Beginner’s guide to Anime and VGM

Hello everyone, I’m a new user and even though I’ve always had a soft spot for VGM and anime music I’m still far from being an expert as some of you guys are on here. Then I’d like to ask for your opinion: if you had to first introduce someone with somewhat of a classical background (but with broad taste, including world music) to VGM/anime music, which pieces would you pick? I have a few composers in mind (Uematsu, Hamauzu, Kajiura, Hirano, M. Oshima, K. Kawai, Yoko Kanno etc.) but I only a few works by most of these, and either way I’d be glad to listen to any recommendations. So feel free to suggest 🙂 and thanks for your help!

Welcome! You have excellent taste. All these composers are excellent. Here’s some more!

Joe Hisashi
– Ghibli films (Castle in the Sky, Spirited Away, etc.)

Jun Maeda
– Angel Beats!

Yoko Shimomura
– Super Mario RPG
– Parasite Eve
– Legend of Mana
– Kingdom Hearts franchise
– Mario & Luigi franchise

Yasunori Mitsuda
– Chrono Trigger & Cross

Koji Kondo
– Mario
– Zelda
– Star Fox

Disasterpeace
– Fez
– Hyper Light Drifter

Jake Kaufman
– Shantae
– Shovel Knight
– DuckTales Remastered

There’s just too many to choose! I can send you more later if you like.

Thank you 🙂 and thank you so much for all of these! Whoa, it’ll take me a while to check them all out 😀 I happen to know a few of those you mentioned, if there’s any tracks in particular you’d like to recommend feel free to do so! I definitely need to check some of the existing orchestral scores for both Mario and Zelda. Fan-made or live arrangements of said scores are also very welcome!

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7IzgyXLVyBkZL21s6rlMDqwAtdLL7me8

Here is my youtube playlist of different vgm songs I like from different franchises. I have other playlists for different franchises with one track from each game in the franchise. Those are still being updated, but feel free to check them at your leisure.

Thank you! 🙂 I’ll check it out gradually as I see it has many tracks from games I have never played or heard of.

I was thinking of compiling a cd for this teacher of mine who has never listened to any game music, but is an avid listener of many classical composers, even obscure ones. Given the kind of music he’s talked about ranged from renaissance/baroque to contemporary I thought I could introduce him to some chamber works by Masashi Hamauzu (I love his use of harmony, I think his piano repertoire shines best over the rest though), but I’m only really familiar with a few of them, mostly from his non-game work (Sanzui, Opus 4, Alpha Clock). I remember a few pieces of him from FFX by heart, and I liked his SaGa Frontier II piano collection a lot too, but I don’t know if that would make a good example of proper "game music"…

My goal is to make the tracklist as diverse as possible and featuring many composers rather than having just two or three whose work I know best (say, Kanno or Uematsu). As for the latter, I think I’ll just stick with two of his most well-known, and arguably best compositions – "Liberi Fatali" and "One-Winged Angel" from Final Fantasy VIII and VII, but I’ve yet to pick the versions that would fit the most. Maybe original version for Liberi and piano collections for OWA. Any suggestions? 🙂

Oh boy. Let’s see.

Here’s a thread I made for finding baroque-ish style tracks: Thread 222108

For arrangements (both classical and non), check out the following:

The Triforce Quartet
Video Games Live
The London Philharmonic Orchestra’s video game albums (The Greatest Video Game Music)
Distant Worlds (Orchestral arrangements of Final Fantasy which you may have already seen)

I’ll look for some more original tracks soon.

P.S. The Tetris theme is based on a classical Russian folk song, in case you didn’t know. 🙂

Oh boy. Let’s see.

Here’s a thread I made for finding baroque-ish style tracks: Thread 222108

Thank you so much!! I particularly like the Partita from the Castlevania OST 🙂

Distant Worlds (Orchestral arrangements of Final Fantasy which you may have already seen)

I’ll look for some more original tracks soon.

P.S. The Tetris theme is based on a classical Russian folk song, in case you didn’t know. 🙂

I’ve actually been to Distant Worlds in Milan in May! 🙂 It was definitely a nostalgic trip, I hope I can experience it live again sometime soon. What about you?

As for Tetris, it’s Korobeiniki, right? I was listening to the original but needless to say, I’m so used to the remake that I couldn’t possibly like the original more at this point haha

You’re welcome! I regrettably have never been to a video game concert. It’s on the bucket list of things to accomplish eventually.