I didn't say the best!  I said ONE of the most impressive and encompassing.  Just one of the many impressive and encompassing albums.  The only time I used the word "best" was to describe the original FFVII score.

Anyway, I think we (including myself) have a lot to learn about Western VGM, and they have a lot to learn about Eastern VGM.  Even if we aren't fans of Western VGM, I think there is a lot of material none of us have heard before, and every once in awhile, I am pleasantly surprised.  It's quite daunting trying to get a grasp on what's going on in the Western scene (I've focused on Japanese VGM for so long), that I do want to give them the benefit of the doubt.  They may be ignorant of what's going on around the world, but I don't think they intentionally are trying to discredit Japanese VGM or anything.  Don't get me wrong, I've been buying and listening to Japanese-exclusive VGM for nearly 10 years, so while I may not be too familiar with the dojin scene (besides this Magic Trick Society thing and numerous Ragnarok Online dojin albums), I keep track of what's going on as far as official releases and VGmix/OCR stuff.

And for the record, Alice in Chains is my favorite band, and I got that impression from the piece. 

That's fine and all, but just understand that you come off like a walking PR machine (not to the extent of Tallarico, thank god!) than an actual fan most of the time and it makes people take what you say with a grain of salt (especially when it comes to a review like that, which is all hype and not a single negative thing of mention...Save for the piece about people being "overwhelmed" by the project, which actually kind of annoyed me). Even this response I got doesn't address the Tallarico/Soule coverups I mentioned. There's giving them the "benefit of the doubt", then there's putting words in their mouths to soften the blow after they say something that's obviously stupid, which is when I start to smell an agenda. The only times I normally see you post are stuff are about stuff linking to M4G and normally about the concerts or US VGM composer-related material (save for the Metroid Prime 3 overview). So, uh, it's good to know you're a fan.

Saying "It doesn’t get much better than this when it comes to arrangement albums." is kind of a say-nothing statement if you're targetting people who aren't familiar with game arranges to begin with and looks weird/uneducated to people well familiar with them (read: most knowledgable VGM fans). I agree the scope is impressive, but hyping it as "OMG, one of the most impressive and encompassing albums!" probably isn't the way to go and starts to smell of infomercial.

Fixed. Original meaning retained, "best" removed, original quotes reinserted.

I take umbrage not so much with the superfluous praise of the review but with the brazenly banal diction and vapid arguments the writer employs.  I suspect he's not really a writer, but merely a (video game) music fan who fancied the chance to offer his opinion on a vaguely professional looking website.  Though to be fair, the writing in the review is little worse than the writing elsewhere on that website.

And I get the impression that some members of the soundtrack collecting scene tend to act a tad elitist at times and snub their noses at the Western VGM arrangement scene thinking it's not worth their time because the musicians aren't Japanese and/or professionals.

I don't get much involved in the fan arrangement community myself due to lack of time, but because of certain relations, I have ended up meeting many of the musicians in person, and I have never ONCE heard a single one of them discredit Japanese VGM, nor come anywhere close to being ignorant of it. In fact, time and time again I'm amazed at the sheer breadth of their knowledge. Just because they don't drop thousands of dollars to brag about the dozen of albums of music from games they've never heard of that they buy each month doesn't mean they don't know their stuff. It's not uncommon for them to download the entire NSF, SPC, PSF, etc. libraries and to slowly work their way through everything just in search of obscure, impressive music. They pull off crazy online research to dig up information on composers that easily rivals the research done by people around here. How you can suggest that they're ignorant of Japanese VGM and would even dream of discrediting it is beyond me; I can only accredit it to bias-inspired paranoia. Either that or you're blaming the ignorance of the casual fan that waltzes into OCRemix on the people that actually make the music, which would be thoroughly unfair.

My bad...That part you quoted was aimed at US VGM composers and mostly professional composers at that. I'm actually a fan of quite a few western arrangers (The Kode, Kid Overdrive, Ailsean, goat, housethegrate and Protricity immediately come to mind) and while there's a lot whose music I'm largely indifferent to, I have no problem with what they do. If anything, I'm impressed by what such a fan-driven scene has evolved into.

See what a little short circuit in communication can do? Sorry about that.

I'm not putting you down because of your opinion. You made some pretty funny and outlandish statements in your review, and that's what I was drawing attention to. I'm not saying the project is crap - I'm just saying that you, someone who comes across more as a PR vehicle from M4G than an actual poster, had some seemingly carefully manipulated things to say about the project.

It looks like there's the difference right there. Instead of catering to fans of game music that enjoy the music for what it is, it seems like you're catering to the American "game industry" over there. It's funny to me because of the audience and general fanbase that posts here; I'm under the impression that nine out of ten people don't really give a shit. I'm having trouble taking your post seriously because it seems like you're just some product representative that M4G "assigned" to post on various places on the internet to get feedback from other users or to promote the stuff that goes on at that site. Interestingly enough, like GX kinda said, you're always the very first person to jump to the frontline whenever anything negative is said about western composers or the current "style" of VGM in non-Japanese games.

Despite what you might think, you're really not "expanding the industry view of Japanese VGM". Something you should realize is that the "industry view" does not give a flying f--- about Japanese VGM. They discredit it or ignore it unless it's convenient for them to repackage it with their own "twists" (see: Best of the Best) or arrange it for a live symphony to make money and sell albums off of (see: VGL). Tallarico claims to be the first person to use live guitar in a VGM album. Jack Wall is still making music. Inon Zur... is still making music. If you want to make a difference, try reviewing some more VGM that isn't a domestic release or a fan-project. You said you liked DQ SS, or FF Piano, or CT:BOT... are you not allowed to review those types of albums? Shake those branches some more and try to back up what you said about expanding the industry's view of Japanese game music by actually doing something about it. Looking through the review archives over there I see Jeriaska reviewing a good number of Japanese VGM releases while you're acting like western VGM's lapdog here on the boards. He has some good, recent stuff, too, like Folklore and RR7 DA.

It seems like what you are doing is shamelessly promoting M4G to an audience that could mostly care less. Notice how almost every thread here that pimps an article on M4G or some shitty American "best of" release ends up with several posters on one side and you defending and giving credit to M4G and/or Tallarico and/or (insert "industry" composer here)? It's becoming increasingly hard to see you as anything but a tool for M4G's PR.

Well, the fact of the matter is that Japanese coverage is harder to come by for obvious reasons.  I get handed a lot of stuff that is from American-based composers because it's easy for them to communicate with us and mail us stuff to review.  Trust me, a lot of stuff comes in, and somebody has to cover it.  Usually that ends up being me.  I'd love to review all this Japanese VGM, and we're working on that.  I got Jeriaska on board to assist us with that.  I try my best to get Japanese material in between stuff that comes in from American composers.  We have to import most of the Japanese stuff, which you all know can get expensive.  We don't want to go back and review stuff that isn't relevant anymore, either, so we try to review items that have been released in the last year or so (sorry BoT, Alph Lyra, etc.).

As I've said, I stand by my review of VotL.  I thought it was fantastic, and really, it may overwhelm a casual fan simply because nearly ever track is 5-6 minutes long (even if the source material was 30 seconds).  It's just a lot of stuff to listen to if you want to casually browse it.

However, I apologize if I come off as some kind of PR machine.  I'm pretty excited about what the site can become.  I came on board as the only person knowing a lot about the Japanese side, and I've been trying to get coverage of it from the beginning (ask any forum members who live in Japan, I've been trying to get writeups of concerts in Japan for the site).    I've personally only reviewed a few non-American items (Ragnarok Online, Granado Espada, Secret Online) mostly due to time constraints, but I have reviews pending for Alphabet Planet and Valkyrie Profile.  Jeriaska has written reviews exclusively of Japanese releases.  We have an Akira Yamaoka interview coming up, the Metroid audio journal, and a few other interviews that I want to keep a secret until they're back to us.  We covered Destiny Reunion in Sydney.  All I can say is that I'm trying to have more balanced coverage.

I've been visting STC since about 1999, and reading the forums (despite not posting until recent years) just as long.  I only started writing for M4G in April, so I did post stuff before that time.  I actually try to post in many places as possible because I think the material will actually be interesting to the community.  It's not like I post random, irrelevant things.  Only if a specific score comes up that we've reviewed will I post about it.  I post about most of the features because I think everyone loves to read interviews and concert coverage.  That's the kind of stuff I look for when I come here, at least.  Of course I want the site to be more inclusive of what's going on around the world, and I want you guys to support that move.

Hey everyone! I dropped in to say how much I appreciate the feedback on "Voices of the Lifestream", and I'm really glad that people are enjoying it (and hey, if you're not, oh well.) A couple things caught my eye in this thread that I wanted to address.

I got a big kick out of this. The phrase "carefully manipulated" implies that people involve with the project (1) manipulated Jayson in his review in some manner, and/or (2) had something to gain from a positive review. Neither of these are true. Perhaps you don't know me (the director) very well, but I'm a 20 year old student going to Drexel University. I'm studying music, and at the moment earn a part time income from CD sales of my original music, plus songs I write for media (eg. corporate sales videos, local TV commercials, that kind of thing.) I don't earn a dime from any of this remixing stuff. It's strictly for fun. This pretty much applies to everyone else on the project too. The majority of people are in their teens or early 20s; we're largely not professional musicians, and certainly not in a position to 'influence' anyone.

In fact, OCR itself is completely non-profit (a registered non-profit LLC, as a matter of fact), so no one is gaining much of anything. The money we get from donations goes back to paying bandwidth costs, printing up t-shirts, and simply promoting the site. We really have no other goal than to promote video game music and try to advance the genre as a whole. Thus, we have nothing to gain from a positive review besides feeling a little better about ourselves for spending thousands of hours releasing free music.

Are you saying that a project like "Voices" is not making a difference in the world of VGM? Just browse through review threads on the OCR forums sometime. You will not believe how many people have been turned on to video game music because of fan arrangements. This applies to any fan arrangement site, eg. Remix64, Kwed, VGmix, Remix:ThaSauce, etc. There are just endless stories about people introducing their friends to video game music via fan remixes, and people growing a far greater appreciation for VGM as a whole as a result of what we do. So c'mon, a little credit.

If you look back, I haven't said anything negative about the project. In fact, my first post says, "I had no expectations when checking out these tunes, and some are pretty damn good. I'm pleasantly surprised..."

I'm sorry if you took my comments out of context, but the things you quoted were not directed toward OCR or the FFVII project specifically, but toward Arcubalis and his history posting stuff about M4G and the anticipated Western-VS-Eastern VGM comments that come afterward. It just so happened to be that his review for your project sparked my initial comments. Don't take it personally.

I gotta appreciate all the work that went into this project, especially for it being free and for people's enjoyment. I'm a big fan of FFVII and its music, so I got a thrill out of a number of the songs. A few were just plain beautiful. I guess I'm the type of person who likes to stick to the original melody a little more, though, because many of the tracks seemed to go on too long with the same percussion/electronic sound throughout, and I'd end up skipping ahead to find something familiar in the music. It's still pretty good listening, it just sounds more like the FFVII ingredient was more of an afterthought sometimes. Plus, too much of those beats and somewhat harsh sounds and my ears just want something a bit more organic. Back to the positive though, I liked the vocals and spoken parts ("Crossroads" really grew on me--I've always loved Cid's Theme) and certain sound effects and ambient touches were nice. Oh, and the track titles should get a nod too. I hope we see more collective efforts like this. (An acoustic or stripped down arranged album would be awesome to me, although remixers generally don't do that, I suppose.^^)