Song of the Week - Qualification: Sun's Tower
 

PLEASE ONLY VOTE IF YOU PARTICIPATE IN SONG OF THE WEEK

This is a poll on official policy, so I'd appreciate it if only people who vote and/or nominate vote on this matter. If I don't recognize your name, I won't count your vote with the final tally. Thanks in advance. :)

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Paper Mario - Sun's Tower
nominator: Stalky

See here for previous discussion on the matter; it continues onto the second page. Do you think this track should be eligible for voting? Vote/discuss/etc.

The poll will close roughly a day or so before Week 166 voting closes, since it affects a track that could appear in Week 167.

I don't have a problem with it being entered, mainly because I've never played Paper Mario, nor heard any of the music.

Not the most obscure nom, but it's acceptable in my opinion. And anyway, I think we need all noms we can get...

I feel this should be a clear no, but again, it seems the majority of SotW voters are in favor of a less strict eligibility policy or don't care. Here's what I said before:

From the Wiki:

"The purpose of this event is to promote the proliferation of quality video game music that is seldom heard amongst the society of VGM fans."

Besides a good amount of people hearing it in-game (as Paper Mario was a popular game and one of the only good RPGs on the N64), I'm pretty sure the soundtrack itself is really well known among vgm fans. Thus, not "seldom heard" by any stretch.

There were two nominations from The Thousand Year Door already, so why not just allow this one, too?

For several reasons, I think it should be allowed:
1. As Stalky points out, there is precendence for allowing Paper Mario tracks.
2. The track in question isn't even in the official soundtrack, thus reducing the amount of people who are familiar with it.
3. I've certainly never heard it before.
4. There's VERY FEW nominations in the queue right now.

I don't understand why there's always people who like to question the validity of some nominations. I understand that the whole point of the SotW is to make obscure music more known, but as long as it's not something that is super well-known by all, why should it matter? There's hardly ever gonna be a track that NO ONE can say that they've never heard before.

Bingo. And Ceft's reasons too. Not every nomination is going to be super-obscure. Plus, I've played Paper Mario and I couldn't remember most tracks for the life of me. My guess is the majority of those voting will not have heard this track before, or won't remember it.

I think that the music is much less generally known and lauded than, say, SMRPG (which I would say is not eligible). As long as the song doesn't lean on established Mario tunes, I think it should be allowed. I've played and beaten Paper Mario, and can't even remember any of the songs!

We need nominations, too, so there's that as well.

This is the mitigating factor for me. If it were easily available, it might be a bit too popular. But it's a rare track, one that's only been heard by people who've played through the game. It's probably not featured prominently, either.

As long as it doesn't wind up being a blatant variation on a popular Mario theme, it should receive equal consideration in the voting.

We've permitted Game Gear Sonic tracks; this seems to be tantamount in terms of potential exposure.

As far as i know the whole game only features known tracks or remixes of known tracks in about three locations: On yoshi's island, in a radio of the so called Club64 and in the chapter screen if one waits long enough.
I have played almost all Mario games, i haven't heard it anywhere before.

So, while we're at it, what's the verdict on Paper Mario eligibility? Does that mean we can basically nominate anything from Paper Mario, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door and Super Paper Mario except blatant remixes of known themes? Or will things still be decided on a case by case basis?

I'm thinking about nominating a track or two, but if it's still considered borderline and is just gonna cause a huge mess then I might aswell drop those...

A few people cited the fact that this specific track wasn't on the OST as being part of their decision, but given the overwhelming results, probably any track from the game would be okay (aside from the arrangements, obviously).

Given we've already had a couple of nominations from this game, I don't see any problems with another. I still haven't played it or listened to its soundtrack yet. (why not argh)

Even without the results of this poll, I'd be okay with this.