Tuesday, April 30, 2019

VGM Highlights - April 2019

The drawback of these posts is that they really remind me of how quickly time passes... But the good thing is more great VGM!

Let's start with a track from episode 17-8 "The Return of Dragon Patreon Ninja" of Rhythm & Pixels. The track in question is Sea Monk Boss from Alwa's Awakening. I hadn't heard of the game prior to this but this tune definitely got me interested, at least in the soundtrack. I have less interest in the retro 8-bit style gameplay, simply because I often suck at it. I love how this tune manages to be adventurous and ponderous at the same time. It has a driving back beat but the melody still has something solemn to it. It's beautiful and cool at the same time. Doesn't sound like a boss track to me, but a great track nonetheless.



Next up we have a track from Retro Reprise, which is sort of an off-shoot podcast from the Battle Bards. It's mainly hosted by one of the trio from the Battle Bards, but the other ones make occasional guest appearances. This podcast is of a bit of a shorter style, highlighting "retro" VGM , as opposed to the MMO VGM focus that the regular Battle Bards podcast has. The track in question comes from the "Shareware Show" episode and is the title theme from Halloween Harry, also known as or maybe better known as Alien Carnage. This track starts out pretty heavy, with another driving beat, but quickly turns into a happy little jingle. It really tells you that it's a gritty and shitty world that awaits you, but you're going to have fun in it.



Then we're going to a two-fer from Sound of Play. First up a track from the episode 130, with a focus on hip hop in VGM. Even though I don't normally listen much to hip hop I still quite enjoy it and this episode had so many good tracks it was difficult to pick just one. If you're into that kind of music I definitely recommend checking the entire episode out. The track I chose in the end was Tha Shiznit by Snoop Dogg from Rock Band. I couldn't find the Rock Band remix version of this (that sounded good), but the original is just as good (skip to 0:35 to get to the music below).


The second track is from episode 132 and is called The Device Has Been Modified from the game Portal. Just like everyone else on the planet I've heard the famous outro to Portal, but then I never gave the rest of the soundtrack much thought. The Device Has Been Modified is sung by the same antagonist, but is otherwise less of a guitar sing-a-long-song and more electronic in style.



Finally I am going to give another episode recommendation. Episode C1E43 from Nerd Noise Radio has a highlight of Commodore 64 tracks. The music is great, albeit not easy on the ears if you're listening through headphones or generally not used to the rather jarring Commodore noises. This episode was extra fun for me though since it was hosted by Henrik Andersson, a fellow Swede who also runs his own podcast "Commoflage (which I must admit I haven't checked out yet). Because of this there is some Swedish thrown into the episode, and that doesn't happen often. Overall a fun listen!

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