On the Topic of Vaporgames II
Had to delete and repost this because blogger completely destroyed the pages CSS somehow. Anyways....While I completely missed the one-year anniversary I finally made it to post 52 (well 53 if you count that little intro I posted all the way back). When I launched the blog I had planned to try and make a single post every week. That has sort of failed but I did achieve a "years worth" of posts. In the time since I started the blog a ton of stuff has happened, I learned a lot and grew even more.
I had originally planned to make post 52 about my favourite game of all time but writing out that post I felt I should save that story for some other time. Then I figured to write about an article I had been planning for some time but again, that is much more suited for a different project.
Then while at work it hit me. Why don't I just put out three posts at once? So here we are. It's been a fun "year". I'll be jotting down my thoughts for wrapping up the blog at the end of post three.
So without further ado, let's go!
"On the Topic of Vaporgame Music" is at the time of writing my most popular post. At the time of writing it has also been just over a year since I made that post. Well I figured hey, I have been listening to a lot more, plus there have been some developments in the genre. So here it is.
Fotoshoppe still reigns supreme in the style. Having released a slew of albums since last year the label just keeps trudging along dropping quality albums left and right. In the last post I failed to mention another major artist in the style is Equip. Well, I didn't mention him because I really haven't listened to anything he's made. Nothing against him, his music just never crossed my path. Another major artist that performs music in this style is death's dynamic shroud.wmv. Same reasons as Equip here. Just haven't dove into their music much. DDS is extremely versatile and not all of their work is vaporgame. DERELICTメガタワー (2014) and シェンムーOnline (2014) are both their most prominent vaporgame albums. The latter sampling Shenmue for the DreamCast and the former being a 4 hour monolith of an album with all sorts of VGM samples.
Although not exactly Vaporgame Music, the record Oasis LTD. has also made waves releasing some of their albums on GBA format, complete with a GBA box and a real cartridge! I feel in a way that comes full circle with the albums now unofficially becoming video game music. Tangentially related to vaporgame music, there are also soundtracks out there that people have retroactively claimed to be vaporwave, or at least carry the spirit. Some of those records are Legend of Zelda: Faces of Evil (1993) and Kaze No Notam (1997). Both of those can be found earlier on this blog. Just check the vapor tag. There are also examples of musicians composing vaporwave for video games such as Broken Reality and OK/NORMAL though I am not sure if I would count that. I still define this as a style wherein musicians use aesthetics or samples from VGM to make the music so unless either of those soundtracks were composed as such I wouldn't include them.
Before we even begin there is one other record I need to mention, Nmesh and TinyMixTapes's 2014 DJ master mix, Welcome to the Warp Zone!. It is a roughly 4 hour DJ mix featuring many, many video game songs as well as a few original tracks from Nmesh himself. I haven't really decided if that counts as vaporgame music since there isn't much being done to the music but in terms of records in the vaporwave music that have a video game connection this is one of them.
Last post I wrote about 5 of my favourite vaporgame music albums. Here are another 5.
CGI Gold™ 複合 - Caribbean Synth
The Bogus Collective is more known for their work on keeping ocean grunge alive. However they have also released in my opinion one of the best vaporgame albums. This one skirts the line a bit I believe it to count. It is a much of midijams using what I believe to be soundfonts from different video games. The use of what is clearly tracked music plus the soundfonts and style all come off as like a video game. This could easily soundtrack some kind of low-poly water-based racing game for the N64, PSX or Saturn. Each track flows into each other perfectly while still retaining the "playlist-like" effect most VGM OSTs have. The whole thing is has this vibrant, luscious sound and I found myself replaying many of the tracks over and over again.
FOTOshoppeツ - Marble Beach
Okay, I can't do another one of these posts without mentioning a FOTOSHOPPE CO. album. As stated earlier, the guy(s?) still continue to dominate the genre. This 20 tracked, 90 minute opus is something was easily lost in many times. Using exotic, chill and downbeat samples it keeps up this bright and upbeat but still relaxed atmosphere. The whole album has this slightly lo-fi glaze to it like the cover. During this past summer it was the perfect album to throw on and just leave playing, sometimes on shuffle and just allow the music to take you to the beach. It's got a bit of guitar work, jazz, and library music all in it. I don't recognize any of the samples but honestly, that adds to a bit of the charm.
Floor Baba - Gamewave
I wouldn't describe this as a purely vaporgame album. It would have to have the genre either as primary alongside a bunch of others like EDM and Future Bass or a secondary amongst other influences like vaportrap and actual video game music. The album utilizes samples from VGM but does so much more with them than vaporwave producers are willing to go. These are mostly original compositions using video game music samples and soundfonts to create these banging dance tracks and bouncing songs. RYM has this tagged as Kawaii Bass but I would have to disagree. I'm not sure if that fits but I really can't think of a better one. This album is just that unique. The whole thing sort of feels like a soundtrack with the highs and lows similar to one but still keeps a sort of upbeat mood throughout. Either way it's really engaging. This was advertised to me originally as a vaporwave album but it really is just in a league of its own.
Penelopes Fiance - Tokyo Dream
I haven't listened to this one in a while but I do recall loving it and I have a copy in my horde. To the best of my knowledge this is the only vapor thing this artist has ever done. They appear to specialize more in techno and industrial music. This is an 80 minute mix of various PSX songs from all sorts of different games. The whole thing flows amazingly as a DJ set and reminds me a bit of those old 90s EDM tape rips you'd find floating around the early internet...but with PSX music. There is a huge EDM influence here with a lot of tracks just straight up being dance tracks. As I wrote, it's been a while and I can't remember many of the samples but the sound is very diverse. Penelopes Fiance takes songs from all across the spectrum of PSX games and organizes and mixes them into this outstanding everflowing mix. Another record that sort of skirts the vaporgame line but ehn, this was also originally advertised to me as a vaporwave album so I’ll let it slide.
Crystal Door - 等尺性 Platforms
Crystal Door made a cameo in the last vaporgame post I did. I used the cover of his 2017 album, Memory 島々 for the vaporgame cover in that post. This record is his second effort under this alias. So this one is a bit of a weird one. When it comes to this style I tend to avoid albums that use samples I am highly familiar with and not flip them. At that point I will just listen to the original soundtrack. There are only a few examples of records I can stand to listen to that do this. 等尺性 Platforms is one of them. This record should break that rule as it samples exclusively from the Spyro GBA games, of which I love the soundtracks for. What this instead does is offer mallsoft like remixes of a few of the songs and screws them a bit. It's just enough to take the dreamy atmosphere of those songs and elevate them even further. It makes them even more dreamy and ethereal than before. I don't listen to this a lot as I will just listen to the original tracks but this is still a neat take on them.
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