a leg up on the competition. Just keep in mind what I said at the top, and if you've read my Meet the Mob, the size of my game case.
Either way, feel free to submit whatever you like. Please. I can't reinforce enough that all submissions are welcome.
As an added bonus, I will also try to add an immediate comment about the awesomeness of the winner commenter's song and why everyone else should pay special attention to it. This will be an in-joke for those who keep up.
Most importantly, since I hope to keep doing this for awhile, only one submission response per person per post. That way I'll have less to parse, and you folks will be able to submit for an extended period of time. If you sumbit multiple requests, I will not listen to any of them.
Again, only one submission response per person per post.
Anyway, onto the show.
There are two ways to listen:
Method 1: Pick and Choose
1. Bionic Commando Rearmed - Main Theme Remix
2. Mega Man X - Storm Eagle Theme
3. Okami - The Journey Continues
4. Suikoden - Beautiful Golden City
5. Shadowgate 64 - Lakmir, The Timless
6. Toy Commander - Mona Lisa Smile
Community Jukebox
8. Xenogears – Flight suggested by Brian Shirk
9. Otogi: Myth of Demons – Main Theme suggested by Lance Darnell
10. Fifa 2008 – Pogo by Digitalism suggested by Aaron Rivers
11. Gunstar Heroes – Boss Theme 1* suggested by Alex R. Cronk-Young
12. Duck Tales – The Moon* suggested by Travis McReynolds
13. The Addams Family – The Portrait Gallery* suggested by Jasmine Maleficent Rea
14. Batman – Streets of Desolation* suggested by Brian Petro-Roy
15. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night – Wood Carving Partita suggested by Jason Wilson++good
Method 2: Let It Ride (click here to listen in a separate window)
~James D., read at The Sophist, heard at, Sophist Radio
P.S. Bring on the accusations of favoritism!
Comments (15)
For those of you who don't know precisely what a harpsichord is, it is a string instrument that was the precursor to the piano. It came to prominent use in the Baroque period. Unlike the piano, with which keys can be pressed with different degrees of intensity to vary the volume using internal hammers that act as analogues for the key strikes, the strings inside the unit were plucked by jacks which pumped upwards and plucked the strings.
This lack of volume preference makes harpsichord centered pieces have a much more driving sound that was more en vogue during the Baroque period. A classic example is Pachabel's Canon in D Major.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go-WEqWvOd4
And one of my favorite classical jams, Brandenburg Concerto No. 5.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49IOKnhX0Sk
Yamane's masterful soundtrack to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night makes great use of this instrument, particularly in Jason's selection. The song from CSotN's library is definitive with regard to the harpsichord's characteristic sound.
It's also demonstrative of how games can benefit from high production audio, electronic or traditional (CSotN's soundtrack features sterling examples of both).
Thanks a lot Jason for reminding me of this tune, and you win, despite how much flak I might get!
Okay, so here's my pick for this week:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYY_zHfi7cg
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=bob+omb+battlefield+music&www;_google_domain=www.google.com&hl;=en&client;=firefox-a&emb;=0&aq;=1sx&oq;=BobOmb+#
My pick this week: Troupe Gramarye from Apollo Justice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP3FMYYb12Q
uncle Fester's Quest: Overworld Theme
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW8byCf_Crw
PS: The asterisk means that either the song doesn't have a proper title or one could not be found. This one will get one as well.
Mine for this week is from an epic critical failure from the PS1 era- Courier Crisis. The game may have been kinda shitty, but the music was gutter punk awesome with a single soul track mixed in for confusion's sake. I'll stick to the punk for this week's submission.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn_EbxXr7VY
Flashback: The Quest for Identity (SNES) - Conrad's Memories
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnydIlwFFC4
Walnuts! Peanuts! Pineapple smells! Grapes, melons, oranges and coconut shells!
Non piu andrai farfallone amoroso from the Marriage of Figaro by Mozart
from Grand Theft Auto 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3BthgYwbIU