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Old May 8, 2016, 01:21 PM
GoldfishX GoldfishX is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DragoonEnRegalia View Post
Re: Soundtrack Central/RPGFan/VGMO being enemies to game music (discussion), I feel that, whether they're awful or not, most of the people I've seen discussing game music in detail elsewhere don't show signs of concentrated ignorance, dismissal, and circlejerking. Actually there's not enough discussion of older music, especially of the Roland/Yamaha/&c. sound module variety, to begin with. These sites haven't made too big an impact on discussions after so many years, instead appealing more to industry musicians and enthusiasts who are often skeptical enough to avoid taking authors' canon(s) for granted, being curious and skeptical enough to listen to game music themselves. I agree with most of the observations above, of course. Buyer's-guide reviews of game music albums have led to multiple, less than historical canons forming and potentially misdirecting listeners from escaping their comfort zones. They're almost worthless in an age where it's getting easier to listen to game music whether you own it or not, and I don't feel reviewers are doing a good job either of disclaiming their biases (with arguments for them) or succinctly describing the music without aping Pitchfork. VGMO's interviews and liner note translations (an area where Shmuplations could rival them) are the site's saving grace, I've concluded after trying my hand at writing reviews (back in the SEMO era) before concluding I'd do better writing opinionated, history-focused feature articles or concert digests.
As crudely written as some of the STC reviews are for early Falcom albums, one must remember they were written in a time period where little information was available about the albums (and frankly, most game music) and most of the albums themselves were long OOP, which required extensive resources to own. For people like myself, these reviews are probably the foundation for discovering the Falcom juggernaut of music, unless you were lucky enough to own a Turbo Grafx CD/Duo. At the very least, they raised awareness of staples like the Perfect Collections and Symphony albums.

But yes, I stopped writing VGM reviews when it became apparent that spreading the music had become easier. To me, there was value in informing consumers which albums to spend their hard earned money on and which ones to avoid (especially when you're talking prices of Japanese CD's and especially long OOP ones). It was a waste of everyone's time to elaborate on which albums one should download and listen to first. At the risk of sounding elitist, there was a certain magic in hunting down an album that gave a special boost to the underlying music (especially to a retro game music fan with classic Falcom melodies). Throw that same music into a readily available download or Youtube video and I feel it loses a bit of meaning.

(also, this is not to crap on current reviewers, but just my personal anecdote)
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