Song of the Week - WEEK 50 Voting/WEEK 51 Nominations

OK, I have been hanging around in VGM Discussion contributing nothing for too long, so I thought I'd finally check out Song of the Week. If it's like this every week, you should be seeing me around often!

Drag-on Dragoon 2 - Fate - I'm a big fan of this piece and the entire Drag-on Dragoon 2 Original Soundtrack, even including it on the Weekly MP3 of my own site this week before I spotted this. It has incredible emotive power, working surprisingly well when representing some of the most intense battles in the game, and demonstrates a lot of flair with instrumentation. It's mature, intense, and beautiful, and almost made me tear up when I first heard it, which very few pieces of music have ever done.

Gate of Thunder (Red Book Audio) - Crown - Though I find the introduction quite dull and detest the chime use, the development, rhythmical impetus, and fairly well done guitar solos of this track make it decent overall. Not one of my favourites, but I'd happily revisit this one some time again.

Jert Gaiden 3-2 - Illegal Burger Deals (Game Rip) - I'll Take You Underwater - Not sure what the hell to think of this one. If it's a parody, I won't criticise it too much, but it's still not enough to really entice me, being far too slow-developing and bland for my tastes. If it's not, heck... talk about unoriginal and cheesy. If the sound quality is intended to emulate being underwater, that's pretty awesome, though.

Johnny Bazookatone - Deadbolt - I basically agree with Crash and Goldfish here. I'm really digging the sax and guitar work, and enjoy its overall slick feel. It's great to see a jazz-based piece that demonstrates clear intentions to be original; too many composers seem to think adding a little bit of jazz here and there in a hackneyed style is enough to count for inspiration, but it isn't, regardless of it contrasts to the rest of the soundtrack.

Small Soldiers (Red Book Audio) - Track 12 - I've not heard many of Giacchino's works outside The Incredibles and the Medal of Honour series, but constantly find myself endeared to his symphonic epics. This one took me a while to really enjoy, but I'm now quite fond it, especially the use of vocals and unusual beats (are they percussive or electronic?). It's perhaps the most musically mature out of all these nominations, though loses a few marks for originality.

Spyro the Dragon (Game Rip) - Dry Canyon - Again finding myself agreeing with Goldfish and Crash. This track more than suffices at creating an image of a canyon and I find the percussion use (both tuned and drums) pretty satisfying, and love the distorted effect of the guitar chords. The more I listen to it, too, it grows on me, and I notice lots of new features. Overall, a highly pleasurable and somewhat remarkable track.

The Adventure of Puppet Princess Original Soundtrack - Dream Traveler - I'm not a massive Tenpei Sato fan, persistently finding his music to be memorable, functional, and enjoyable, yet not always exuberant. Though this is a highly attractive composition, it's a piece that exemplifies this to me; it's close to being superb, but somehow fall shorts due to reliance on a few too many repetitive harmonies and some stylistic downfalls. It presents serenity well, though eventually bores me.

TimeSplitters - Future Perfect (Game Rip) - Scotland the Brave - While I agree with Chuckster about the effective exposure of this piece's melody and find some of the secondary passages highly satisfying, I don't find this theme captivating overall, being damaged by overextension and, once again, little harmonic richness. This theme does what it is intended to do very well, but lacks the qualities to be especially rich on a stand-alone basis.

So...

3 points - Johnny Bazookatone - Deadbolt
2 points - Drag-on Dragoon 2 - Fate
1 point - Small Soldiers (Red Book Audio) - Track 12

If I have done anything wrong, tell me. I'm still a newbie to all of this!

Jam it back in, in the dark.