You Heard VGM WHERE?

So here I was tonight making my way to my seat at Citizens Bank Park for the Mets-Phillies game. The top of the first inning had already concluded, and the Phillies' massive HD jumbotron was showing highlights from Monday night's blowout win.

The music with the highlight starts playing, and I'm taken aback, because I instantly recognize it as videogame music. It totally throws me off-kilter because it was the most random of settings. I knew the song -- knew it very well -- but because I was hearing it in an unexpected environment, I was straining to place exactly what it is. I was just hoping the song would keep playing long enough so I could figure it out. The fast pace, the synth electric guitar, the escalating sense of urgency -- I had heard it hundreds of times before. Finally, it hit me:

FIGHT!! Ver. 1 from Grandia II

Well, that was random. And 40,000 people at the ballpark had no idea they were listening to battle music from a JRPG.

Now it's your turn. Have you heard a VGM song in a completely unexpected setting? What was the song and where was it?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

This was about fifteen years back or so, at some local fair or carnival. They had one of those motion simulator rides that looked like it was inside of a converted mini-van or something, and there was a screen inside you'd watch as the van tilted every which way.

It was an outer space simulation of some kind, flying around planets and through the asteroid belt. There was music playing throughout, electronic spacey sounding music, but then at one point, something familiar kicks in. It was the Dr. Wily Stage 1 song from Mega Man 2. Even though it's a really well known game song, it blew my mind hearing it then and I always wondered just how that came to happen.

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Once when I was playing Suikoden (I), I was right at the beginning of the game where you climb Mt. Seifu - the track "Distant Mountain" plays here. I thought there was something wrong with my PS2 because I was hearing different layers in the BGM, like it had started again through the first loop while the first loop continued to play. I turned off my TV and still heard it, somewhere, so I put on my detective monocle to find the source. Was an awesome family member playing Suikoden elsewhere in the house? Had Suikoden music somehow become so embedded in my subconscious that I heard it play outside the game?! Had The Government started to play Suikoden music throughout the nation to assuage the anxiety of the masses?!?! My eyes were wide with wonderment and stupefaction. I had to refit my monocle.

Underwhelmed, I discovered that this travel show which my parents were watching on TV was playing the Celtic arrange version of "Distant Mountain". Neat I guess, but </3

MYSTERY SOLVED; BRAIN EXPLOSION OF EUPHORIA PREVENTED

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

Reverse experience for me. I heard the music before I played the game. Then when I actually played the game, I was scratching my head, asking myself why is this game playing UFO catcher songs?

Game in question was Sonic the Hedgehog 1.

YouTube Video

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

There's a display in the Infants section at my Wal-Mart that cycles through various songs to demo what's on the CDs hanging from its rack, and as you can imagine it gets incredibly annoying when you're stuck putting out stock in one of the aisles right next to it. It's a rather bizarre mix which goes through the usual lullabies, La Bamba, Jewel, and one song in particular that I couldn't quite place at first. As soon as I started to hum along it hit me. For some reason Alex's ocarina song from Lunar: SSSC is on this thing.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Damn it, now I want to play Grandia 2 again.

Never heard any game music outside of games, but I did see a commercial for the USA show Monk in a restaurant here in South Korea that was playing Tank! from Cowboy Bebop. Even had the same style with transitions and stuff as the opening credits for Bebop. Thought that was pretty crazy.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I'm quite certain I heard the MGS2 main theme played during a mass display segment for some national festivities some years back.

But more often than not, I hear VGM tunes in Taiwan and Hong Kong drama serials my parents watch. And I'll be wondering: "Wait a minute, that sounds awfully familiar...".

I'm really not sure how these production companies get the rights to use the music but in any case...

There's one popular Taiwanese drama serial on TV now that will play "Waiting for Something Awakens" from Parasite Eve during scenes of intrigue and mystery.

Many years back, another popular Taiwanese period production played some tracks from Xenogears, notably excerpts from "Light from the Netherworld" during action sequences and the Black Moon forest theme when there's mystery in the air.

Even before that, there was this Hong Kong vampire drama series that would often play "Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec" or "Succession of Witches" from FF8 whenever a female antagonist made an apperance.

Funny how I can remember the tunes but not the names of the shows.

FELIPE NO

We have a special media group in Canada speciallized for the Chinese by the name of Fairchild. I noticed they have been using vgm for many many years now.

They once used Voyage (Home World) from Chrono Cross as a thanksgiving greeting during tv shows.

They used the first ten seconds of Don't Be Afraid the orchestrated version for a
talk show on the radio. As well as using three seconds of Liberi FataliFor a movie review program.

I also remember them using numerous FFT battle music for a game show which would be playing really softly. But noticed I did.

The funniest one I remember was a commercial about poultry with the Maplestory login theme playing.

There's probably many others, but these were the ones I noticed. I'm wondering where they got the rights to use these too Elorin.

How ya doing, buddy?

Probably didn't get them at all. It's all good till you get sued, and that's if.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Elorin

I'm really not sure how these production companies get the rights to use the music but in any case...

I imagine they ring up whoever owns the rights to the tune (The composer or his publishers) and ask how much it'd cost to use the music, then pay some money over and use it. What makes you think that licensing a piece of music that has featured in a computer game would be any different from licensing a piece of music from a tv programme or film or just released as a record? At the end of the day, no matter how much you want it to be unique and special, vgm is just commercially produced music the same as anything else.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

One day i was driving down the road and i had the radio on, i heard a sad "save the blind" radio commercial or something like that and i had to pull over because i recognized the music. It was the Sad piano theme from Lunar:sssc! I was so shock i told everyone about it but they all thought i was nuts.

Silly haters.

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

For the longest time, I was on the impression, erroneous or otherwise, that these production companies simply used VGM in their shows without paying the rights owners.

And that the rights owners were not as active in clamping down on unlicensed use of game music as the major record companies.

So TV production companies might have thought that the rights owners wouldn't notice short snippets of VGM being slipped into their hour-long TV shows. Also, the music composers for the TV series might be the ones who slip in the VGM and the producers etc don't even realise it because they can't recognise the VGM tunes as originating from games.

But you're probably right, Shin, and I'm being too cynical.

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

In this day and age of trigger-happy litigation, it'd cost more for a company to try to sneak something like that in than to just go ahead and pay up front for it. Ad agencies have whole departments devoted to doing deals on using bits of music and with many vgm types releasing tunes through mainstream publishers, I'd be far more surprised if they tried to use a bit of unlicensed music than if they paid for it properly.

Heh, I remember Hot Chip getting paid by Warner for 4.5 seconds of music used during an episode of Nip/Tuck, things like that are always very much above board.

I was speaking idiomatically.

That certainly makes sense. But there's still the possibly related problem of how VGM bootlegs are still around (I had the misfortune of buying some from a brick and mortar store last year thinking they were the real deal). If the VGM rights owners can clamp down on unlicensed use of their tunes in TV shows, then why not VGM bootlegs?

One explanation I can think of is possibly an issue with potentially weak intellectual property rights laws in certain countries for specific types of recorded media (but I'm no legal expert so...). Another reason is that perhaps it makes more sense to sue a TV production company which could be rolling in more dough than a VGM bootleg outfit.

Anyways, this is starting to go off topic but it definitely helps me see some issues from another perspective. :P

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

At the 2008 Olympics there was a song from SimCity 4 being played in the background during one of the men's finals in gymnastics. Also Myst 3 music at the women's syncronized swimming event.

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I'm sure I have an example or two like everybody else's, I just can't remeber. =\

But I was tuning into NPR the other day and heard some 8-bit. Apparently they were featuring the group that did the Scott Pilgrim game OST.

Anamanaguchi: The Band That Plays Nintendo : NPR

How ya doing, buddy?

Tv was on the other night, Carson Daly's late night show, he was interviewing some storm chaser. They like to heavily edit that show with quick cuts and several bits of music with it, and my attetion was grabbed at one point when they overlayed tornado footage with some choir version of the overworld theme to Wild Arms 1.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Now my question is, what if the developer is gone, say like Working Designs. Does that make the Lunar:sssc music up for grabs for TV shows and such to use? Seems like most developers dont stick around as long as a music company or a TV show. Who would actually run the rights for the music when they do leave?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

It depends on who owns the publishing rights. It might be the composer, it might be a record company if an official soundtrack cd was released or sometimes, when a small developer goes bust, the assets will be sold off, including the rights to the IP, be that music, characters, the name of the game or whatever else. The developer would only own the music rights in the first place if the music was written in-house. If they employed a composer then chances are the composer would retain the rights to the music.

How ya doing, buddy?

If you watch Filipino TV regularly, you will hear VGM on a regular basis, specially on the ABS-CBN channel. They usually play songs from the Final Fantasy games. The most common one is "To Zanarkand" which they play in, you guessed it, dramatic scenes involving sad events. Sometimes they play "The Man with the Machine Gun" from FF8 during "intense" scenes, or during sports segments on the news.

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