ctriunfo
09-05-2012, 07:25 AM
So, the moment I saw Maverick Rising had been released at OCR, it was like I blacked out and when I came to I had already downloaded it from their free torrent, added it to iTunes and had it on my iPod ready to play. I was THAT excited about it, how could I not? I'm a die-hard Megaman / Megaman X fan and I love the games' music to death. I know every single note for every single tune in the series to heart. I have every soundtrack and I do listen to them. So, a remix album with 60+ tracks was the gift from the heavens I've been expecting for nearly 20 years now. Then how is it that now, after listening to it I feel so empty and disappointed? The reviews online are freaking awesome... did they not listen to the same album I did? I even listened to it twice just to make sure I wasn't just having a crappy day and that affected my opinion of the album. Nope. Still disappointed.
I'm kind of obsessive about my music. I rate every tune, in every album I own. My iTunes rating system is:
1 Star - I never want to listen to it again.
2 Stars - Not really bad, but I'm really not gonna listen to it in any foreseeable situation.
3 Stars - Acceptable or good. If I'm shuffling and it plays I'll listen to it without skipping it (probably).
4 Stars - Very good tune. I'd listen to this any time, anywhere.
5 Stars - This song made sweet love to my ears and now they're relaxing in post-coital elation.
Given the source material, and what I've heard from OCR Before (I have most of their albums), I would've expected some nice 3's, a lot of 4's, a few truly fantastic 5's, and only a handful of 1's and 2's... but it's the exact opposite. I have a single 5, about six 4's that I felt I HAD to give to not lose my faith in mankind, and maybe ten dubious 3's most of which I'll probably lower to 2's in the future. Out of over 60 tracks, this is a phenomenal failure. So, what do I feel caused this? What turned a guaranteed winner into such a disappointing loser?
Simple: Remixers getting too full of themselves.
To me, a good remix is one in which the remixer gives the original tune his/her own style and maybe an instrumental upgrade, but the main thing to keep in mind, and the most important part of it is ALWAYS identifying the reasons why a tune works, what made it special, what made it stand out, which parts were the hooks of the tune. If a tune's strength was in its speed and power, you probably want to keep that for your remix; for example, I will never for the life of me understand why 99% of all remixes of Vega's theme (from Street Fighter 2) want to make a quick-paced energetic theme really slow and mellow; but here's the thing, a lot of those slow remixes are awesome... why? because they follow the "on the other hand" part of the rule: if instead you want to make an energetic tune slower paced and more mellow, work on finding the right instrumentation and make sure that the tune is recognizable, and all the key hooks are there. The same goes for a tune that is originally mellow. The problem here is that for 90% of these tracks, the reviewers seem to have asked themselves "Hmm, how can I make this track the ABSOLUTE OPPOSITE OF WHAT IT WAS BEFORE to show people just how creative I am?", and this resulted in so many unnecessary changes and deviations from the original track that it was either rendered unrecognizable with one or two recognizable notes popping up, almost like the track coming to the surface to say "Kiiiiill Meeeee!!!!!", or was completely recognizable but presented with a rhythm and instrumentation that did not fit at all, or introducing improvised changes EXACTLY where the track's hooks used to be.
I mean, how can you get Spark Mandrill's theme wrong?! That's physically impossible! What about Armored Armadillo, the one track that told me what a musical genius Megaman X's music composer really was? How can you screw that up? Well, how about keeping the tune perfectly intact and recognizable and then changing the percussion and backing instruments so badly it just sounds wrong... oh and add a horrible metal vocalist to it, please, my soul isn't dead quite yet. Spin Gator was one of the simplest catchiest tunes ever, and they turned it into... some... THING! I mean, if I take a human being and separate his limbs from his body then I connect them back together with strings of Christmas tree lights, sure, fine, now I have something that has all the basic parts of a human being, and it has GLOWING CHRISTMAS LIGHTS INCLUDED, but it's not a human being anymore! That's what they did with a lot of these tunes. Take them apart then join the parts back together with extensive sections of the remixers stroking their... um... egos... in our ears, by improvising haphazardly.
While there are highlights, like Winged Reploid, X-Hunted, A Flea and His Giant, Primulaceae Rosa, and 10 Minutes of Hypothermia, this album, which you will find so greatly reviewed all over the internet, to me just feels like the greatest wasted opportunity in the history of video game music. When is anyone going to do another 60 track album full of remixes for Megaman that the series so rightfully deserves? Probably never again, and this is what we got when it happened. Sometimes less is more; if the album had been only 20 tracks and included those highlights, I would've come here telling you what a wonderful album it is; the same could be said for the remixes: Less is more, sometimes restraint earns better results than ego-stroking and just doing things to a track because you can.
Oh, well... it could've been so awesome.
I'm kind of obsessive about my music. I rate every tune, in every album I own. My iTunes rating system is:
1 Star - I never want to listen to it again.
2 Stars - Not really bad, but I'm really not gonna listen to it in any foreseeable situation.
3 Stars - Acceptable or good. If I'm shuffling and it plays I'll listen to it without skipping it (probably).
4 Stars - Very good tune. I'd listen to this any time, anywhere.
5 Stars - This song made sweet love to my ears and now they're relaxing in post-coital elation.
Given the source material, and what I've heard from OCR Before (I have most of their albums), I would've expected some nice 3's, a lot of 4's, a few truly fantastic 5's, and only a handful of 1's and 2's... but it's the exact opposite. I have a single 5, about six 4's that I felt I HAD to give to not lose my faith in mankind, and maybe ten dubious 3's most of which I'll probably lower to 2's in the future. Out of over 60 tracks, this is a phenomenal failure. So, what do I feel caused this? What turned a guaranteed winner into such a disappointing loser?
Simple: Remixers getting too full of themselves.
To me, a good remix is one in which the remixer gives the original tune his/her own style and maybe an instrumental upgrade, but the main thing to keep in mind, and the most important part of it is ALWAYS identifying the reasons why a tune works, what made it special, what made it stand out, which parts were the hooks of the tune. If a tune's strength was in its speed and power, you probably want to keep that for your remix; for example, I will never for the life of me understand why 99% of all remixes of Vega's theme (from Street Fighter 2) want to make a quick-paced energetic theme really slow and mellow; but here's the thing, a lot of those slow remixes are awesome... why? because they follow the "on the other hand" part of the rule: if instead you want to make an energetic tune slower paced and more mellow, work on finding the right instrumentation and make sure that the tune is recognizable, and all the key hooks are there. The same goes for a tune that is originally mellow. The problem here is that for 90% of these tracks, the reviewers seem to have asked themselves "Hmm, how can I make this track the ABSOLUTE OPPOSITE OF WHAT IT WAS BEFORE to show people just how creative I am?", and this resulted in so many unnecessary changes and deviations from the original track that it was either rendered unrecognizable with one or two recognizable notes popping up, almost like the track coming to the surface to say "Kiiiiill Meeeee!!!!!", or was completely recognizable but presented with a rhythm and instrumentation that did not fit at all, or introducing improvised changes EXACTLY where the track's hooks used to be.
I mean, how can you get Spark Mandrill's theme wrong?! That's physically impossible! What about Armored Armadillo, the one track that told me what a musical genius Megaman X's music composer really was? How can you screw that up? Well, how about keeping the tune perfectly intact and recognizable and then changing the percussion and backing instruments so badly it just sounds wrong... oh and add a horrible metal vocalist to it, please, my soul isn't dead quite yet. Spin Gator was one of the simplest catchiest tunes ever, and they turned it into... some... THING! I mean, if I take a human being and separate his limbs from his body then I connect them back together with strings of Christmas tree lights, sure, fine, now I have something that has all the basic parts of a human being, and it has GLOWING CHRISTMAS LIGHTS INCLUDED, but it's not a human being anymore! That's what they did with a lot of these tunes. Take them apart then join the parts back together with extensive sections of the remixers stroking their... um... egos... in our ears, by improvising haphazardly.
While there are highlights, like Winged Reploid, X-Hunted, A Flea and His Giant, Primulaceae Rosa, and 10 Minutes of Hypothermia, this album, which you will find so greatly reviewed all over the internet, to me just feels like the greatest wasted opportunity in the history of video game music. When is anyone going to do another 60 track album full of remixes for Megaman that the series so rightfully deserves? Probably never again, and this is what we got when it happened. Sometimes less is more; if the album had been only 20 tracks and included those highlights, I would've come here telling you what a wonderful album it is; the same could be said for the remixes: Less is more, sometimes restraint earns better results than ego-stroking and just doing things to a track because you can.
Oh, well... it could've been so awesome.