Okay people we all know that Game music has been heavily popularised thanks to japan and with there ost releases, we have a chance to enjoy a vgm game music outside of the game.

But here is where the problem lies, Most americans view videogames as childless toys and nerd entertainment, So if americans view them that way, what makes you think they are gonna think diffrentely about the music?

Also americas music radio waves are hjighly populated with pop music from high money paid artists, no instruemntal music is ever heard on the radio exxept jazz. So when a videogame gets released over here in america thats quite popular or average even to the music we hear all about the multiplayer hype, graphics,gameplay top of the line ect ect. Except where is the appreciation for its music? Even if the music is really grand or average it gets no appreciation. Its almost like it doesn't even exist.

A Great example would be The game Ghost recon advanced warfighter 2, The graphics were great, i loved the gameplay, it was a really good tactical shooter but best of all it had a really cool soundtrack, orchestrations mixed with light guitar and eletronics by composer tom salta. It even has a chior variation of a track thats just too cool to pass up, and even yet it gets the same treatment as every vgm released here in america and it brings a tear to my eye to how just great vgm music gets pushed aside to crap like 50cent.

It also has to do with ignorance and peer pressure, in most american schools or social gatherings its accetpable to listen to any music that contains lyrics and a looping beat, But if you even as mention a track from a videogame soundtrack or a film score your automatically judged. Its quite disgusting actually.

But anyways as long as there is ignorance,peer pressure,diahhreah music, then theres no chance for a vgm market to produce.

But i do appreciate osts that have been released like halo and the hitman series, but its not enough.

So the point of this thread is to discuss Your fav western vgm music in general, this is in no wasy bashing eastern soundtracks whatsoever, most of them i like wheather is ff10, devil may cry series or the dead rising soundtracks, eastern composers are really good at composing vgm music, but western vgm composers are great also for there creative hollywood style of composing there vgm games.

here are some noticable ones

Christopher lennertz
Jeremy soule
Cris velasco
Jesper kyd
Graeme norgate
Kevin Riepl
Tom salta (Love him)

Discuss WESTERN VGM MUSIC YEEHAWW!!

I'm just going to assume that "Western" means "anything that's not from Japan".

I'm a huge fan of the work of Tim Follin. I think his NES and Commodore era chiptunes were the best but his score for 'Ecco: Defender of the Future' for the DreamCast is one of the best soundtracks in recent years.
I also like the work he did with his brother Geoff.

David Wise (best known for 'Donkey Kong Country's) has done great stuff over the years.
Another great chiptune master was Rob Hubbard.

As for more recent stuff...
I also adore Jeremy Soule and Christopher Lennertz (only heard 'Gun' but that's all it took to win me over).

Mark Griskey goes without saying (especially enjoyed 'Gladius' and his work with Lucas Arts on various Star Wars titles).

I know there's more. I generally don't get OST's, I just make note of great music from a game when I hear it then track down the artists other work when possible.

As for Western game composers not getting respect by not getting an OST release- The music industry (especially in America) has always been about sales and chart positions. It's simply the bottom line (the only line the producers are looking at).
Video Game Music is regarded as secondary. I can even recall one instance in which someone (a college music major by the way) told me that they don't count VGM because it's "not real songs". That is just sad.

I would probably buy OSTs if they were more common and made readily available like all other music. I would definitely listen to an all VGM radio station.

Instrumental music is very unappreciated as well.

A huge VGM market like there is one is Japan will propably not work "enough" in other countries.
Don't forget that Japan is a crazy country.. they got J-pop, Idols.. they watch crazy stuff on TV (like live rape wtf?)...

Japanese poeple really love soundtracks and music, they actually buy tons & tons of stuff. It's probably the lonely country to do Dramas soundtrack for videogames.

Of course the rest of the world enjoys soundtracks too, but the market would be 1000x smaller than on Japan.
There is more and more western VGM nowadays, i'am serious. But they have understand it, they release it mainly digitally, and that's probably the best way.

There is really more western VGM around than you can imagine, but it's just more obscure and harder to find. (of course it's far far far away from the number of Japan releases but it's not so bad).
If i should count western VGM from my collection, i'd say it's 15% of my stuff. But this number keeps growing.

I have yet to come across a Jeremy Soule album that I dont like. Also, the team behind the Warcrack OST does some good work too.

Don't forget Frank Klepacki and Alexander Brandon.

Tom Salta is awesome I also like Martin O'Donnel

Bill Brown was the artist that got me hooked on (Western) video game music with the Rainbow Six series, Shadow Watch, Ghost Recon and Return To Castle Wolfenstein. I had a great appreciation for movie scores before that and still do but for me when Bill created the music for the original Rainbow Six games I began to take notice.

I'm also a fan of the work of Inon Zur (Crysis, Klingon Academy, SOCOM II, Shadow Ops Red Mercury, Men of Valor).

I'm very glad that many Western video game composer's art is taken seriously enough by Hollywood to warrant using them as composers for film and television such as the aforementioned Bill Brown (CSI:NY) and Medal Of Honor's Micheal Giacchino (The Incredibles, M:I-3, Star Trek) I'm equally glad many games now use a quality ochestral score on par with those of movies and television and that many of Hollywood's composers have begun creating scores and themes for video games, such as Danny Elfman's theme for Fable, John Debney's Lair, Harry Gregson-William's COD4 and his collaboration on Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 and Paul Haslinger's Rainbow Six Vegas to name but a small few.