If you’ve spent any amount of time around the site at all lately, you may have noticed the steady stream of (fucking sweet) 8 and 16 bit music playing through the LIVE broadcast off to the side… or perhaps you’re one of the many ustream channel surfers that have stumbled across my stream while channel surfing and thought to yourself, “WTF is this shit,” and then felt compelled to ask that very question in the ustream chat room. Well, this post is specifically designed to try and explain precisely what (and why) the fuck this shit is all about.
Average Ustream User: This both confuses and enrages me.
Let’s start out with WHAT: It’s Video Game Music (VGM). No more. No less. I realize that the general idea of the site is to watch me struggle to beat a shitload of games, but the unfortunate reality is that, at this point in time, I’m still working on getting this whole freak show up and running (smoothly) while trying to hold down a (soul crushing) fulltime job. So, until that glorious day arrives when I can live out my life’s dream of getting paid to play video games all day long (which, believe me, I’m doing all that is within my power to see to fruition) you’re just going to have to settle for the VGM playlist most of the time.
Currently, I have NES, Famicom, SNES, some Sonic the Hedgehog tracks, and Commodore 64 tracks playing through foobar2000, with the necessary plugins needed to play the game music files. As of this post, none of what you hear is from an mp3 file. These are the original game music files being played through an emulator in the form of a foobar2000 plugin. That’s not to say that I’m anti-mp3 or somehow trying to argue that these files are a more “pure” form of the music. Far from it. It was just more convenient to download the original music files due to their relatively small file size when compared to mp3’s.
The playlist is still very much a work in progress. More astute listeners may have noticed that every game title on this list falls somewhere between the letters “A” and “F” (except for Metroid & Super Metroid which were added by request recently). For some reason when I started adding songs to this thing I figured I would just start from “A” and work my way down… not knowing just how ridiculously long it would take me to get through even ONE fucking letter! One reason for this is the sheer amount of tracks I have to filter through. Each game file *usually* contains every single audio sample in the game, including sound effects and brief musical interludes. On top of this, I’m forced to listen to each and every track to see if it becomes too repetitive after a few seconds. This is because by using the original game audio files, I’m forced to choose a particular length of time for each track to play, otherwise most tracks would just play on indefinitely. Right now, I’ve got the NES/Famicom track length set to 1:30, so each track has to be at least somewhat listenable for 1:30. I’ll get into the playlist decision making process a bit more later on. Also, after I finish this, I plan on getting my ass in gear and at least adding all the standard classics one would expect before picking up from “F” again. It’s just gonna take too long to get to the “M’s” and this playlist is in DIRE need of some goddamn Mega Man.
Now for the somewhat more complex question… WHY: Well… dammit, why NOT?! I look at it this way: I’ve created the channel… I have the ability to broadcast while working on other things… why not have something streaming live as often as possible? The question then becomes “Why video game music and sound effects all the time?” Well, to be perfectly honest, it’s out of sheer selfishness. I fucking love listening to video game music… like, all the time… especially old 8 bit tracks (particularly anything by Konami at the moment) and my corporate masters have seen fit to afford me the luxury of listening to music while I work. I had searched around for a while, looking for a good internet station that would play only original retro game tracks, but never really found one I liked. Knowing that if I wanted anything done right, I’d have to do it myself, I set to slapping this playlist together. So yeah, that 1 listener that is constantly viewing my channel… that’s me. Being an egomaniac isn’t so bad, once you come to accept it. :D
So having shed some light on why I continuously stream and why I continuously stream video game music, the only question left to cover is why continuously stream this video game music? The simple answer is, again, personal preference. In general, every track on the playlist has (in my humble opinion) fulfilled 1 or more of the following requirements:
- An original classic game song, known well enough to spark instant feelings of nostalgia, that is not too repetitive.
- An original catchy song from a rare or under appreciated game that is not too repeptitive.
- A surreal or hypnotic audio interlude that, if repetitive, does not last too long.
Basically, if a song is an original and not too repeptitive, I’ll give it a day in court. Also, I keep a variety of game sound effects on the playlist, as I like the little bit of randomness they add in between songs. Yes, I know sometimes the shuffle play mode will go nuts and play like, 10 of them in a row. Just do what I do and think of it as glitches in the Matrix, further proving that the reality we live in is complete bullshit.
It's like playing a game inside a game... whoa...
Well… hopefully all this blather has somewhat conveyed my thoughts on the current state of the playlist. If not, or if you have any questions, comments, suggestions, please, for the love of god, leave a comment below, or hit me up in the chat room sometime! Over and out, for now. You stay classic, readers…
Comments
will you upload the playlist somewhee or coud you list a vew songs cauz they are foaaking awesome ^^