I'm calling this thread.  :)  My most anticipated game soundtrack of the year thus far, the fourth and apparently final installment of the main Metal Gear Solid series is being headed up by Harry Gregson-Williams and Konami's Nobuko Toda.  (Though I wouldn't be surprised if we see contributions from other composers on Konami's side as well as Harry's, like series mainstay Akihiro Honda or Steve Jablonsky.)

---

Soundtrack Info courtesy of Game Music Revolution:

METAL GEAR SOLID 4 GUNS OF THE PATRIOTS ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACKS
Catalogue Number  GFCA-98~9
Publisher   Konami
Composition   Harry Gregson-Williams, Nobuko Toda
First Printing   May 28, 2008
Price   2900 Yen

---

If you missed the samples featured on Konami's official Launch Timer site, you can check them out in this thread here.  Likewise, there's a new piece of apparently leaked music that's also making the rounds.  It's being dubbed "Vamp's Boss Battle" and though I can't exactly substantiate the claim that it's real, it does sound very stylistically Metal Gear, and awfully damned good to boot.  I made a recording of that as well, which you can grab here:

MGS4 - Vamp? :
http://briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/angie_liu … +4&.view=l

Three things I'm hoping.  That: 1) Because the soundtrack is hitting a full two weeks before the worldwide release of the game, the tracklisting won't be spoiler-heavy.  2) I can resist the urge to listen to the soundtrack before completing the game..... not bloody likely!  >_<  And 3) In light of the still-unresolved rumors of  'plagiarism' that the "Metal Gear Solid Main Theme" - the trademark piece of the MGS series - will make an appearance in the game.

According to the Music4Games interview with Norihiko Hibino, he and his staff also contributed some music.  It was a super vague reference at the very end, but it's something.

Yes, I definitely want to hear the Metal Gear Solid theme in this soundtrack too.  I agree it is a little too close to that 1970s Russian music for comfort, but it's still a brilliant theme and Metal Gear Solid wouldn't be the same without it.

YesAsia (http://us.yesasia.com/en/PrdDept.aspx/co ... 0896816/) and Play-Asia (http://www.play-asia.com/SOap-23-83-a5a … 43-9v.html) have their pre-orders going, but there's no cover art or track list yet.  I'm sticking with YesAsia since they're offering it for 50¢ less and they have free shipping, but I'm guessing a lot of people are going to be getting the collector's edition that comes with the soundtrack, right?

And thanks for the music clips -- great stuff!

Awesome.  I was getting a little worried that Hibino wasn't involved at all.  Hope he did quite a few tracks as I love his jazzy stuff, fits Metal Gear perfectly if you ask me.

Thanks for the samples too.  Also, anybody with a PS3 can hear a few tracks from Metal Gear Online right now since the beta starts on Monday.  The first two menu tracks kick ass, very MGS2-ish so it could be Hibino but who knows.  There's no concrete info anywhere about who did the music for MGO, right?

-Mike

Hibino's on board for MGS4 after all?  Oh, that is truly the peachiest plum.  ^_^  Arcubalis, didn't you inquire in this thread if Hibino was contributing?  I can't think of a better source than from the horse's mouth itself; you did conduct that Music4Games interview, didn't you?

I've gotta go ahead and make a recording of those MGO tracks, too.  (And not to veer off topic, but have you all been able to meet the excessive requirements for the beta?  I still need to do the 1.01 update and create a Konami ID.  They're certainly not making it easy, are they?)

It took me 3 hours to download the update through P2P (which was recommended because the HTTP download was supposed to be slow, haha), but the worst was yet to come: getting a Konami ID! I recommend you try getting this right now on http://id.konami.net . Be warned, though: I got plenty of errors, which forced me to try numerous times before FINALLY obtaining the precious code.

As far as Hibino's involvement in MGS4 is concerned, I wonder if the soundtrack will feature the piece of music he composed for the very first teaser of the game.

The confirmation about Hibino's involvement wasn't vague in my opinion, even if he could have elaborated. He said:

"The GEM Impact staff and I have just finished Metal Gear Solid 4, which we weren’t even supposed to work on at first."

I'm a bit worried about Nobuko Toda taking such a big role. I believe he was simply a sound effects designer prior to this, although I've seen convincing transitions from the role before.

Toda's a "she", actually. ;)  Fool me once, shame on me..... 

She did some work on the two Metal Gear Ac!d scores.  Her tracks were my least favorite from those scores, but she's definitely got the MG sound element down.  I'm certain she'll be in good hands under longtime sound director Kazuki Muraoka.

..... Aaaand done.  I grabbed the title theme as well as two of the three menu BGMs.  (I still need to record the one that plays at the User Agreement screen.)

MGO - Title, Menu 1, Menu 2:
http://briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/angie_liu … +4&.view=l

I have added some info and the tracklist here:

http://www.vgmdb.net/db/albums.php?id=7633

No real spoilers (the track titles are vague) apart from the order of the boss fights with the Beauty and the Beast. It appears the sound team is much larger than we expected: Gregson-Williams contributed 13 tracks, but most of the soundtrack was handled by Nobuko Toda, Shuichi Kobori and Kazuma Jinnouchi. GEM Impact members Yoshitaka Suzuki and Takahiro Izutani lend a hand, but it seems Hibino did not compose anything.

I'm extremely pleased Lisbeth Scott is singing on this soundtrack. I love her song "Where" from the first Narnia movie. Well, I suppose HGW composed this song.

Also, I wonder if the last tracks from disc 2 are from Metal Gear Online.

Thanks for that! I do know that Toda was responsible for Love Theme, at least according to Brawl, which credits the arranger and the original artist for it.

Thanks for the deluge of album info, Kuja!  Yes, there doesn't appear to be spoilers, thank goodness.  I'm a little disappointed that Akihiro Honda didn't have more of a hand here, but the presence of Kobori, Jinnouchi, and Suzuki is most welcome; they pulled off some pretty excellent material in Portable Ops.

Lisbeth Scott looks to be an appropriate choice, and at least confirms that there's going to be at least one more vocal piece in the game.  Plus, it's great that we now have a name associated to the Love Theme with Jackie Presti.  The theme's really grown on me, and it should be a treat to hear the full seven minute treatment.

The lack of a "Metal Gear Solid Main Theme" track worries me, but I'm holding out hope that it'll still be integrated within other songs.

Perhaps "Old Snake" is the Main Theme just arranged and titled differently...we can hope, right?!!!!

No jazzy theme music this time around i.e. no Hibino? And did I see Sota on there? Man, where he been lately? Always enjoy the vocal Metal Gear tracks, hope it keeps with the tradition of classy.

Thanks for the confirmation of Nobuko Toda's gender. Interesting track listings -- I wonder if we'll get individual credits eventually for the Konami Sound Team tracks. Disappointing about Hibino -- maybe people were right to note his vagueness in the interview. As for Sota Fujimori, he's worked extensively on the recent Winning Eleven / Pro Evolution Soccer titles.

Much as I would love that, I believe "Old Snake" was confirmed to be the track featured during the TGS 2006 trailer.  I made an edited recording from a cleaner source; the length of the recording certainly matches that of Kuja's tracklisting.

MGS4 - Old Snake (Trailer Version):
http://briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/angie_liu … +4&.view=l

Some of those samples are just incredible. I really dig "Old Snake" and the "Love Theme". I guess this trailer music is distinct from the E3 music Norihiko Hibino composed.

im keeping myself away from this until i beat the game.

its more fun to experience the music in context and i want to prevent spoilers

He didn't really elaborate in the interview, and hasn't since.  If anything, it sounds like he may have done some production or supplied some old tracks from his past involvement, but I'm simply guessing at this point.

As stated before, Yoshitaka Suzuki and Takahiro Izutani are both his employees at GEM Impact so any project they're involved in also involves him as a producer. While GEM Impact seems to have affiliated rather than resident members, Suzuki and Izutani are resident employees. I hope this isn't his only role, but we'll see.

I went ahead and updated the GMR entry with the new album information.  Also, it looks like the front cover is revealed:

http://www.konamistyle.jp/ecitem/item48308.html

It definitely looks like it'll be housed in a super jewel case, and it's using the same shot of Snake that's featured on the standard U.S. edition game cover.

im not a big fan of that cover

Likewise. I still think MGS3 had the best cover of the series' CDs. That slipcase and green jewel case... very nice!

So just a heads-up that Konami's done a major overhaul of their official MGS4 website.  Lots of goodies to be found (check that: to be unlocked, via the DP system), including wallpapers, screensavers, movies, and a sampling of the first few portions of gameplay:

http://www.konami.jp/mgs4/us/top.html

But the most exciting thing, at least as far as this thread is concerned, are brand new music samples!  These, too, have to be unlocked through the website, but I've taken the liberty of doing just that, as well as doing up a recording.  There are eight tracks so far, and I've put them up for download in a .zip format.

MGS4 - OST Samples:
http://briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/angie_liu … +4&.view=l 

They're sounding damned good.  Haven Troopers and Sin are my faves, though I noticed that the tracks "War Economy," Front Line," and "Nano Machine" don't seem to featured on the Original Soundtracks listing that we know so far.

I'm not sure if everyone knew this already, but I finally found out why the Metal Gear Solid main theme has been essentially scrapped in recent productions (quoted from Metal Gear Wiki):

The painful interview can be seen here:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dTcNUoxCmHI&feature=related

Unbelievably similar. I was really confused by the Metal Gear 20th Anniversary CD omission of the theme and now I understand.

ive seen that video and i dont like it. simply because its most likely the reason they scrapped the best song in the series, secondly its not very fair to expose somebody in front of a camera. its like they caught him with his pants down, he was clearly embarrassed.