I love video game music, especially Nintendo music. As far back as I can remember, my passion for games has always been matched by a passion for the music accompanying them. Rather than being something I merely listen to when I have nothing else to enjoy, or only listening when playing a game (ie listening to the music in its 'natural state'), gaming music has, over time, become my primary choice for listening satisfaction. Although I was never a musician (taking violin lessons as a kid doesn't count), I always felt strongly attached to video game music, especially for games that I am passionate about.
(I will say that I truly believe the music is much more enjoyable when listened to in the context of the game itself. As a result, I usually only listen to game soundtracks outside that context ONLY after having played and familiarized myself with the game).
The beginningAs a kid in the 80s, I had too much fun using an audio cassette recorder to just go around and record whatever the heck I wanted. One of my earliest memories of capturing game music to call my own was placing the tape recorder next to the TV speakers and recording the music for the NES Dr. Mario. That game had a very catchy beat for both
Chill and Fever.
Not exactly the one I had, but you get the idea.With the next wave of Nintendo consoles following the NES, at some point I was able to upgrade my sound system to a nice little stereo system, which incredibly had TWO cassette decks, one of which allowed recording! In addition, this stereo system had audio inputs, so I found a way to put those Nintendo A/V cables to good use, and started recording my own game soundtrack cassettes. The quality wasn't terribly great, but that mattered not. I remember riding the bus home from school, with a walkman in my backpack, completely relaxed by the soothing
Koopa Troopa Beach from the SNES Super Mario Kart. Some other games I fondly remember recording the music in this fashion were Kirby 64 and The New Tetris (N64), though I have no idea where those tapes are now.
And even if I didn't record all the music I wanted to, how can I forget the many times I would just go to the sound test menu of games like Super Castlevania IV and just savor the music? This was especially true for Donkey Kong Country; it had a soundtrack like no other Nintendo game I had played up to that point. Listening to the
underwater stage music while doing stuff around the house was amazing, it was completely soothing and otherworldly, and it was this game that Nintendo chose to begin a new era of official game music soundtracks... through the Super Power Supplies Catalog.
This site has a great archive of all the catalogsThe Nintendo Power soundtracks
Unfortunately this is not mine. Where did I put my cassette at??At that time I was studying the visual arts in high school and, at the same time, being exposed to the merit of music as an art form. I remember my desire to take the DKC soundtrack to school so that non-gamers could listen and appreciate the advances being made in game music: it was becoming a deeper, richer, and a more complex listening experience. (It was common in many art classes to listen to some kind of classical music or something inspirational). Such was the power of the Super Nintendo audio CPU!
With the introduction of DK Jamz, I found myself saving as much of my spare change as I could; even though most of my cash was allocated for games in general, I now had the goal of getting the soundtracks offered through the Catalog! Long-time Nintendo Power subscribers should remember the catalogs; you could use Super Power Stamps to get discounts on the stuff they offered! DK Jamz would get very many repeat listens in my room:
Life in the Mines (always brings a tear to my eye) , the now classic Jungle Theme, and several others. The DKC2 soundtrack followed soon after, and I remember my great desire for Nintendo to publish a Yoshi's Island soundtrack. In fact, there have been many games since that time that would ultimately never get an official soundtrack, but I'll get to that later.
Eventually our family was able to afford a CD player, and with that I was ecstatic that I could now listen to Nintendo music in digital, 'crystal-clear' quality. Almost as amazing as Crystal Pepsi. One of the first CDs I bought was 'Play it Loud vol. 1' (1996). Finally, some Yoshi's Island music (other SNES games on there are F-Zero, A Link to the Past, and Star Fox)! But the selection per game is pretty small. In fact, there are very few memorable tracks on this CD, and they never even released the promised 'vol. 2' that I had been hoping for. Eventually, the N64 came along, and with that, I would amass a large N64 soundtrack CD library. Rareware, how I loved thee!
My NP Catalog CDs
There were even these two specially shaped CDs!There were also rare instances where Nintendo Power gave away free CDs, the most memorable being the 'Super Smash Bros. Melee: Smashing Live' orchestra recording performed in Japan. This is still one of my favorite albums of all time. I think my Wave Race Blue Storm and Twilight Princess CDs fall into this 'NP freebie' category as well. The Twilight Princess CD is one of the biggest let-downs, as it only contains a tiny number of tracks from the game.
Buying import CDsAt some point I began to realize how far behind the U.S. was, compared to Japan, in making game music readily available to the masses. Game music has not reached the point of being popular enough that you can just walk down to the store and buy it. The scene has improved slightly over time, but I still think there's a lot more that could be done, and a lot of catching up to do before game music becomes as mainstream as any other form of music. But I digress. In any case, I found myself looking for music CDs already available in Japan for some of my favorite games! The down side to this is the relatively high cost of buying import CDs. One favorite in this collection is the Metroid Prime/ Metroid Fusion combo. Phendrana Drifts is such a beautiful song; every time I listen to it, I clearly remember the first time I gazed upon the serene white scenery surrounding Samus, amazed at what Retro Studios managed to pull off and completely immerse me in this beautiful yet dangerous world.
My import CDsAnother downside to this period of my game music collectathon came about when I went to sites like ebay in an effort to save money, and ended up getting bootleg copies, though I was not aware of it until later. I ended up getting pirated copies of Final Fantasy IV, VI, and Chrono Trigger OST's (Original Soundtracks), and once I realized what had happened, suffice it to say I was... not happy. I should have been able to discern these upon closer inspection, not just from the quality in packaging but also how the music sounded. Lesson learned.
I couldn't tell these were bootlegs when I first got them...Other music formatsThere's no way I can talk about my favorite game music without bringing up
OC Remix, a site I was initially turned off to years ago due to the fact most of their remixes take great liberty with the source material and greatly expand upon the basic melodies. But once I discovered the enormous musical talent that flourishes on that site, I was listening to hundreds of songs from my favorite games, all of them re-arranged in a multitude of different ways. I might have to list out some of my favorites at a later point, maybe even a top 10, but songs like
Chekan Winter (DKC), 'Awakened Fears of the Gerudo' (Ocarina of Time), 'Crystalline Caverns' (Yoshi's Island), are a few favorites. I started out creating a variety of OC Remix CDs before I had the luxury of simply importing them to my mp3 player. Just recently I've been listening a lot to the albums 'Harmony of a Hunter' (Metroid arrangements) and 'Threshold of a Dream' (Link's Awakening arrangements).
When official soundtracks become available for purchase, I will purchase them, even as downloadable purchases. Case in point: All the BIT.TRIP games (at
cdbaby.com), Dark Void Zero (DSiWare). But when they're not available, I take solace in the fact that a lot of music nowadays gets ripped and available for download if you know where to look.
As I mentioned before, there a lot of games I would like to purchase OSTs for if they were available. When that is not an option, I come to the last resort of finding the music to download online, which is not too hard to find, amazingly enough. A lot of sites out there rip the music and place it out there for your downloading pleasure. It's not the ideal method of acquiring the music (the sound quality can suffer a bit depending on where you get it from), but many times there are no other options (I think there's an option to convert youtube sound to mp3s as well?). I remember back when the internet was still new to me, Rareware actually posted music track downloads on their site for both Jet Force Gemini and Conker's Bad Fur Day. Those games have excellent soundtracks.
Oh, and I did purchase the CD 'The One-Ups vol. 1', one of the first game music cover bands I really listened to. This jazzy album is very pleasant!
Bonus content!To this day, I'm happy to see the continuing trend of packing in game soundtracks when you buy a game. One of the earliest games I remember that did this was Killer Instinct for the SNES, which came with Killer Cuts, featuring arranged tracks based on characters' theme songs as well as stages (the CD opens up with Orchid's
K.I. Feeling, awesome stuff).

Super Mario All-Stars for Wii came with a Mario sampler CD, BIT.TRIP Complete came with a soundtrack sampler CD and included music from each game in the series, while Skyward Sword includes the 25th anniversary concert CD. Another notable game with a great pack-in was the Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin pre-order bundle commemorating the series' 20th anniversary (including the CD with music from various Castlevania games).
Continuing to listen every day..The beautiful thing is having all this music in one place, which is now more convenient than ever with portable mp3 players, ipods, 3DS'es, and such. My ipod is game music heaven, and I have to mention the
Radio Trivia podcast as well, a place to listen to music from Nintendo systems where you try to guess the game while enjoying the music (or not enjoying it, depending if particularly bad music was selected).
Oh, and check out our
game music thread here at NW for more sweet music selections!
-Eric LopezURL to share (right click and copy)