I'm hearin' you here. I've tried to give this OST a nice chance, but it's all around disappointing at best. To me, this isn't just a lackluster Megaman soundtrack, it's just wholesomely bad on it's own merits.

I will say this, though. I wasn't able to appreciate the Megaman 9 OST to it's fullest until I listened to the accompanying Arrange album, which I surely, truly and absolutely adored. It just brought forth so many layers to the music that I didn't notice before, so I'm hoping the inevitable Megaman 10 Arrange album does the same for me.

I usually don't take to doing stage-by-stage rankings of Mega Man music, but with MM10, I have a truly definable sense of what I like and don't.  So, from best to worst: 

DESERT COMMANDO (COMMANDO MAN STAGE) - Minae Ojalin Fujii
SOLAR INFERNO (SOLAR MAN STAGE) - Yasuaki Bunbun Fujita
POLLUTED PUMP (PUMP MAN STAGE) - Yuko Takehara
NITRO RIDER (NITRO MAN STAGE) - Manami Matsumae
FIREBALL STRIKE (STRIKE MAN STAGE) - Makoto Tomozawa
KING OF BLADES (BLADE MAN STAGE) - Akari Kaida
ABSOLUTE CHILL (CHILL MAN STAGE) - Shusaku Uchiyama
CYBERSHEEP'S DREAM (SHEEP MAN STAGE) - Mari Yamaguchi

I'll also say that 10 features the most consistently finest set of Wily Stage themes I've heard in the series, with each successive theme being as good, if not better than the last.  ABANDONED MEMORY (Wily 1) and NO TURNING BACK (Wily 3) are particularly high on the awesometer.

Plus, the last level intro that plays up in DR. WILY CASTLE -FINAL- may end up being the coolest thing I'll see and hear this year.

Those are my 2 favorites too (although the other way round) and this just goes to show that Ojalin and Bunbun are THE unslain masters of MM music.

I also agree with DK that this is one of the tamest soundtracks in the series, even though I still like it.

Based on responses here and elsewhere, I have to assume the general consensus is that Capcom's getting-the-band-back-together stunt for the first eight stages was something of a failure.
In retrospect it makes sense, since everyone has a different idea of which soundtracks in the series are the best ones (outside of the near-universal appreciation for 2 & 3, which were worked on by the composers of the two most-appreciated of these tracks internet-wide, Nitroman's and Solarman's), and with only one track to work with, you might not even get the style from each composer you like (certainly true of Takehara's contribution in my case, I love MM6's music in general, but she made one or two snoozers, and I personally think Pumpman makes three).
When they do get around to another Classic game (hopefully after they make a third ZX game), maybe Inti should just go back to handling it themselves, as the Wily stage themes are generally more well-liked, and for god's sake get Masaki Suzuki and Chicken Mob back in the mix - they were the best composers in their stable before Kawakami showed up.

P.S. Daniel, Blademan is seriously worse than Burnerman or Astroman from Megaman & Bass? I could understand if you forgot about that lump of a  soundtrack altogether, though - Dynamoman's theme is the only one I actually keep on my mp3 player.

Yeah, I did forget that one. I was thinking of the numbered ones (1 - 10).

Oh yeah, also: Chill Man's stage theme is quite good.

Yeah, I feel it was more of a failure than a success.

Mega Man & Bass' "Big Four" for me: Cold Man, Pirate Man, Boss, King Man Stage

No one has mentioned this?!!

http://www.zophar.net/music/nsf/rockman … 3-360.html

He also made an NSF for Mega Man 9 which was interesting to check out. I should have known that the NES sound hardware couldn't do that beat slicing effect on "Maze of Death".

Surprisingly, I find the arranges on the Inti Bonus Disc Volume 1 that come with the OST more enjoyable than the actual soundtrack.

sorry to say but I prefer megaman 9 ost by miles
I dont know whether the melody lines on this one is less catchy or what but its not memorable like 9, at least for me

That seems to be the general consensus, yes.

I will admit 10 has really grown on me the past couple of weeks, I love it now, but it's still not as memorable as 9, certainly.

after listening to the entire ost like 10 times, only strike man's theme that stuck in my head, the other is rather disapointing ... like chill man's theme for example... kinda sounds like an out of tune melody

megaman 9 opening is something that really catch the vintage sound
and Splash women stage is still my ringtone

I'll never understand people.

jajaja

Perhaps this is why Strikeman's theme is the only one that stuck in your head.

yea,  1-2 bars of same melody is enough to make it stuck in my head

Wily 1 needs more than 2 loops

It's interesting how much better the Wily Stage themes are. The Robot Stage themes mostly feel phoned in (with a few exceptions).

Definitely agreed. The Wily stage themes save this soundtrack from being almost completely forgettable. All of them are great, with Wily 4 and Wily 5 leading the pack, in my opinion.

Ask and ye shall receive.

"ABANDONED MEMORY", double looped for double the pleasure:
http://www.mediafire.com/?2azxemyqztj

After just listening to (most of) the Rockman 10 Image Soundtrack, here are two links that explain my initial reaction:

http://twitter.com/the_miker/status/13344863759

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV_-O4nfT2U

Real instruments are indeed a plus!

Perhaps there should've been more live treatment. There are some on here as mentioned in the credits. There's an alto sax on "Strike Man (Fireball Strike)," a violin and a good number of guitars throughout. I thought Rockman 9 had some good band treatments, looks like this one was more at the mercy of individual, veteran composers instead of the "III" band.

Haha... I don't know why I was expecting those links to lead to anything positive.

The continued lack of a strong presence for real instrumentation is unfortunate, but I'm liking what I'm hearing all the same.  Know how I view this as?  Like one of those Midi Power Pro collections of the late 90s.

Digging the Middle Eastern style they've taken with Desert Commando, and the smooth, mellow yumminess of Polluted Pump is brought over well.  Boss turned out to be pretty awesome too.

Yeah, I should have been more specific (damn Twitter and its 140 character nonsense).  Even though there are real instruments here, they just sound washed out and lose all their power because of all the weak-sounding MIDI stuff.  I dunno, I wanted something that sounded more along the lines of those 20th Anniversary Rock and Techno CDs.  Those sounded POWERFUL and the arrangements were at least interesting.  This CD is just two (bad) vocal tracks, one (bad) drama track, and the rest are weak MIDI arrangements with the occasional "real" instrument thrown in.

Capcom: Stop making these "Image" things and start releasing good Rockman arranged albums.  You did it before and it came out great.  Now do it again!

That's kind of what I thought when I heard the samples. That or the Rockman Arrange Collections (the two released as two singles). Definitely sounds like something beamed from the 80's into the future. Seems like each track either rocks nicely or tends to bore. I haven't sampled a whole lot of it yet, but "Against the Pressure" is actually kicking my ass something fierce right now, in that sweet, 80's melodic synth rock kinda way (which I feel VGM needs way more of). Strikeman's theme, on the other hand, sounded pitifully weak compared to the original (my favorite original MM10 track by far) and the duller tracks from before are no better off than the 8-bit dullards. A mixed bag, to be sure so far (much like the OST), but I'm MUCH MUCH MUCH happier with the style of the better pieces than the RM9 Arrange (I remain bitter over the complete half-ass job on Concreteman on that one).

If they were to give say, Megaman 2's score, the treatment they did on "Against the Pressure", I would be a VERY happy goldfish.