Motoi Sakuraba

It's kinda funny, I am really neutral with him. I think his COMPOSITION ability is mediocre. The ability to be original, the original to have well thought out compositions, I really never see from him. Most of his stuff, even the stuff I find beautiful, such as The True Mirror, or Supreme Ruler of the Nine Heavens... it's extremely cliched.

But that's where the OTHER hand comes in... While not great at composing original stuff, the man can just flatout write good sounding music. The True Mirror is full of chord progression cliches. The beginning part from :05 to 1:00 in that piece is one of my favorite light battle themes from a game... It's just beautiful. I love the violin, I love the bassline jumping all over, the basic and simple percussion... All of which are playing cliched stuff. I mean seriously, the part starting at :19 begins a chord progression of C-Minor, BFlat Major, AFlat-Major, BFlat-Major... Bob Dylan wrote All Along the Watchtower using the same progression, but starting at A-Minor. I swear, since the extreme popularity of that, especially after Hendrix's version, which moved up one step, that's like "The" progression to use. I hear it all the time... But it's use in The True Mirror within Baten Kaitos really was well.

He's goes for sound only, and because of that, he gets some great stuff, and some horrible stuff. Golden Sun's music is another good example. I think there are quite a few really good songs from that soundtrack... But some, such as the Desert Theme, are laughable. I literally laugh everytime I hear the Desert Theme. It's got a neat SOUND, but the composition and randomness is completely funny to me.

He's an interesting fellow, and I'd much rather have his good music and "live with" his bad music, than have none of his music.

Jam it back in, in the dark.