Have you ever noticed that people have a tendency to think of music that was made for a game as less than "legitimate" music?

Even older titles like many of Square's games had entire orchestras doing their soundtracks (Chrono Cross' title theme Scars of Time still gives me goosebumps!) Nowadays, it's quite normal to get a huge music venue for a big-name title. Bethesda got a choir of 300 people to do the Song of the Dragonborn, the game's title theme. (Rawr to the other people who can sing that!)

An old, forgotten 4-CD prerendered Microsoft rail shooter called Deadly Tide was a magnum opus of music, done by their own Microsoft Orchestra. (That was Windows 95 era!) Look up its music, it's quite stunning. The game wasn't bad either, if you like rail shooters. Told quite a story.

Personally I don't understand why people refuse to accept gaming as a legitimate artistic medium, but that's another topic. (It's also something that's unlikely to change as long as people view games as "a kid thing.") The fact is that game music is often just as impressive and well-written as stuff you hear in movies. And frankly, it's intended for basically the same purpose. It accompanies a story, it changes dynamically to suit the situation, and it is performed by a hell of a lot more than just some tiny synthesizer. Because of the dynamic nature of a game, I believe the music has even more potential for impact than it does in a movie - I still remember the iMUSE dynamic soundtrack system that LucasArts used to make the original X-Wing so pulse-pounding. And frankly, X-Wing's music system sounded pretty awful. But the soundtrack's dynamic nature made it one of my favorite parts of the game - the music reacted to everything I did and everything that happened around me. It has a way of sucking one in quite effectively. I was one hell of an X-wing jockey.

I would love to "catch" someone who doesn't respect game music enjoying a track that they didn't realize came from a game. If nothing else it might open their eyes a bit to the music so many people seem to be missing. It's not an "I told you so" sort of thing, it's more of a "Come enjoy these with me!"

And while I'm here, I wanted to share the gaming music I literally JUST discovered... using the one instrument I can actually play. The VOICE!

http://www.youtube.com/user/SmoothMcGroove