2 points : Brighter than Dawning Blue Music Collection Lunar Passport - String of restraint
2 points : Ridge Racer 6 (Game Rip) - I Want You
1 point : Air Buster - Seaside Front [Arrange Version]
1 point : Wild Guns (Game Rip) - Desolation Canyon

Don't close this down too early, I'll be trying to squeeze my votes in later tonight.

And yeah, I'd say anything Guitar Hero is too popular for this.

I'm not pushing the envelope (or not trying to, anyway)...If anything, Jordan is one of the only recent tracks I've enjoyed by actually playing a game. Believe me, if you want me to try to push the envelope, I'm sure I can make pretty decent arguments for some stuff with extremely loose attachments to videogames/VGM albums...Which would result in a whole bunch of ugly eligibility polls and the like.

And Guitar Hero...Too popular? Wow...Um, okay, whatever...I know it's popular, but I doubt it has anything to do with any original music contained in it.

But Guitar Hero was a game designed completely around music. Unlike other games, you're focused purely upon the sound. You have to notice the music. And it's certainly not obscure, not like Vib Ribbon or Frequency.

Besides, Buckethead? Yicch.

Rhythm games generally exhibit that trait. But it was designed around licensed music (songs that had their day in the sun or were from small Boston bands no one cares about), not "original" works, which Jordan was.

Eh, whatever, drop it...I'm not nominating the song.

Pretty decent week.

Seaside Front is decent, though these kind of tunes generally don't stand out to me. The "chorus," if you will, is nice.

As this week's requisite retro tune, Desolation Canyon isn't bad. Is Wild Guns related at all to Wild Arms?

Search For the Lost Riff was cool, but it wasn't the AWESOME!!! song that it was made out to be. Still, it gets bonus points for reminding me of Jazz Jackrabbit 2's music.

You can usually expect quality stuff from Yamane, and she doesn't disappoint with The Wingless Angels. One of this week's best tracks, for sure.

Ukishima - The vocals and strings are nice, but the song still doesn't do much for me. Seems kind of boring, I guess.

I Want You is generic techno to the max. I was very glad when it finally ended.

After the War is a solid jazzin' nom from DH, though not one of my favorites of his. However, upon a 2nd listen, I found myself able to get into it a lot more. That's the way it tends to be with jazz.

String of restraint - Yay for something that sounds a bit different. I love cool string, uh, riffs (what's the proper term?) set to a drum beat. The rest of the song is neat as well.

2 pts. - After the War
2 pts. - The Wingless Angels
1 pt. - Search For the Lost Riff
1 pt. - String of restraint

Also, I hereby call for Phantasy Star Online/Universe music to be ineligible from this point on. I think we've seen our fair share of PS tunes here at GFF, both in SotW and in BSC. (And on a personal, non-relevant note, I'm tired of seeing it do well, since I generally don't care for it :p).

It never occured to me that Guitar Hero would be too popular...all of the recent nomination talk has been about raw eligibility, so I seem to have gotten out of the habit of thinking that way.

That aside, it's good to see some more votes trickling in. Now that I've got a free moment, I'd like to provide some comments (I voted earlier).

Brighter than Dawning Blue Music Collection Lunar Passport - String of restraint While a little on the ambient side, there's nothing about this tune I don't like. Terrific piano work is the real highlight, with some nice electronic and guitar flourishes to add splashes of color.

FOR BRIGHTER DAY Phantasy Star Universe Original Sound Track - Ukishima A little on the oriental classical side for my taste at times, but not bad. It doesn't have the aggressiveness or electronic sensibility that characterizes many of the best PS tunes, but the choral parts are a welcome touch.

FZ Series 'AXIS' - After the War A bit of a letdown, quality-wise, following two solid tracks. There's a decent 1980's style sax here, but it's not doing anything particularly interesting, and the rest of the instruments aren't doing much of note.

OZ Original Soundtrack - The Wingless Angels ~Requiem~ An impressive, dark synthy piece that really takes off at times. Despite the synthiness, it's almost gothic at times, which the choral part helps accentuate.

Ridge Racer 6 (Game Rip) - I Want You The weakest track of the bunch. It follows the standard trance practices of endlessly repeating with minimal variation and mixing in shrill vocal samples in odd places.

Air Buster - Seaside Front [Arrange Version] Reminds me of Sonic, perhaps due to the synth and generally bouncy feeling. It's nice enough, with decent melody and drive, but it doesn't linger.

Wild Guns (Game Rip) - Desolation Canyon Another Western-style track. After being deluged by these in the BSC--man of which were high quality--this sort of tune suffers by comparison. It gets the broad strokes of the genre right, but doesn't do anything terribly neat with them.

Search for the Lost Riff Its questionable origins aside, this is a pretty nice track. I was reminded heavily of Deus Ex at times, and Mega Man at others, perhaps unsurprising considering its pedigree. Very enjoyable.

EDIT:
I think we're close to reaching the saturation point, yes.

Decent week ... 100 of them, where does the time go?

(3 points) FOR BRIGHTER DAY Phantasy Star Universe Original Sound Track - Ukishima
(2 points) Brighter than Dawning Blue Music Collection Lunar Passport - String of restraint
(1 points) Search for the Lost Riff

2 points - Air Buster - Seaside Front [Arrange Version]
2 points - Wild Guns (Game Rip) - Desolation Canyon
1 point - Brighter than Dawning Blue Music Collection Lunar Passport - String of restraint
1 point - FOR BRIGHTER DAY Phantasy Star Universe Original Sound Track - Ukishima

Pretty solid week for #100. It was one of those weeks where tracks I liked ended up not getting points.

Voting is closed and nominations are restricted!

1). [21] FOR BRIGHTER DAY Phantasy Star Universe Original Sound Track - Ukishima
2). [20] Brighter than Dawning Blue Music Collection Lunar Passport - String of restraint
3). [14] www.fm.scene.org:8080 - Search for the Lost Riff
4). [12] Wild Guns (Game Rip) - Desolation Canyon
5). [11] Air Buster - Seaside Front [Arrange Version]
6). [10] OZ Original Soundtrack - The Wingless Angels ~Requiem~
7). [6] FZ Series 'AXIS' - After the War
8). [2] Ridge Racer 6 (Game Rip) - I Want You

Happy 100th!

Just popping in to say that I agree with placing a moratorium on all Phantasy Star related nominations.

And while we're on the subject, I'd suggest the same for Wild Arms. Nine Wild Arms tracks were submitted to the BSC; it's no longer what I'd consider an obscure series.

Supporting the Phantasy Star break. It doesn't have to be forever, maybe a month or two.

Definite yes to the Phantasy Star restriction. I dunno about Wild Arms, I'm not too familiar with the music in the series but I'm more than willing to accept a significant majority. Besides, as long as Wild Guns is eligible I don't mind.

And who the hell gave my track points?

This Phantasy Star talk happening now is funny, actually, because we have a song from "Phantasy Star Collection - Sound Collection II" coming up in week 101. That's from the older Phantasy Star RPGs, though. We should make a distinction - we're just talking about PSO/PSU being disallowed, correct?

Wow, it looks like Song of the Week has a *BRIGHT* future ahead! :D

Sorry, couldn't help it. :p But seriously, a big thank you to all nominators for contributing to 100 weeks of SotW! And also to our very own founder, Kaleb.G! I would certainly attribute to SotW, more so than the BSC, for expanding my scope and experience with VGM. Here's to 100 more weeks of great game music! :)

Vaguely statistical comparison of Weeks 1 and 100!

Week 1: September 16-23, 2004
Week 100: July 17-30, 2007

Week 1 Voters: 23 (Access Gamer, Bean, Chuckster, _DH_, Dragon God, Dr. Uzuki, el jacko, Elorin, Excrono, gdog66, GoldfishX, Kaleb.G, King Laharl, Moguta, MrMonkeyMan, Nites, orion_mk3, PichuChan401, Ramzavail, Secret Squirrel, Shokatshin, Snowman, Talaysen)

Week 100 Voters: 16 (aviness, bishop743, Chuckster, CHz, Crash Landon, _DH_, Djinova, Draconis, Drakken, Elorin, isdapi, Kaleb.G, orion_mk3, Para, TCK, TheKnightOfNee)

Voters present for Weeks 1 and 100: _DH_, Chuckster, Elorin, Kaleb.G, orion_mk3, Para/Nites

Week 1 Winners:
[33] Unreal Tournament 2004 - Hyperblast Redux
[31] Metal Black -The First- - Doubt
[29] Soul Calibur II OST - Unwavering Resolve

Margin of victory: 2 pts. (1st place), 2 pts. (2nd place)

Week 100 Winners:
[21] FOR BRIGHTER DAY Phantasy Star Universe Original Sound Track - Ukishima
[20] Brighter than Dawning Blue Music Collection Lunar Passport - String of restraint
[14] www.fm.scene.org:8080 - Search for the Lost Riff

Margin of victory: 1 pt. (1st place), 6 pts. (2nd place)

1). I'm tending to agree about banning PSU/PSO stuff. I've thought PS1-4 stuff would be out as well, but no one besides myself really flinched at the dungeon medley from the first sound collection back when GoldfishX nominated it and similarly with LANDEEL, so I guess they're still fine.

2). Wild Guns is completely unrelated to Wild Arms. Different composers, developer, etc.

3). I think a Wild Arms stop isn't that bad of an idea either.

Just a quick reminder that I was once known as Nites here.

And this is great, both nominations I made for Week 1 and 100 both got 1st XD

Well, I'm certain about PSO/PSU material, that's for sure. In that the earlier PS games and albums are still tied to the series as a whole, I'm leaning toward prohibiting them also, since they're not grand deviations from the formula, such as in the case of Super Mario Bros. and, say, Mario Is Missing.

But the nomination for Week 101 should stand uncontested. If anything, it'd be grandfather claused into eligibility.

Aww what, Lost Riff lost? Is that even possible? This was my I WILL WIN nomination, what happened?

Ah well, congrats to everyone keeping SOTW alive enough to reach 100! Woo