Thursday, March 18, 2010

Jay's Playlist: Retro Remix Revue

Welcome to my playlist, where I discuss the music which is currently entertaining me. Below you will find a video, press play to begin the song and then read my feelings on the album.

Today's album is Retro Remix Revue:

Retro Remix Revue consists of two audio engineers who remix classic video game music while keeping the original sounds as much as possible. I love new arrangements of video game music, especially if they are orchestral/piano/guitars, but typically I stay away from "remix" version as most of the time "remixing" is another way of saying "let's add heavy beats and random techno noises and occasionally throw the in original theme". I've heard remixes of songs where the artists literally played the original theme for 15 seconds and spent the other 4 minutes doing their own thing with no relation to the source material. Retro Remix Revue is not one of those remix albums.


Retro Remix Revue keeps the original tone of the piece as much as possible and uses better (yet similar) instruments in each of the remixes. Once the theme is played the main instrument will usually begin an extended solo which gives the remixes more of a "live band" feel to them. Essentially these remixes are the original songs being performed on higher class instruments at a jazz club.


Hearing these tunes played again after almost 2 decades reminds me of how much game music has progressed technologically, yet how effective and simple game music was in the early 90's. Even with the updated instruments, the themes still resonate as simply as they did when they were created by computers that were "dumber" than the computers found in today's watches or coffee makers.

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