Song of the Week - WEEK 99 Voting/WEEK 100 Nominating
 

SoTW is currently on hiatus. Nominations are still open.
Week 99 Voting is closed.
Week 100 Nominating is restricted.

Week 99 Voting
The rules for voting can be found here.

Results
1). [30] Back in Time II - Galway Is God 2000
2). [22] Spider-Man 3 (Game Rip) - MJ Thrill Ride
3). [17] Muppet RaceMania (Game Rip) - Rooftops
4). [15] Symphony Sorcerian - The Ice Cave 'Cave I' ~ The Head of Medusa 'Forest' ~ King Dragon ~ Ending I
5). [14] Elebits (Wii Game Rip) - Extras Mode
6). [9] Secret of Evermore - White Castle Town
7). [7] Shin Gouketsuji Ichizoku Toukon ~Matrimelee~ Original Sound Track - 375 Kg
8). [6] Detective Jinguji Saburou KIND OF BLUE Original Sound Tracks - Just Bourbon

Tracks (links):
Back in Time II - Galway Is God 2000
Detective Jinguji Saburou KIND OF BLUE Original Sound Tracks - Just Bourbon
Elebits (Wii Game Rip) - Extras Mode
Muppet RaceMania (Game Rip) - Rooftops
Shin Gouketsuji Ichizoku Toukon ~Matrimelee~ Original Sound Track - 375 Kg
Spider-Man 3 (Game Rip) - MJ Thrill Ride
Symphony Sorcerian - The Ice Cave 'Cave I' ~ The Head of Medusa 'Forest' ~ King Dragon ~ Ending I
Secret of Evermore - White Castle Town

Notes:
The original, non-looped version of MJ Thrill Ride may be found in the extras folder.

If you are a member at more than one of the forums which this event is being held at, please nominate and vote in only ONE of the forums. You may, however, comment in the threads at any of the other forums.

Week 100 Nominating
The Nominations Queue can be found here.
The rules for nominating can be found here.

Here is the link to the corresponding thread in the other forum:
- Soundtrack Central

EDIT: lol

Back in Time II - Galway Is God 2000 is ineligible.

I apologize for not catching this far sooner, and in fact would not have caught it if Drakken had not IMed me fifteen minutes ago. I had thought Back in Time II was an album like Power Game Hits, but it actually appears to be a fan C64 arrangement album. Jogeir Liljedahl, the person who arranged this track, has no VGM credits, so this arrangement is ineligible.

Since no one has voted yet, I don't feel bad about pulling the plug on the track. I'm going to PM Draconis asking if he would like to change the nom. If he doesn't get back to me in 24 hours, I'll replace it with Elorin's nomination, as he is next in the queue.

Sorry, guys. :(

The track has been removed from the opening post, and voting will be closed until the situation is resolved.

Oh, hey, I was going to listen and vote today. Good thing I decided to hold off and go through some BSC instead.

AND HEY I HAVE A NOMINATION LET'S GET SOME MORE NOMS FROM EVERYONE, OKAY?!

Artist: Osamu Kubota
Album: Snow in Saigon
Track Title: Larmes de la lune
Track number: 3
Catalog number: none, as far as I know
Year: 2000?
Additional info: Osamu Kubota has contributed music to various Bemani games and Granado Espada. Snow in Saigon is his first solo album. Info on it is proving hard to find. Whoever tagged the tracks tagged the year as 2000, which is why I assume that.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osamu_Kubota
http://www.diverse.jp/cd-other/saigon.shtml (third and fifth categories are catalog # and year, marked with "----" here for some reason)

I can upload it sometime soon.

I'd been wondering about this since it was first nominated. I've got the album in question, and also number III in the series. However, I'm not very good at discerning doujin from legitimate tracks. I figured that, since nobody else spoke up, that it was a fair nomination and that Jogeir Liljedahl was a credible VGM composer.

Of course, now I'm totally bummed. Having never heard of Liljedahl, I did a bit of a search for him and found a link to some of his work via Bjorn Lynne's website of all places. Seeing this, I really had second thoughts about questioning the Back in Time nomination. But the biggest reason I'm bummed is that I found a very awesome demoscene track by Liljedahl and was planning on nominating it very soon.

Now I can't do anything with it. :(

haha just kidding folks Liljedahl actually does have VGM credits so this track's still good

I have no idea how I botched up that search, because I did check MobyGames before posting. Must've gotten his first AND last name wrong. :(

So anyway, Galway Is God 2000 is eligible. I've gotten off to a smashing start this week!

Additional Spam:
Sorry to everyone, especially Draconis.

looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool

That's all I could say. =)

Well, it's all good. This should also make that other Liljedahl track Crash had in mind eligible, which I'd like to hear.

And I'll just edit in with my next nomination, which I had intended to go in place of Galway is God, should it still been considered ineligible.

• Artist: Hitoshi Sakimoto, Masaharu Iwata
• Album/Game Title: Magical Chase (Game Rip)
• Track Title: Kouri ja nai no yo! (4th Seal)
• Disc Number: 1 (of 1)
• Track Number: 09
• Catalog Number: NA
• Year: 1991
• Source(s): http://www.vgden.com/hucard/reviews/mac.htm (credited as REZON and YmoH.S)

I'm sorry about that too. Didn't realize he had vgm credits (however limited they may be, heh).

For the most part, it's a solid batch of songs this week. A couple really long ones (Galway, Socerian medley). I'll have to be sure I don't forget to vote this time.

How can I combine my recent Wild Arms music binge with my love for Hiroyuki Iwatsuki's tunes? Oh, I know!

* Album Title: Wild Guns (SNES) Game Rip
* Artist: Hiroyuki Iwatsuki, Haruo Ohashi
* Track Title: Desolation Canyon
* Source: http://snesmusic.org/v2/profile.php?...&selected=3269 (track 10 isn't listed there for some odd reason, but it's in the set)
* File Location: Nomination Folder
* Disc Number: 1 (of 1)
* Track Number: 10
* Year: 1994

CHz (or whoever) can you tag it all nice for me, PRETTY PLEASE!?

Galway is God 2000 has been restored to its rightful place. Let voting commence henceforth :D

Oops, it didn't seem obvious to me that Galway was potentially ineligible when I was checking the source links. It appeared to be a perfectly legitimate track from an official arrange album. Fortunately, our ever resourceful CHz has resolved the problem. :D

Been playing SaGa Frontier, too bad that's too popular. Well, Ito's got more obscure stuff anyway.

* Artist: Kenji Ito
* Album/Game Title: Koi ha Balance - Battle of Lovers
(SPC Rip)
* Track Title: Goal 2
* Track Number: 12
* Year: 1995
* Source(s): snesmusic.org

Whoa, he did Koi ha Balance? Awesome music, that game.

I'll paste in comments later, since my original voting post was destroyed at 99.99% completion.

Important Note: The streamed version of MJ Thrill Ride was making like New Quack City, so I removed it.

The Point Spread
MJ Thrill Ride - 3 pts.
White Castle Town - 2 pts.
Galway is a Goat 2000 - 1 pt.

Nomination
It's time for a little of the other Yasunori.

* Artist: Yasunori Shiono
* Album/Game Title: Energy Breaker (SPC Rip)
* Track Title: The Sky's Brilliance
* Track Number: 29
* Year: 1996
* Source: snesmusic.org

Kind of a bleh week to me.

2 Points: Muppet RaceMania (Game Rip) - Rooftops
2 Points: Spider-Man 3 (Game Rip) - MJ Thrill Ride (looped)
2 Points: Back in Time II - Galway Is God 2000

Nothing else interested me.

The rules vote results are in!

Definition of "Professional VGM Composer"
Discretion method it is!

Original Piece Time Restriction
No change in the rules: if a composer's original or unpublished arrange tracks are eligible, then they will all be eligible regardless of when they were composed.

And wouldn't you know it, we've already got a test of our new professional VGM composer definition, courtesy of Darkcomet72!

Necros is a huge figure in the demoscene. Wrote modules and chipdisks, was one of the founders of Five Musicians, and is kinda Jesus. He also founded his own record label, Diffusion Records, through which he's published two and a half original albums under the handle "The Alpha Conspiracy" (one's a collab with Low Technicians) (see the SAUS for the track "winter" off of the album cipher, (goddamn that track is awesome)), and is part of the band Iris, which also has a few Diffusion releases.

He's pretty famous for his original stuff. He also has contributed to the soundtracks for 10 games.

Basehead is another tracker, who was also one of the cofounders of Five Musicians. He also worked with Alexander Brandon (who also started in the demoscene) on two original albums, AtmosphereS: Cultures and AtmosphereS: Pulses. He has four credits.

I think this song should be eligible because it's awesomeSega's got enough VGM credits for me to let both him and Grandpre through (Basehead's much more of an edge case). What do y'all think?

I'm okay with it, but I notice that since we discussed the rule change more and more people have been submitting these original tracks. I just wish we'd get more actual VGM than boundary-pushing demoscene stuff.

Does it really matter whether we're against it (I am)? According to the time restriction vote, it's allowable, and he has enough vgm credits to be considered a professional vgm composer. So, this one was basically decided already by the time restriction vote.

EDIT: Oh, nevermind. I see that he was already composing for games before he composed this tune. So, this isn't as big a deal as if it was some random song he composed way before he became a vgm composer.

EDIT^2: I don't understand why people can't be content to nominate actual video game music instead of looking for something else, but whatever.

The time restriction vote is not the issue at all, and even if nominations were restricted to original pieces only after the first VGM credit, this would still be good in that respect because Sega's first credit is 1994 and this is 1995.

The issue I was trying to get at was are these folks VGM composers enough?

EDIT: Whoops, didn't see your edits. :[

Well, since you insist:

Sega:
FreeLancer: Music (co-wrote)
Conquest: Frontier Wars: More Special Thanks (wtf?)
Unreal Tournament: n/a [described as a "guest appearance" in his bio]
Unreal: Music (co-wrote) [described as a "guest appearance" in his bio]
Wing Commander: Additional Programming (Vision™ Engine)
Crusader - No Regret: "Gameplay Music" (co-wrote)
Crusader - No Remorse: Music (co-wrote)
In Pursuit of Greed: Music
Xixit: Music (co-wrote)
Iron Seed: Soundtrack (track "Necros of the Psychic Monks")

Grandpre:
Deus Ex: Music (co wrote) [I don't recall seeing his name on any of the Deus Ex music I've heard]
Unreal Tournament: n/a
Crusader - No Regret: "Gameplay Music" (co-wrote)
Crusader - No Remorse: Music (co-wrote)

You will note that Grandpre has no solo credits, but more importantly, several of Sega's credits are not for game music (one of them is a "special thanks!). Sega has only one solo credit, two if you count "Necros fo the Psychic Monks" as original (the way it's listed implies that it's a non-original track). Two more are unattributed--both are associated with Unrela Tournament in Moby but there are no specific credits (it could be song re-use or even another "very special thanks" for all we know).

Granted, there are two games that were written by Sega and Grandpre together (the Crusadii), but it's a lot more tenuous than the unexamined "10 game credits" Moby spits out. I think the important lesson here is to examine the Moby game credits more carefully.

I'm therefore flip-flopping and joining Drakken in opposition to the track.
My thoughts exactly.

Ugh, that's not the first time I've done that. Sure, I'll just go track down the history of Diffusion Records, but come on now ever single credit someone has at Moby Games has to be a composer credit. I once thought someone had composed a game when really all she did was a character voice. :(

Some clarifications on a few of the credits:

The "guest appearances" on Unreal and UT I assume just mean that he wasn't a major contributor, but did compose a few tracks, because he is listed in the credits at a composer for both games. I don't know about UT, but Sega wrote a mind-blowing one (whoooooooooa) track for Unreal ("Isotoxin").

"Necros of the Psychic Monks" is not a track name. It's Sega's demoscene handle (Necros) and the group he belonged to at the time (Psychic Monks). I would guess that's just the way he's credited in the game.

Grandpre composed two tracks for Deus Ex (at least on the GotY soundtrack): Naval Base and Vandenberg. Grandpre's also listed in UT's credits, but like Sega, I don't know the extent of his contributions either. I've seen a few sites credit him to Unreal as well, but he's not in any actual credits listing I've seen and I don't know any tracks he composed, so that one's sketchy.

I also found another credit for Grandpre under the name Dan Gardopee (which is apparently his legal name): Vigilante 8: 2nd Offense, co-composed with Alexander Brandon. (I had no idea Brandon worked on the soundtracks to Vigilane 8 and its sequel. :o)

In addition, both Sega and Grandpre/Gardopee contributed music to the Unreal expansion pack Return to Na Pali.

Man, I don't blame him for changing it. Kids in school must have been mercicless.

Wait, what? Wow, the credits for the N64 and PS1 versions of 2nd Offense have totally different composers (Alexander Brandon, Dan Gardopee for N64 and Christian A. Salyer, Eric Klein, Javier Marquez for PS1).

I've only heard the PS1's Redbook Audio; now I need to track down the N64 version's music (due to Alex B. working on it)!

I think we may have to extend voting again. I count 4 voters...

Given that it's been tougher to get voters here for a little while, and that there are now two larger song contests occurring, it may be reasonable to give SotW a little break.

I don't enjoy saying so, however.