Decline Decline of Mark Morgan?

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

If a game writer or composer is trying to write or compose like a novelist or a traditional musician, he does not understand his job. If a player is trying to rate the game writer or composer by the standards of world literature or music, he does not understand his medium. Both are being pedantic at the expenses of the medium.

 

[eric__s]

Speaking of plagiarism.

Spoiler

These two songs sound too damn similar, right. Both great, though.

Nah, Yuzo Koshiro's a pro who's been doing this for like 35 years. Anyone else and maybe, but with him, it's just a coincidence. People plagiarize him, not the other way around.

Guido Henkel did plagiarize a Thin Lizzy guitar solo though -


First 5 seconds or so are the guitar solo of Whiskey in the Jar.


At about 2:23.

The video game composer is like the guy who is doing jingles for the peanut butter commercial on tv. Just because he is not Mozart, it doesn’t mean that he is not providing a valuable service. His job is providing you with some background music when you go around killing fictional entities in your game. Be thankful because that is a luxury. It may not look like it because we are spoiled, but it is. Trying to be all smug and dismissive about it on internet forums because you are employing higher standards derived from other contexts and mediums is not only pedantic, but poorly thought because a game composer will probably be working on a tight deadline, restricted to the game theme, and subject to the whims of the project lead, etc., so it’s not an easy task by any means.

To some degree, yes, but most often this is the excuse people use for not being able to write strong melodies. 20-30 years ago, video games had strong melodies that were both enjoyable to listen to and atmospheric. Now, very much of it is boring, orchestral blob music. Check out composers like Eric Heberling, Michiel van den Bos, Jan Paul Moorehead, Guido Henkel, the entire European Amiga and Commodore 64 scene. These composers wrote music for the exact same kinds of games with significantly greater restrictions that is far, far more memorable and enjoyable than a lot of blob music today. In fact, I think very often it has less to do with the composers than the production and direction; they don't know what they want or don't have a developed enough sense to articulate it and end up telling them to write boring, samey garbage.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

I can remember really well every single game song that marked me, but for the same reason I forgot the rest. If I had the judge the song track of a game by this sample, which is not only biased by the quality and the way it was selected, but also by some obvious nostalgia and subjective feelings, most songs will be either perceived as either bland or awful. But notice that game songs weren’t supposed to inspire you like a traditional song, in the same way that game writing shouldn’t be memorable. If they are, they are going beyond their task and pushing the standards of the genre; standards that may be too high given the talent pool available and the complex nature of game development.

ps: agentorange, are you hunting every post I make in other threads to give me bad ratings? Go fuck yourself, your resented weak-minded cunt.

 

[agentorange]

nah i was just going through some threads i saw that you were saying retarded shit. what are you gonna do about it you little faggot

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

nah i was just going through some threads i saw that you were saying retarded shit. what are you gonna do about it you little faggot

I will send you to my ignore list Siberia, buddy.

 

[roshan]

I just purchased the Telepath Tactics OST so I can listen to the combat tracks while working out. Never bought a VGM album before but it's only a dollar at Bandcamp. Really good and memorable stuff, including Craig Stern 's "Tactician's Duel".

 

[Excommunicator]

I don't think he has declined

Spoiler

his music was always that way

There's a whole lot of reasons for this though:

• Game composers are largely being given directions by people who don't have very good musical exposure or understanding of what they want/need; they point towards other prominent games or movies and say "that's the sound I want". Unlike standalone music, everything a game composer does is at the whim of the game developer so if that's the direction you get given, you need to go with it.

• Melodical work is out of fashion and has been for a good 15 years or so now. It goes hand in hand with the culture around games, tv and movies where everything must be "self serious" and appear more superficially profound that what came before it. That's a full generation of people whose exposure to melodies in media has been almost non existent.

• Perhaps the biggest factor is the business of game and movie projects. The industry has become huge there are thousands of "production line" composers who have all of the skills needed to fill the brief and get the job done, and it's without a doubt easier and less painful for a developer to hire someone who will deliver on time without hassle than go looking for someone to deliver a unique sound. The result is you get business minded people with a talent for using instruments delivering the soundtracks instead of artists who just want to make good music.

• I'd like to also make special mention to the merging of the game and film industries and how the overlap between means that game composers are now almost all film composers as well. Game and film music was distinct because of the minimal overlap which nurtured a different approach to game music. Now, you can't really tell the difference between a game soundtrack and a film one.

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

I've got good music. Would you like to take a look? My wares are in a house nearby.

 

[HoboForEternity]

Modern video game composer's law: everything is bland banal boring shit.

at least we still have japanese games music

 

[Mexi]

nah i was just going through some threads i saw that you were saying retarded shit. what are you gonna do about it you little faggot

You can take your "up yours" finger and shove it up your ass, little bitch. You're probably just some faggot from NMA that wrote dumbshit about shoving a Fallout CD up your ass like Something Awful exposed.

 

[Bester]

Modern video game composer's law: everything is bland banal boring shit.

It really, really is fucking boring now. I was in Montreal recently and they had this radio station that played nothing but video game music, so my pals and I would listen to it and see if there was anything we recognized. They played modern stuff exclusively, it was all this bland, orchestral mush and it may as well have all been from the same game. The only song we recognized was the Halo theme, which is orchestral music to begin with. Every other song was just so bland. Why are we doing this!?!?!?!?!?!?! AAAAAAAAAAAAAa

There is still some good stuff. With enough research, they could've broadcasted an hour of good music.

 

[Infinitron]

I don't think he has declined

Spoiler

his music was always that way

Yes, I can't be the only one who has the opposite opinion, that Mark Morgan's contemporary work remains remarkably similar to his work in the 1990s.

I think most people complaining about his decline are really upset that most of his music isn't like the Fallout soundtrack, which was unique in that it was sounded kind of like tracker music (think the Star Control 2 soundtrack).

 

[Jazz_]

He has always been rather average imo, even his early stuff is nothing to write home about. I actually find is ''Wasteland 2'' soundtrack more interesting than his early generic ambient because it's more droney and has better sound design (while his early stuff sounded like he just loaded up some generic presets and played them).

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

I prefer anything that Mark Morgan does to anything that Inon Zur does, or even whoever made the PoE soundtrack.

 

[Naveen]

I turn off music in many (modern) video games. You'd be surprised how much many improve.

 

[Tacgnol]

I know Mark Morgan was very heavily influenced by Brian Eno with the Fallout soundtrack.

There is a Brian Eno piece that sounds very similar to the Vault 15/Caverns piece from FO1/2. Wish I could remember the name of it...

 

[Master]

I didn't love Fallout because of the music. With that said, this song is absolutely beautiful and the only one I liked in the whole game. Also, he supposedly straight ripped off the Aphex Twins to make the Fallout soundtrack. Not cool at all considering it wasn't that good.

Sounds like Hommlet from ToEE.

 

[Roguey]

• Game composers are largely being given directions by people who don't have very good musical exposure or understanding of what they want/need; they point towards other prominent games or movies and say "that's the sound I want". Unlike standalone music, everything a game composer does is at the whim of the game developer so if that's the direction you get given, you need to go with it.

Yah, the deal with Fallout is that they gave him an unlabeled mix cd (that contained Aphex Twin tracks among other things) and said "make it sound like this," so his interpretation of that was to simply copy the songs.

 

[Nano]

I still mourn the loss of Lustmord's PS:T soundtrack.

I agree with some others here that Mark Morgan's work has always been a bit overrated.

 

[roshan]

What about the decline of Matt Uelmen? His acoustic town themes from then to now:

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

What about the decline of Matt Uelmen? His acoustic town themes from then to now:

Noice! I never forgot this song.

Yah, the deal with Fallout is that they gave him an unlabeled mix cd (that contained Aphex Twin tracks among other things) and said "make it sound like this," so his interpretation of that was to simply copy the songs.

At least he is always copying great songs!

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

The Video Game Music Thread (the best thread that should encompass every other thread)

Some of the other smaller threads

Best music theme in RPGs

Which RPG has the best music?

Music in CRPGs

About plagiarism

Bloodlines Music Ripping-Off

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

I love AoD songs to death. If TNW end up with shitty music I will make a "Decline of Ryan Eston?" thread. Right, Osiginon?

 

[Zer0wing]

I still mourn the loss of Lustmord's PS:T soundtrack.

Much of "lost" material pretty much ended up forming into "Metavoid" album. You'd be suprised how well Metavoid blends with PS:T.

 

[Darkzone]

Now about the copy bit, there is plagiarism and there is plagiarism:

Spoiler

“A good composer does not imitate; he steals” Igor Stravinsky

A nice video i agree at least with the first 16 min and the other 20 min i have not watched yet. If you want to understand this into the detail, then learn the communication and system theory. But you have already and elaborated opinion therefore i don't think that this is necessary.

Mark Morgan's WL2 theme is a good soundtrack and it is perfect for WL2, but in this case i'm biased as it is expressed by my signature. While i definitely state that most artists lose their drive if they get older, there are still artist that get better like a good wine. In our cases most of the receivers are biased for Fallout 1 and 2 and PS:T and against WL2 and T:ToN and so is their perception of the music pieces.