There really hasn't been much VGM discussion recently (for a while actually), so I am curious what VGM people have been listening to recently. Feel free to update as often as possible, more discussion about VGM on a VGM forum is a good thing.

I have been going through an entire "re-evaluation" period with all of my old favorite albms and trying to hand out "honest" ratings (minus the nostalgia).

Positive Surprises: Game Music Graffiti, Sorcerian Perfect Collection Vol. 1, Legend of Heroes II Perfect Collection, Final Fantasy IX OST, Star Ocean 2 Arrange Album

Both Game Music Graffiti (mostly the NES cart and Gameboy sections) and Sorcerian Perfect Collection Vol. 1, I never realized how good they were. Thick, satisfying game music arrangements of classic tunes, nothing fancy. I wish the disk-based songs on GMG weren't so damn lousy and the Sorcerian arranges were a tad longer, but both albums produced two of the more enjoyable listening sessions I've had in a long time. Legend of Heroes II Perfect Collection has been largely ignored by me over the years, in favor of the amazing Turbo Duo redbook version of the music. The score has a lot of filler in it that needed to be snipped out and it adheres mostly to the upgrade philosophy without doing too much, but between the PC-98 versions and the upgraded arranges, it turned out pretty solid. I was never a huge Final Fantasy IX fan, including most of the soundtrack, but I have my greatest hits versions of it together (about 22 tracks) and not getting much out of recent Uematsu works makes this one worth going back to and exploring. And SO2 arrange has just held up well, better than VP Arrange, IMO. I snipped out the two non-SO2 tracks on principle (with a score that good, this never made sense to me) and I never understood the popularity of We Form in Crystals, but the other 7 tracks were just begging to be rediscovered.

Negative Surprises: Nazo Nazo's Perfect Selection albums, Phantasy Star Sound Collection 1, Sing!! Street Fighter II

Early on, back in the early-2000's, I was a big fan of the Konami Perfect Selection albums. Now...wow, these have not held up well at all. And I usually love 80's synth-based arranges with recorded guitar parts. Each album (Dracula, Twinbee, Gradius 1 and 2, Xexex, Parodius), about half of it can be thrown away for just kind of sitting there without doing much of anything, while each album also has between 2-3 killer, rocking arrangements that were always my focus throughout the years. But overall, they've slid and half of the tracks on these border on "unlistenable". The two exceptions were Snatcher and SD Snatcher Perfect Selection (which was actually the only one of these albums NOT arranged by Nazo Nazo) and Sound Racing History Perfect Selection, which are both far more consistant despite my lack of familiarity with the original tunes.

I will always regard Phantasy Star Sound Collection 1 as one of my favorite possessions and favorite arranges, but I simply cannot sit through the entire PS3 section anymore. Too many references to the main theme of the game (which is annoying and stereotypical) and I just clipped out Tracks 8 and 12 on my soft copy because they felt redundant. I'm also not thrilled they went for the endings for all 3 games, although I ultimately favorited the PS2 arrange. PS1 and PS2 have so many good tracks that could have been picked for this album. That said, these are nitpicks because the PS1 Dungeon medley and PS2 Field medley are two of the greatest arrangements in VGM history and make the album worth having for those alone.

And Sing!! Street Fighter II was sort of a prelude to the all-star arrange albums that became popular later on. Like most of those albums, it is disjointed, unfocused and ultimately unsatisfying. To be honest, I found most of this album pretty annoying and the only tracks I rated favorably were Chun Li's theme, Ken's theme and Sagat.

I've been on a retro kick with NES/Famicom games and making custom edits of tracks from alot of Konami games.

Crysis Force
Contra
TMNT
Castlevania 3
Gradius II

Someone recently re-mixed/mastered these in stereo (on youtube) and I've been blown away by the quality. Those Kukeiha folks knew their stuff.

Other than that, "Ginga Force" OST has been in the mix as of late. 

Had alot of stuff I've discovered thx to "No-life" radio, but the music is all over the place..hoping to make a playlist of favorites (I write them down as I listen)

For me, it ain't hard. It's the FF6 OSV (1994 SquareSoft print FTW) as its the only VGM album I'm left with. I finally decided to call it quits with collecting VGM and looking into the other stuff out there. The reprints that I bought last fall quickly lost their "fresh" listening experience, so I decided to pawn them off. Somehow I knew that eventually I was going to step out of the scene and keep the one album that I won't get tired of listening to anytime soon. Plus it's accompanied by fantastic albums by Genesis (A Trick of the Tail), Yngwie Malmsteen (Rising Force), Bill Conti (The 1st Rocky film score) and some '80s Pop/Rock by various artists via the Cobra soundtrack.

We all know FF6's strong points, so I won't bother bringing them up. The nostalgia factor alone is priceless. Plus the fact that I managed to snag a GBA SP and FF6 Advance (one reason why I can't fully fault Square-Enix for their recent downfall overall) and given the sound is terrible on the port, the Snes sound version makes everything complete for me. I had thought about keeping Grand Finale since I love everything FF6, but the track selection bothered me.

So with this, it was a great ride while it lasted folks, but everything comes to an end at one point or other.

Karanoshojo The Second Episode: Excellent album by MANYO. First disc is very acoustic/ambient, while disc 2 and 3 have some more "substance". Also it has Reiko Tsuchiya performing violin and erhu (this Chinese string instrument). One of my newest (blind) purchases, which turned out to be really good.

Some more albums which I did listen to recently:
> Grand Knights History (loving these violin tracks with Teisena performing)
> Time and Eternity ~Tokitowa~ (gamerip) (offers some nice laid-back field tracks)
> Sigma Harmonics (often overlooked work by Hamauzu)
> The Ciel nosurge preview disc from the AT box

Plus some anime and film scores, which I won't list here.

Everything that I love in chronological order! Let me explain. I have to spend 5-7 hours per week in my car, due to my new job. Coincidentally, the price of 256 GB flash drives suddenly dropped into affordable territory. I couldn't stand using a meager 16 GB drive because I had to constantly delete albums to make space each time I got something new. But now, I can start in 1986 and work my way up to 2013. By the time I fill up this first drive, it will be even cheaper to buy another one. I definitely will not need a full terabyte, even for WAV. Two 256s should be able to hold everything I already know is important and allow space for evaluating new arrivals.

The last album I listened to was Blue Almanac. It is so much better than I remember.

I listened to Dracula Perfect Selection yesterday, after a decade break. I had forgotten how atrocious the lyrics were in the vocals, along with the mispronunciation of "Simon" as "Semen". The arrangements themselves are actually decent. Mad Forest would be much more enjoyable had they not decided to have a guy go "ugh ugh ugh ughughughugh" "OWW OWW OWW OWW" "bip". What the hell?

I've been on a big Sunsoft NES kick lately (Batman, Blaster Master, Gimmick, Hebereke, Journey to Silius etc). Shin Contra has also been in fairly heavy rotation.

Things that don't hold up so much? The Super Mario World arrange album comes to mind. Once you get past the novelty of nostagic themes performed by a live ensemble, the arrangements themselves are trite and pedestrian. Big yawn.

Here's hoping that Batman makes it to one of those Sunsoft compilations. I recently came across Shounen Ninja Sasuke and it's really well done. Lot's of good old-school, action themes. It made the first volume of the Sunsoft soundtrack collections worth having...It was fairly lackluster overall compared to the second volume (which has Blaster Master, Journey to Silius and the NES versions of some Sega classics...Fantasy Zone and After Burner).

And yeah, Super Mario World only had two arrangements that really caught my attention. The Cave/Underground theme (track 4) and the SMB 1 main theme (track 6), and the SMW opening was okay. This was never really a favorite. Plus, IIRC, the NES tracks are in mono. I could be wrong on that.

It already has.

http://vgmdb.net/album/26274

NES/Famicom music should always be in mono. I don't want to hear the channels mixed each with their own stereo position because that's not representative of what the music sounds like on the actual hardware.

Can`t get enough of the Shadow Hearts 1 ost. It brings fond memories of what I waanted Koudelka to be flooding into my mind.

I recently picked up Sigma Harmonics and Policenauts F/N, so been listening to those. Sigma is really cool, though its a LOT of violin. Also been listening to various stuff, Synthesized 4 + bonus disc quite a bit. Synthesized is clubby but varied, I like both but prefer the bonus disc. Also listened to Fortissimo Katamari a good bit as well as Nights Perfect Collection.

The new Jet Set Radio re-release is getting a good amount of playtime, as well as Aka. Also Gaiopolis/Lethal Enforcers 2/Mystic Warriors bundle: Amusement Sounds 93 is enjoyable. Command and Conquer 1-4. Tail of the Sun. And.... thats more or less it recently. I just cycle through my collection, but those are what I go back to the most.

As far as the Mario World arrange, I enjoy it. I am a big jazz fanatic and over time have come to enjoy smooth jazz, almost as a guilty pleasure, but with the mario themes its just really cool, it kinda legitimizes the smooth jazz if that makes any sense.

I've been intensely listening to / studying / enjoying the entire CAVE music collection. So basically, a lot of Basiscape / Manabu Namiki, and a bunch of other cool people too (esp on the arrange albums).

I think my favorites right now are:

Akai Katana Shin Arrange Album (composed/arranged by the late Ryu Umemoto, includes awesome guitar performance)
Deathsmiles for iPhone/iPod Touch OST (despite it being the in-house CAVE composer Kizakura, this has some AWESOME music. Lost Forest is beautiful)
Dodonpachi DaiFukkatsu (Resurrection) Black Label OST
ESPGaluda II Black Label (Umemoto arrangements)
Guwange Arrange + OST (for the arrange part ... Michiko Naruke and Maki Kirioka have my fav arranges)
Mushihimesama Double Arrange Album

But I really like just about everything. I have a special project forthcoming with Don Kotowski from SEMO on these albums. They've taken up 90% of my listening time and I love it.

I've been kickin' it old school recently. My two most recent purchases were a first print copy of Chrono Cross OST (rebuy) and the Ocarina of Time OST. I almost always have my VGM collection on shuffle in my iTunes, but those two albums have been in heavy rotation.

This is a matter of taste, so I respectfully disagree..I've honestly never heard the Contra Stage 1 / Jungle theme sound better, then after it has been carefully per track stereo mixed, and sample rate increased (about as much as surmise has been done here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m81koYhgc5o&t=1m12s).   Not really sure what secret sauce was applied to these rips, but I like it.

Also - this Castlevania 3 track sounds great in stereo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdlOdjd1DMo&t=22m58s

For me, it's just having the stereo feel to it and stuff in both sides. I'm just not a mono fan, although I know some vinyl fans swear by it. Even stuff like old-school Van Halen (vocals in one side, guitars in the left) is annoying to listen to sometimes. It's because my ears aren't equal (my left ear hears better than my right one).

Went through more classics today: Both Salamander soundtracks (awesome stuff, I much prefer these over Gradius...now I almost want to give Salamander Pro-Fusion another try), Chrono Trigger (the "roots" of Mitsuda's style are pretty apparent, but I still love Uematsu's contributions to this one a lot...the only tracks I felt didn't hold up were Wind Scene and Zeal Palace) and Gate/Lords of Thunder...Gates only had about 5 tracks I really like and I dropped it from my "elite" albums, but Thunder held up great, despite some annoying sound quality quirks (cymbals, can't really hear the backing riffs too clearly).

The last couple days, I've been listening to Ys vs. Sora no Kiseki Alternative Saga (great hard arrangements) and Ryu*'s first album, Starmine.  That album is so incredible, it creates an almost impossible standard for his later albums, and sadly they don't really measure up.  Ageha has a couple decent tracks (especially Korobushka), but is uneven overall.  The first 3/4 of Rainbow Rainbow is disappointing (which is what happens when electronica artists start adding vocals to all their songs).  Sakura Luminance is a little better, but it's just not the same.

Currently been on a Falcom kick and listening to the newish Celceta and Zero no Kiseki Second Evolution OSTs. The first is fantastic, the second is very good.

Just got Shining Ark Tenshi no Fandisc today, halfway through and it is really enjoyable, epic, inspiring and lots of melodies. Also recently got the Kirby Dream collection soundtrack compilation a little while ago and it is a great set, I love cute, pixelated stuff like that.

Also on relistening to Sigma Harmonics, its not that much violin, but several tracks feature it prominently, so it can stand out at times, but I would say its a very balanced and enjoyable soundtrack.

I hereby solemnly swear that The Legend of Heroes Super Arrange from FSB '92 is one of the greatest achievements in all of arranged game music.

It's interesting to see that pretty much everyone seems to be listening to old(ish) VGM.
Perhaps that's why there hasn't been a lot of discussion recently?
No interesting new releases?

I can't even remember the last new album I picked up.

Yuji Toriyama arranged some of this ...have to track down

Update - he wasn't on the 2nd disc so disregard...

Found some it on Youtube...Voice of God track is EXCELLENT just cuts off early (ack!!).  Also really like "Ship"

This music reminds me of Infinite Circle / A Room with a view (http://vgmdb.net/album/14048).  Only relationship appears to be the same bass player.

Thx for tip!

It's a bit of a stereotypical response, but outside of the random VGM that family plays in the car, I recently listened through the Chrono Trigger OSV beginning to end. Still one of my very favorites and never gets old.

That is scary. VERY scary...guess what I listened to at work yesterday. I whole-heartedly agree. Definitely the best versions of Word of God, Cave and Ship (I like Pirate Island on both this and Perfect Collection equally). It was first time listening to this in maybe 8 years. Kicks the crap out of the lackluster Ys III Electric Orchestra disc (although this is mostly due to track selection, the level and boss themes of Ys III are the highlights).

Also hit up my trilogy of the three Vs Series soundtracks (X-Men vs SF, Marvel vs SF, Marvel vs Capcom). That old Capcom CPS2 synth-guitar sound never gets old. These were some of my earliest VGM targets (Marvel vs SF was in my very first order, and it was a substitute because MvC was out of stock).

And yeah, for me, the old release thing is intentional...I'm making it a point to go through all my old favorites to get "proper" ratings on everything*. The only thing recent that interested me was Shin Sangokumusou 7 and I deleted my samples when I got the blown up mp3gain ratings. Gravity Daze was actually a cool, recent release though and Persona 4 Arena has some catchy tunes on it. And some of the best recent releases are collections of older VGM (the Sega System 16 Collections!) Also, virt has had some recent soundtrack releases that interested me (Double Dragon Neon and Mighty Switch Force), but they are loudness war casualties and very bad ones at that. I would gladly pop for properly mastered versions of these.

It must also be said...much older VGM doesn't have the same loudness war risks that newer stuff does.

*Just a bullshit excuse to listen to all my old favorites, but there have been SOME surprises.

Any idea what is being said during the middle section of "Voice of God" - "when I was a child.....I put away childish things.....Ys III....the Latest...." hahaha, so bizzare.

Re: the Loudness wars...so true - so much abuse happening more and more..although I think this is a different type of recording and music, than say, the latest We Are Rockmen releases - very organic insrumentation, and acoustics...I would hope all those involved in recording music like this would refrain from excessive over-mastering...

I can't comment on We Are Rockman (I sampled the second album via youtube so I wasn't able to get mp3gain or wavgain ratings and have pretty much forgotten about the first one), but rock music that falls victim to the loudness war just tires the hell out of my ears and simply isn't worth listening to (and I'd probably delete something like the LOH FSB 92 disc without a second thought if it was lacking in dynamics...thankfully, it is beautifully produced) It needs that full impact and everything needs to be heard cleanly, or else the music suffers. Thankfully for me, most of my favorites are from the time just before the LW became an issue. Also, at least a couple VGM composers -Meguro and Sakuraba- that regularly rock out are some of the few that don't turn their stuff up to 11 and, from a production standpoint, their stuff actually sounds good and can be cranked. In contrast, even early Dynasty Warriors music has had LW issues, so no surprise about Shin Sangoku 7.

Just finished listening to a compilation of all of Lost Odyssey's battle themes. Dark Saint is a disturbingly good tune. I've also heard in the last week: Wild Arms 1 and 2, Aria and Dawn of Sorrow, Mega Man 2 and 3. A good assortment.

I'm trying to use the extended weekend (holiday on Friday and Monday here) to full capacity. Finished most chores on Friday and did a long listening session on Saturday:
> Final Fantasy X Piano Collections (for warm up)
> Metal Gear Solid OST (synthy espionage)
> Moonlit Shadow (funky jazz by Mitsuda and Higashino)
> SaGa Frontier 2 Piano Pieces (to cool down from the jazz *g*)
> Legaia DuelSaga (one of the few albums where i like Oshima -- the mix is really great here)

I think we're all starving for quality.

A thing worth noting is it wasn't really possible 10 years ago to realize just how significant it was. We couldn't make the same comparisons. When everything sounds good, well, everything sounds good. The mastering problem is pandemic and I learned something interesting about it. One of my employees at the new job is in a heavy metal band and the audio engineer that masters his recordings also masters dubstep and rap music. This particular engineer is supposedly some hot-shot in St. Louis and a lot of people use him, but he apparently doesn't change the settings when he masters different styles of music. The engineer mastered heavy metal with the bass maxed out and it was unlistenable (I listened for myself). My employee said he must master everything like it's dubstep, where the point is just to be loud.

If not for the loudness wars, I would not have arranged my music collection chronologically. It's also a way to make you view your collection more objectively, as if it's something you don't know very well. If you group your music alphabetically, by artist, or by company (Konami, Falcom, etc.), then it is too easy to find what you want to hear. I feel my collection is now "equally ranked". If you think of it in terms of movies or literature, then it makes more sense. As an example, it makes sense to compare movies made in the 70s to other movies made in the 70s, but not to movies made recently. Likewise, it makes more sense to compare vgm made in 1989 to other vgm made in 1989, rather to that made in 2009.

Well, I compare across years. So stuff from recent is forced to measure up to what I already have pegged as classics. In a way, it's kind of unfair...VGM from the 80's and 90's is really melodically pleasing, so it's hard to compare, say anything Phantasy Star Online to the classic Phantasy Star scores. And one listen to Uematsu's classic scores made me realize just how insignificant Blue Dragon was (I was initially really big on it when it first came out..although credit where it's due, I "discovered" Deep Purple through that OST, so it wasn't a total wash). They're just never going to measure up. I remember once I forced myself to sit through a Resident Evil soundtrack and when I was done, I was like, "well, that wasn't TOO bad...guess I'll keep this one around". Five years later, I put it on and I was like, "why in the world would I have even bothered with this thing". And I hate hearing electronic techno beats in music (or worse, rapping), something not really done too often in earlier soundtracks (drum machines were often used). And yes, the loudness issue is much more prevalent today (with a few exceptions, such as when samples are unavailable, I refuse to buy anything before properly testing it).

I just feel like if I compare today's VGM to today's VGM only, I'm selling myself short if it means accepting something lesser in quality (or less to my tastes) than my true favorites. So my song pool (my favorites from as many albums as I can represent and not just VGM) is more important than the individual album releases at this point. 80+ GB's in my shirt pocket, total random play...A song doesn't want to be the weak link in the chain, as I have another 500+ GB that would love to have its' place.

Edit: And my stance on dubstep and most of the crap metal/rock today is people look for abrasive and just generally loud music, without actually listening to stuff like the melody or taking in the dynamics, so producers are either lazy or they are legitimately catering to that demographic. And these are the same "music" fans that think I am nuts for spending good money on IEM's to get better separation from my player. I love how I can put a well-mastered Slayer album on and it actually relaxes me, because the guitar assault, the drum assault and the aggressive vocals all have space to do their thing.

Now I'm listening to SOTN soundtrack, very classic stuff, but I somewhat prefer this soundtrack in-game because I enjoyed certain sections looped endlessly in-game, and then a lot of other atmospheric stuff is great in-game but not so much for casual listening. I had high hopes for the soundtrack, but just felt it worked better in-game, not a let-down, but not exactly what I hoped for.

Also picked up a bunch of Artdink stuff- the 10th anniversary set and All sounds of Artdink. Haven't gotten through all of the set, but I listened to 'all sounds' and it is presumably a synth update and not the music on the hardware, a lot of classical tunes, reminds me of Isao Tomita, and then some novelty stuff like The US anthem and I think 'pomp and circumstance.' There are a few catchy tunes, but its more of a novelty/artifact CD I think.

I just listened to the music from Heroes of Might and Magic II.
It was awesome.

A friend who plays in a couple of VGM bands turned me onto Bushido Blade II a few months back, and I revisited it again today. How did I go on for so long without this music in my life?

The game music world needed more Ryuji Sasai.  Sadly I think that was the last soundtrack he did before moving on to other stuff. 

Some more recent listens:

Chrono Cross - I still regard this as the weakest of Mitsuda's "big three" melodically, but there are a ton of details buried in there that I really never listened to before. Very enjoyable listen that put my analytical B2 iem's to the test and not too many tracks I ended up stripping out (only about 5 per disc).

Ys IV JDK Special - I ended up boosting this one. Once you get past the lighter tunes, the rocking dungeon and battle themes shine in their chiptune forms (at least, I believe they are considered chiptunes). A couple, I even prefer to their perfect collection and redbook counterparts (Lava Area, Crimson Wings). One of these days, I might hunt down a Falcom Special Box 95 for Part 2 of this, but I already have LOH III Electric Orchestra and the first disc is drama, plus most of the best Ys IV tracks are here, so...yeah.

Legend of Heroes III - A PC-98 soundtrack in 1994, Falcom really went all out on this one and I think it was the first multi-disc OST they ever produced. I got this as part of a bundle way back when (before I knew anything about Falcom) and was always a fan of the melodies, even if I didn't like the synth back then. Definitely one of the gamiest epic RPG soundtracks I've heard, but I like that about it, plus it has a small number of all-out chiptune rock on it (Roudo Castle, A Powerful Foe!!). Then again, this one also benefits from having a number of fairly lame tracks taken off it.

Next on deck for critical listens: Star Ocean 2, my Power Pro Baseball albums and Castlevania Chronicles.

And yes, more Ryuji Sasai would be nice.

More recents:

King of Fighters 98 Arrange Sound Trax - I've long regarded this as my own black sheep of the KOF arranges, but that's mostly because of the source material it pulls from (most of the best KOF 98 tracks were streamed remakes of stuff from previous SNK games and already had arranges). After another whirl, it's decent. Definitely more laid back than most KOF arranges - there just aren't a lot of good rockers on it -, but the production feels much warmer too. It does great justice to Fanatic Waltz and In Spite of One's Age. I can't really decide which version of Esaka arranged is the best (this or the 94 version). the original Stormy Saxophone is arranged competently and it has the coolest opening arrange of the whole KOF series. Disappointments are the length (they could have redone some more themes) and the final battle theme (they turned it into a medley, as opposed to one kickass arrange)

Phantasy Star II (from the Phantasy Star 1st Box Set) - Finally sat down and did an A/B on the Japan vs Overseas version of this one and came away MUCH preferring the Overseas version. They boosted the bass in all the right spots, creating a much warmer sound. The Japan version feels generally colder and harsher, with the snares being pretty loud (they are toned down on the overseas version). Hard to picture an RPG soundtrack with only 22 tracks nowadays, but there's definitely quality over quantity.

Tokimeki Memorial Puzzle Ball Original Soundtrack - An old favorite, but the synth on it just kind of got on my nerves after awhile. It has a small handful of killer arranges on it -match themes- and runs the gamut of the season and character themes. I much prefer the Sound/Midi Collections, but I paid $5 for this one many moons ago and I got my money's worth. Was worth revisiting.