Top 3 Sites For Video Game Soundtracks
Most people overlook the power of video game soundtracks. Although movie scores are often well celebrated, a lot of the video game soundtracks are underrated.
However, once you take a good look around, it’s hard to go back. There are majestical pieces for every genre, whether you’re a fan of rap, rock, or symphonical orchestras. There’s a lot of musical talent in the gaming industry, and a big part of it is lost on the audiences.
Today, we’ll have a look at the most prominent sites of the video game soundtrack scene, sites where music gets created, appreciated and remembranced.
Here they are, in no particular order.
OverClocked ReMix – Creativity
OverClocked ReMix is not just an archive of video game soundtracks, it’s a scene of musical arrangements. The people at OCRM look to video game music as an art form, and put themselves towards preserving, interpretating and – most of all – participating.
The members of their scene recompose famous – and obscure – video game scores, and release them on the internet. Copyright still belongs to ‘the rightful owners’, but the art is theirs.
In their passion, they’ve rearranged complete soundtracks of video games, including Final Fantasy IV: Echoes of Betrayal, Light of Redemption, which we reviewed some time ago. Over 1700 remixes can be found on the site these days, and more get added everyday.
If you enjoy Overclocked ReMix, you should also check out its bastard nephew, OverLooked ReMix. Where OCRM is dedicated to professional arrangements, with symphonical precission, OLRM’s is humouristic – ridiculous interpretations of video game music, that’s what it’s all about.
Music 4 Games – News
If OverClocked ReMix is the creative scene, Music 4 Games is the professional scene. This is where you’ll find the articles, interviews and reviews.
Music 4 Games goes along with the time, and focuses on current-day gaming music. On the site, you’ll find extensive reviews of the respective sounds of new Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 games. Although you can play a track or two of most games’ soundtracks, it’s a site you go to for intellectual, rather than listening purposes.
VGMusic – Authenticity
Although the former sites both take a unique and highly appreciable position on video gaming music, VGMusic is the most authentic scene without doubt, simply offering the original soundtracks. Over 28,000 of them.
The site went along with the procedings of time, save some aspects. They’ve adopted current-gen consoles like the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, but the site’s lay-out is still in the 90’s trend and they’ve remained faitfull to the MIDI format. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing is up to you to decide, but it’s certainly got its nostalgic charms.
With these three we close the list. There are plenty of others, like VGMix X, VGMdb and SquareSound, but the diversive three cover a pretty big part of the scene together.
Do you know any other sites to download free video game soundtracks? What do you think about the above ones? Let us know in the comments!
(By) Simon is a student and tech enthusiast from Belgium. On MakeUseOf, he's the primary gaming writer and eBook editor. Check Simon out @ http://meme.yahoo.com/slangen/
Hey, you guys missed Blue Laguna! http://bluelaguna.net
These are great, thanks.
yeah, i also use bluelaguna and other great site is galbadiahotel for the original recordings too:
http://gh.ffshrine.org/soundtracks.php?r=336
Oh my, thanks! I didn’t know about that one, haha!
Oh, my friend would love this site, he is a huge fan of video game music, so I am, sort of
Thanks for this. :]
I think I need to recommend a few more of the really classic game music scene pages
There as well some with relation to the Demo Scene as well as those grow out of the Game Musics
For first there is remix.kwed.org
There is too a related internet radio station called slayradio.org and SceneSat.com that play also some game-remixes too.
A very incredible good concert of game music was done last year by the classical radio symphonic orchestra Colone called Symphonic Shades.
This Year they will do again one at 11th and 12th September 2009 called Symphonic Fantasies it will be streamed on WDR4 live on the internet if the information(german language) on the WDR Radio website is correct ).
You forgot about remixSite. People can submit songs free of charge and can improve upon them with new versions. The site also supports lossless formats.