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High Scores: A History of Video Games Music

Started by Colin Sanction, March 03, 2019, 12:01:20 PM

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Episode 1 - Video game music has come a long way since the bleeps and bloops of Pong. Games like Assassin's Creed and Red Dead Redemption 2 now come with dense, cinematic scores that stretch over 50 or 60 hours of playing time. Mark Savage speaks to some of the industry's leading composers, including Yoko Shimomura (Street Fighter II), Grant Kirkhope (Goldeneye) and Bafta-winner Jessica Curry (Everybody's Gone To The Rapture) and finds out how games companies threw a lifeline to Europe's orchestras when they started commissioning new works.

He'll also find out how Michael Jackson and David Bowie ended up as video game characters; and why bands like Depeche Mode and Katy Perry have re-recorded their hits in gibberish for the hit game The Sims. Recorded in Japan, the US and UK, the programme also features observations from gaming expert Charlie Brooker, who chooses his favourite video game music in a separate 6 Music show on 3 March.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002t4b

Episode 2 - Could you write music for a film if no-one had shown you the script? That's the problem games composers face every day. They're scoring scenes where the player has free will, and the music only works if it reflects their choices. So how do you do it? Mark Savage takes a deep dive into game music, with composers The Flight (Assassin's Creed, Horizon: Zero Dawn) and Winifred Phillips (God Of War, Little Big Planet) stripping down their soundtracks to reveal how they work.

Radio 3's Tom Service drops in to explain how game music is full of psychological cues; while Ludomusicologist Tim Summers explains the importance of "death music". Wrapping up the series, art-rock band 65 Days of Static demonstrate how they created an "infinite soundtrack" for the sci-fi game No Man's Sky, which changes every time it's played.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00034zw

Noonling

Thanks for the link, this sounds great. There are so many good scores these days for video games.

Check out Sound of Play, one of the shows under the Cane and Rinse umbrella. It's a weekly gaming music show plus plenty of discussion. They have themed shows pretty often so worth flicking through.

Twed

Question for anybody who has listened to this: is it

1) An enthusiast/expert detailing the topic in an interesting way
or
2) The BBC investigating the exciting world of video game music by a curious dabbler like they're visitors from another planet trying to understand Earth culture?