Song of the Week - WEEK 53 Voting/WEEK 54 Nominations

Week 53 Voting is closed.
Week 54 Nominating is restricted.

Week 53 Voting
The rules for voting can be found here.

Tracks:
Dragon Ball Z3 Original Soundtrack - Evil Power
Dramatic - Oriental Spirits
Genso Suikoden III Original Soundtrack - Vinay Del Zexay
Klonoa of the Wind 2 ~Something Forgotten Wished by the World~ Original Soundtrack - The Sorrow Revives
pop'n music 12 Iroha AC ♥ CS pop'n music 10 - Beyond the Earth -Original Long Version-
Shin Samurai Spirits Arrange Sound Trax - Smooth Talk Rock (Kuroku)
Silhouette Mirage Original Sound Track - Punky Pumpkin Castle
Space Invaders Daisakusen - Game Over

Notes:
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 54 Nominating
The Nominations Queue can be found here.
The rules for nominating can be found here.

Here are the links to the corresponding threads at the other forums:
- Soundtrack Central

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Hmm...I think it's about time to make a nom.

Would a track from The Sims 2 be acceptable? It's a really popular game, obviously, but I don't think many people from here are familiar with its music. Plus, the track I want to nominate would consist of some of the unique background music that plays during the game, not one of the radio station songs, which is what I think was nominated previously.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

It's not disqualified, but in my opinion the Sim* series has proven itself to be quite popular before, including a previous Sims 2 track that placed. I personally would say no, but let's see what others would say.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Maxis games in general are quite popular; I'd hardly call anything from them obscure.

This said, we did just have a Sim City 4: Rush Hour track in the mix, so fairness commands me to grant the Sims one more chance.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Might as well throw some critiques out while they're fresh in my mind. One sentiment comes to me over all others for this week: ROCK ON!

It's been awhile since we had some solid rockin' tracks, so naturally they all come at once. Holy electric overload, Batman! Poor orion_mk3 is going to HATE this week.

Evil Power - I feel as though this one is sorta just thrown together. Some distorted guitars, some spacey-effects, some grungy drums and a whole lotta shallow freestyle riffing. This is the sort of incoherent stuff I expect to find on MTV after midnight. I totally dig rock, but I enjoy it with more substance than this provides.

Oriental Spirits - I was really hooked by the opening. Nice bass guitars resonating between piano and light drums. Rockin', yet snazzy. As it progressed, I felt it moving somewhat away from the "oriental" tones but the pizzicato mandolin suitably binds the background together enough to keep the theme intact. The rest is a pleasant blend of metropolitan jazz and exotic strings. A contender, for sure.

Vinay Del Zexay - Obligatory non-rock piece, so as to clear the pallete. It's not too bad. I remember this track from the game now that I hear it again and it had a warm, sunny feel. Still does. I'm not sure it's as strong as other nominations this week, so it feels a tad mediocre at the moment. But I still like it.

The Sorrow Revives - For me, this was very average and predictable. That's not to say it's poorly composed or performed, but there was little to grab my attention unlike other tracks.

Beyond the Earth - The chanting in this tracks goes a long way toward adding a lot of energy to the overall piece. But really, the whole composition is nice. Reminds me just a little of "Another Termina" from Chrono Chross in some places, but that's a good thing. A bright, cheerful, fun track. I like it a lot.

Smooth Talk Rock - It's okay. The rockabilly swing is kind of nice but this doesn't keep the whole track from feeling a little generic. The "asian" sounds are a little odd too, since I'm not sure they mix well with rockabilly. Seems disjointed to me. Actually, the whole track feels like a harder-rock version of "Oriental Spirits" before it, but with a little less flow throughout.

Punky Pumpkin Castle - TOTALLY 80'S, DUDE! Seriously, Huey Lewis would wish he thought of this melody. Nevertheless, that 80s sound means the whole thing at least gels and focuses as much upon overall enjoyaility as it does instrumentation. My only complaint is that it's so short. I was getting into it and BAM, it's over...?

Game Over - A little different. This one carries a strong 80's new wave vibe too. Tracks with prominent voiceovers have a history of doing poorly in SotW. Maybe this one will be different since it's such an unusual track. The problem I found with Game Over is that is begins very strongly but something about it peters out by the end. Perhaps it's too repetitive? I can't put my finger on why, exactly. I'm curious to see how others react to this track, honestly.

POINTS! POINTS! POINTS!

3 Points: pop'n music 12 Iroha AC & CS pop'n music 10 - Beyond the Earth -Original Long Version-
2 Points: Dramatic - Oriental Spirits
1 Point: Silhouette Mirage Original Sound Track - Punky Pumpkin Castle

Runner Up: Space Invaders Daisakusen - Game Over


A pretty good week, one that discredits the theory that strong weeks are always followed by lackluster ones.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

OK, here's my next nom. In the first best battle track contest, I noticed that someone had it as their #1, and tried to edit my noms to push it over the edge as getting in, but accidently posted in the discussion thread, but it never got in. I also tried to get it in the 2nd best battle track contest, but since that never started, well, 3rd time's a charm I guess, and I'll test it out in SotW.

* Album/Game Title: Tengai Makyou ~ The Apocalypse IV Original Sound Track
* Artist: Toshiyuki Sasagawa
* Track Title: The Twelve Apostles Battle
* Source: http://chudahs-corner.com/soundtrack...log=SSCX-10006
* Disc Number: 2
* Track Number: 34
* Catalog Number: SSCX-10006
* Year: 1997

I'll upload it to the noms folder, since it's a bit of an obscure album.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I put up my nom in the last thread but it's not updated in the Wiki. Do I need to do anything?

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Chuckster

I put up my nom in the last thread but it's not updated in the Wiki. Do I need to do anything?

Get Mo0 to pay more attention, mainly. :biggrin:

fixed now

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by CHz

Get Mo0 to pay more attention, mainly. :biggrin:

fixed now

I'd yell at CHz for saying this, except it's totally true that I've sucked at keeping track of this for the past few weeks. I'm working on it, I swear!

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Well, if it is indeed going to be allowed, then I'll go with:

* Album/Game Title: The Sims 2 (game rip)
* Artist: Mark Mothersbaugh
* Track Title: CAS (Create-a-Sim)
* Source: http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/sims-2/credits
* Disc Number:
* Track Number:
* Year: 2004

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Well, let me guess, Ace Combat Zero - Zero ( Track 26 of Rock's Rip ) definitely shouldn't be obscure enough to take part in the SotW event, right?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Ace Combat Zero only recently came out in Japan. I'm not sure how many people have already listened to the rip, but I'd say it should be allowed.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Considering you'd be up right away and it hasn't been out for particularly long at all, I'd also say it'd probably be okay.

How ya doing, buddy?

Then I'd like to nominate the following:

Album/Game Title: Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War ( Game Rip by Rock )
Artist: Keiki Kobayashi, Tetsukazu Nakanishi, Hiroshi Okubo, Junichi Nakatsuru
Track Title: Zero
Source: =O
Disc Number: 1 (?)
Track Number: 26
Catalog Number: KICA-1398-99
Year: 2006

How ya doing, buddy?

Somehow I knew that track would get a fast nomination. Probably because it's awesome. I suggest delaying this nomination until the OST is released in case it contains a better mix or extended version; something like that. But for reference, the track can be found here:
http://www.nullpunktseite.de/ccount/click.php?id=26

Double Post:
On an additional note, I still have a bit of a problem with nominating from albums that just came out. They may become rather popular in the months following, so nominating prematurely just takes away from the music that is the focus of SotW.

In fact, I'm going to go ahead and demand that the Ace Combat Zero nomination wait to be made from the soundtrack. Song of the Week isn't a race to nominate the newest awesome songs first, it's here to seek out great tracks that have been overlooked by many. Kind of hard to consider the music for ACZ "overlooked" when the game hasn't even been out for more than a week.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

You know it's a good week when I don't delete any of the tracks after listening to them all.

(3 points) Dramatic - Oriental Spirits:
The purpose of this nomination was to give some recognition to the Japanese jazz/fusion band Casiopea. They've been around since the late 70's and have had quite an influence on a number of vgm artists such as Hiroyuki Iwatsuki, Ayako Saso, S.S.T. Band, Kukeiha Club, Woodsoft and probably many others. In fact, during the 1992 Game Music Festival, S.S.T. Band played a Casiopea tune for their encore performance.

The band leader and guitarist (Issei Noro) has arranged a few tracks in one of the Sega G.S.M. albums while the keyboard player (Minoru Mukaiya) has composed for the Sangokushi and Sengoku Musou series. Since he was the only member to have composed for a game, only his compositions with the band were eligible so I went with Oriental Spirits which was one of the few decent tracks he's composed as he isn't really known for sparkling compositions - that's Noro's job. This track is an excellent example of mixing an Oriental theme with a fusion style. The melody isn't exactly the most original but the piano solo is jazzy-smooth and the guitar solo at the end is played to perfection while the main Oriental theme plays in the background. Mukaiya's game compositions are Oriental style as well due to the Oriental-themed games he composes for so it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine this as being an arrangement of one of his gaming tunes.

As usual, I've uploaded a few of my favourite Casiopea tracks for your listening pleasure featuring a good cross-section of styles. The one I really wanted to nominate was Trance Evolution which was composed by Noro. You must all be getting tired of my non-vgm nominations so I promise to sneak only one more in before going back to vgm...maybe =p

(2 points) pop'n music 12 Iroha AC CS pop'n music 10 - Beyond the Earth -Original Long Version-:
Good beat with an infectious melody which really shines at 2:47. I could have done without the chanting though. Nonetheless, this track was the only other one that stood out this week.

(1 point) Silhouette Mirage Original Sound Track - Punky Pumpkin Castle:
I really liked the rockin' start to this one which heightened my expectations right away. The ensuing melody was good and by the time it reached the 1:30 mark, I was really digging this tune. Then all of a sudden, BAM, it ends. The timing and the method of the ending really hurt this track which could have been SO much better if it kept building on the original tune and I don't just mean by looping it again. Another solo or interlude thrown in combined with a real ending would have done wonders. Though I can't deny it wasn't an enjoyable piece while it lasted.

The rest of the tracks were all pretty similar in that they were enjoyable but lacked that oomph to really make a statement:

Dragon Ball Z3 Original Soundtrack - Evil Power:
This is the definition of average rock. Generic riffs, wailing guitars and electronic effects. Not to say I didn't like it but it's not the "feature attraction" kind of track that really should be showcased here.

Klonoa of the Wind 2 ~Something Forgotten Wished by the World~ Original Soundtrack - The Sorrow Revives:
Another average track with a decent melody. Not spectacular but not bad either.

Shin Samurai Spirits Arrange Sound Trax - Smooth Talk Rock (Kuroku):
This is the style of music I'm usually drawn to with the guitar and keyboards. Heck, even the Oriental touch gave it the same elements as my own nomination. The difference was in the melody which I thought was somewhat repetitive and severely lacking in quality.

Genso Suikoden III Original Soundtrack - Vinay Del Zexay:
A pleasant little tune which sounds like a town theme. I never liked the Suikoden III soundtrack but this was probably one of the better tracks from that game.

Space Invaders Daisakusen - Game Over:
Haha! This one had me laughing and provided for some good comic relief this week. Who woulda thought you'd hear 80's euro-pop in vgm? It ends up being a bit repetitive but I'll keep this track around for it's comedic value.

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Hey, someone else actually voted! I was beginning to wonder.

I sometimes get the impression that people show up to nominate tracks and subsequently vote themselves points on their respective week, but fail to regularly vote during weeks in which they have no nominated track of their own in the running.

It's possible that the recent crash also got some folk out of the habit, which is fair. But I do hope that my impression above is mostly wrong and that participants are giving equal attention to the nominations of others.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Crash Landon

Hey, someone else actually voted! I was beginning to wonder.

I sometimes get the impression that people show up to nominate tracks and subsequently vote themselves points on their respective week, but fail to regularly vote during weeks in which they have no nominated track of their own in the running.

It's possible that the recent crash also got some folk out of the habit, which is fair. But I do hope that my impression above is mostly wrong and that participants are giving equal attention to the nominations of others.

Last week GFF had five votes in by this time, as opposed to the two there are now. But then there were seven over the next three days, so there's still hope for here. KEEP THE FAITH

I don't think people only voting during weeks that their tracks are up is a problem at all. I wish we could do more about people who nominate tracks and don't vote at all.

But there has been a slowdown lately, not so much on voting (which can always use a boost) but on nominations. Seriously, the queue is looking pretty pathetic right now.

How ya doing, buddy?

(3 Points) Space Invaders Daisakusen - Game Over

I dont know why, but this song reminds me of something that would come from Daft Punk. Its not something that if I was only hearing for the first time would say comes from a game soundtrack. Just overall my kind of song, which is why it gets top points from me.

(2 points)pop'n music 12 Iroha AC ♥ CS pop'n music 10 - Beyond the Earth -Original Long Version-

I did not like this song at all when I heard it for the first time but it slowly grew on me. The chanting really works in the song and adds to the whole "happy happy" image I get from it. All in all a well composed song which deserves to do well in this weeks SOTW (and I would be willing to bet that it will).

(1 point)Genso Suikoden III Original Soundtrack - Vinay Del Zexay

I really dont get it. Why to people continue to nominate the really weak tracks from Suikoden's list of many, many great ones. It just does not make sense to me. Anyhow, lets be honest here, the song doesn't really start until about 45 seconds into it (no really please disregard anything before it). When it finally does kick it you have arguably one of the best town themes around. It will fail in SOTW though, which is a damn shame.

I will put up my own nomination later.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

The crash has REALLY set SotW back, in my mind

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Kaleb.G

In fact, I'm going to go ahead and demand that the Ace Combat Zero nomination wait to be made from the soundtrack. Song of the Week isn't a race to nominate the newest awesome songs first, it's here to seek out great tracks that have been overlooked by many. Kind of hard to consider the music for ACZ "overlooked" when the game hasn't even been out for more than a week.

I can live with that. However, it would be nice if nobody snaps my nomination away.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Time to vote!

(2 points)pop'n music 12 Iroha AC ♥ CS pop'n music 10 - Beyond the Earth -Original Long Version-
I must admit that I feel a little bad for nominating something which isn't the usual j-pop songs from the game, just to catch some points. Anyway, I nominated it because I love the melody and the vocals, even if I dislike the "ta-ta-ta-tan" thing .

(2 points) Dramatic - Oriental Spirits
I felt sad when people here didn't let DH nominate the song he wanted, but this works really fine to me. The good thing about this is that the melody isn't as omnipresent and/or repeatitive as in the above case.

(1 point) Shin Samurai Spirits Arrange Sound Trax - Smooth Talk Rock (Kuroku)
It's a very enjoyable song with a fine instrumentation. I'm more fond of the epic songs from Samurai Shodown, but this also is good to me.

(1 point) Silhouette Mirage Original Sound Track - Punky Pumpkin Castle:
The best parts of this song are the beginning and the end, so I understand why people thinks that this was too short. If it wasn't for the duration, it would have been a 2-2-2 with Oriental Spirits and Beyond the Earth.


Runner up: Space Invaders

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Kaleb.G

On an additional note, I still have a bit of a problem with nominating from albums that just came out. They may become rather popular in the months following, so nominating prematurely just takes away from the music that is the focus of SotW.

In fact, I'm going to go ahead and demand that the Ace Combat Zero nomination wait to be made from the soundtrack. Song of the Week isn't a race to nominate the newest awesome songs first, it's here to seek out great tracks that have been overlooked by many. Kind of hard to consider the music for ACZ "overlooked" when the game hasn't even been out for more than a week.

I would like to propose a new rule, actually. What if we made it so that from this point forward, for a nomination to qualify, the game/album (whichever is older) it is from must be at least one month old? I remember we had a Katamari Damacy track in week 3 appear right as the game (and soundtrack) exploded to uber-popular levels.



My next nominations. I am unsure how eligible these are, so I have listed them in order of preference.
8492 :: Junichi Nakatsuru :: ACE COMBAT 5 THE UNSUNG WAR Original Soundtrack :: 17 of 22 :: Disc 1 of 4
Eight Melodies :: Kimitaka Matsumae :: composed by Hirokazu Tanaka & Keiichi Suzuki :: MOTHER 1+2 Original Soundtrack :: 10 of 26
Sneaking Mission :: Kanichiro Kubo :: composed by Konami Kukeiha Club :: Metal Gear >> Solid Snake Red Disc :: 5 of 20

How ya doing, buddy?

Yeah, I've been surprised with how slow the voting has been too.

(3 points) Space Invaders Daisakusen - Game Over: Here's my reaction, Crash: It's really fookin' good. I'm a sucker for the '80s anyway, but this track just hits the new wave vein in its full, cheeky richness. The melody is dead-on good and the vocoder-work actually works as a plus. Given that the song was released in 2003, it was probably meant to be an ironic interpretation, which is why it works so well.

(2 points) Dramatic - Oriental Spirits: I enjoy pretty much any nomination from Japanese bands like these. The guitar work in the second half of the song has been done before in other tracks (Furukawa-ish I would call it, from Kukeiha Club), but it slays me every time.

(1 point) Klonoa of the Wind 2 ~Something Forgotten Wished by the World~ Original Soundtrack - The Sorrow Revives: Thought about going with Punky Pumpkin, but I have to appreciate spanish-sounding guitars when they're done pretty well, as they are here. Reminds me of Ocarina of Time in a way.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by David Deluxe

I can live with that. However, it would be nice if nobody snaps my nomination away.

That's fine; it can be reserved. Though it's not like you WIN A PRIZE for having a nomination become Song of the Week anyway. Also it's difficult to have much "pride" in a win when other people were already conisdering nominating the track. Just my two cents.

Also, we need more comments for the tracks on the site.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

2 points Space Invaders Daisakusen - Game Over
2 points pop'n music 12 Iroha AC ♥ CS pop'n music 10 - Beyond the Earth -Original Long Version-
1 points Klonoa of the Wind 2 ~Something Forgotten Wished by the World~ Original Soundtrack - The Sorrow Revives
1 points Dramatic - Oriental Spirits

Double Post:
is there a link to the main site on the wiki anywhere? I can't find one at all. I think it should be linked in the first post as well.

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