Guess it's about time for one of these again.  So, what's been on your playlist these fine Spring days?

Maybe it's the warming up in weather that's getting me in the Caribbean-reggae mood.  Been listening to a lot of Bob Marley, specifically his greatest hits CD, Legend: The Best Of Bob Marley And The Wailers.  All of my faves are here, including One Love, I Shot The Sheriff, Three Little Birds, and Jamming.  The rest of the album is fantastic, and the whole thing goes down easy like a smooth Piña Colada.

With many thanks to shdwrlm, I've been loving the hell out of Exit Trance presents Zenbei No. 1 Cinema Trance, an awesome compilation of trance-based movie theme hits.  Some of the greats include Beverly Hills Cop, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, Back To The Future, The Godfather, and Terminator.  A medley sample is in order, but in short, it's one wet dream for cinematic and trance music lovers.

(Speaking of movie scores, there's a whole deluge of them that I'm looking forward to in the next two months.  This includes Elfman's Terminator Salvation, Giacchino's Star Trek and Up, Jablonsky's Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen, and Gregson-Williams' X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  It's sure to be a busy, and dare I hope joyful, listening quarter.)

As far as video game music, I've been listening to the first two Bust A Move CDs again, of all things.  The original and Dance Tengoku MIX are completely infectious.  I love Shorty's Hizashi no Oku no Happy Heart so damned much.  Other faves include Hello! Kitty N, Flyin' To Your Soul, Got To Be Happy, Chemical Love, Magic Tower, the English version of Blue Knife (yes, it still blows away the Japanese version), and..... Dancing Heroes!  ^_^  Ahh, such awesome games; hard to imagine that they're over ten years old now.

I've finally acquainted myself with the Minibosses Brass Album.  Love their Punch-Out!! medley, and their Super Mario Bros. 2 and Ikari Warriors arrangements follow a close second.  I also finally listened to Goat's Castlevania Unchosen Paths.  I'll need to do a more formal write-up in GoldfishX's doujin thread, but from top to bottom, it is made of sheer awesome.

VGM:
DOOM - original game MIDI by Robert Prince
DOOM II - original game MIDI by Robert Prince
Doom Music - CD of DOOM/DOOM II music w/enhanced audio, wish I could find a copy to buy as it should be in my collection
SNES DOOM - probably the best in-game version of this music, too bad "Deep Into the Code" and "I Sawed the Demons" weren't used in this port
Final DOOM: TNT Evilution, original game MIDI by Jonathan El-Bizri, Josh Martel, Tom Mustaine and L.A. Sieben

Outside this I've been listening to anything and everything VGM, trying to size down my mp3 collection to the songs that will be revisited and not just sitting on discs backed up.

Non VGM:
Static-X: Wisconsin Death Trip (1999)
- a extremely solid debut w/many hits, the lesser known songs are different in a good way
Static-X: Machine (2001)
- sophomore slump my ass, though it does fade a bit in the final stretch
Static-X: Shadow Zone (2003)
- ok, I want to know how this didn't sell enough to at least hit gold. Extremely consistent - too bad the co-composer for this album ended up in jail and thrown out of the band for having relations with a minor.
Static-X: Start a War (2005)
- a solid triple, but there are some experiments here that don't work in the long run
Static-X: Cannibal (2007)
- things start to get a bit convoluted here, some good songs but many fair ones
Static-X: Cult of Static (2009)
- basically a continuation of above, probably three killer songs out of the bunch
Jim Gaffigan: King Baby
- dude, this guy is funny! Unfortunately, his presence on stage leaves much to be desired. Seriously, as high energy as his performance is on audio CD the DVD simply doesn't match it.

Recent Disappointments:

Edguy: Tinnitus Sanctus
Some may say this is an Edguy disc for Edguy fans - no. It's just trash thrown on a CD. I guess considering it took them 10 years to get to their first "bomb" is a good thing, but it still don't sit well with me.

HammerFall: No Sacrifice, No Glory
To be honest, I haven't listened to this thing completely. Got to track three and just couldn't go on. Not really because the music was bad, but I've just had enough.

As for video game music, I've been venturing into the classics with some newer stuff lately.

Rockman X Alph-Lyla with Toshiaki Ohtsubo
The Black Mages I & II
Sonic World Adventure O.S.T.
Guitarfreaks (various albums)
Dragonball Z3, Infinite World O.S.T.s
Heart Session

As for non-game music, mostly jazz-fusion:

Nettai Tropical Jazz Big Band, Belair Strings, BeatNuts, Dimension, JAFROSAX, T-Square, Yajuh-Okoku and even Ronnie James Dio.

After slimming out ye ol' collection again, I've been rediscovering old classics and have been enjoying some newer releases as well.

- Biohazard 5
- Final Fantasy Tactics A2
- Final Fantasy XII
- Musashiden II Blademaster
- Ollie King
- Ridge Racer 6
- Ridge Racers 2
- Xevious 3D/G

And then, of course, there is my list of albums that are in constant rotation at any point in my life:

- Final Fantasy V-X
- Gungrave (as well as Lefthead and Righthead)
- Killer7
- No More Heroes
- Rockman Rock Arrange
- Shadow Hearts plus1

I've been listening to the Gundam 00 singles from both Season 1 and 2. Daybreak's Bell and Ash Like Snow are amazing songs, and the ending tunes to the second season ("Prototype" and it's B-side, "Squall" by Chiaki Ishikawa, and "Trust You" by Yuna Ito) are sublime. If anyone is even remotely into animation, I recommend the series wholeheartedly (Zane can do shameless plugs, why can't I?). We haven't seen a Gundam series this good in literally ten years.

Lessee now . . . the Persona 3 Arrange album, Reincarnation, has grown roots in my player. Big thanks go to Chudah for pawning her copy off on me. I'll be ordering the normal P3, FES and P4 soundtracks pretty soon here. Shoji Meguro has to be one of my new favorite artists.

I've been listening to the Rockman 8 soundtrack via Youtube, and I've really been on the fence about an OST purchase. I don't think the official release has my three favorite tracks, being Ganasia's "Electric Communication" (used for the opening), Tenguman's theme (Saturn version, though the PSX one is nice, too), or that incredibly chill end credits theme that plays when you stuff the actual game disc into a CD player. If it had these, I'd jump like you wouldn't believe.

Super Metroid's music continues to astound me, even so long after the release of the game. I might attempt to track down Sound in Action, but I hear it's stupid rare. Might have to hold off on that, tide myself over with Relics of the Chozo.

Constants in the past few months:

Judas Priest - Painkiller/Hellbent for Leather/Angel of Retribution
Iron Maiden - Dance of Death (and seriously considering a run as my favorite IM album ATM)
Kamelot - Epica
Power Quest - Magic Never Dies
X Japan - Blue Blood
Riot - Thundersteel
Megadeth - United Abominations (didn't care for this one too much when it came out, but has grown on me greatly)
Stevie Ray Vaughn - Texas Flood (okay, it was a Rock Band download, but the songs are fun to listen to AND play)

VGM:

19XX (can't explain this one...bought it many years ago and kept it for novelty value -since I couldn't play the game-, but the music is really growing on me)

Alphabet Planet - Okay, not VGM, but is a pretty good Kikuta album. Didn't care so much for it at first, but I'm having trouble finding tracks I want to remove right now.

Legend of Heroes III OST - Hate the synth in the newer ones, love the PC-98 stuff here. It's really gotten better with age. "A Powerful Foe!!" just kicks all kinds of ass. Amazing it never got any kind of arrangement.

Raiden II - The other day, this sexy beast of a track came up on iPod random. It was Round 7 from Raiden II (arcade version). I knew it was Gou Sato, but when you don't hear something that good for so long, it makes you feel like you died and went to heaven.

The usual Falcom stuff.

I'm actually kind of happy to see no consistancy in my listening habits outside of these, which means I've been moving around quite steadily (and not being stuck with anything I don't like).

- No on "Electric Communication," it's only on the theme song collection
- No on "Bandnew Way" ditto with above
- No on the American/PAL instumental opening as well
- No on Tengu Man's Saturn theme
- No on Woodman and Cutman's Saturn themes
- If you're talking about the jazzy piece at the end that accompanys the artwork by the fans, yes, it's there but the track is longer (loops) on the game rip.
- Like X4 on the X1~6 Box, the music to the full motion videos is included w/o SFX.

Soundwise, the soundtrack was obviously taken from the PSX version of the game - so, if you have the PS1 Game Rip it sounds identicle only the volume has been raised much like MM7. The only real flaw in the actual recording is in Frost Man/Ice Stage theme where the loop transition is non-existant. Instead the track starts from scratch on the loop, thus the same section with the opening is just stacked on one another. It's very odd and you may not catch it, I only did as it's probaby my favorite stage theme.

It is very disappointing they could not see fit to include the three Saturn tracks. It is worth noting that while the music between the version is otherwise identicle, the Saturn has problems/alters with certain samples. Comparing rips is interesting to say the least.

While I'll give Super Metroid's soundtrack a big thumbs up, but I have to give Sound in Action a big thumbs down. First off, if you're interested in the soundtrack to the original game, do yourself a favor and buy Famicom 20th Anniversary Original Soundtracks Vol. 1. It's presentation of those tracks makes SIA look sad. Additionally, while the music is great, there are problems with the Super Metroid section - a big one being "Brinstar Red Soil Swampy Area" fades before the awesome piano solo.

The only area where the SPC rip doesn't really beat SIA is, of course, the arrange tracks and since the tracks are limited to 3 minutes max "Ending" is cut short.

At this moment, I am currently listening to the Professor Layton and the Final Time Travel Original Soundtrack.

I have to strongly (but respectfully) disagree here. The Famicom 20th Anniversary contains the soundtrack to Metroid, which in my opinion doesn't come close to that of Super Metroid.  Also, I've heard the SIA soundtrack and I thought it was fantastic! Of course, this is a matter of opinion, but I would *highly* recommend SIA to anyone who enjoys the Super Metroid soundtrack. There are some tracks which I wish were longer, and there are a few tracks which in my opinion are kinda pointless (such as "Item Acquisition Fanfare" which is a few seconds long). However, in general I've always found it a great soundtrack! Furthermore, the album also has a few beautifully arranged pieces which are gorgeous... All in all, I think it's a real gem that is actually worth the cost, if you can find it. As noted by Ashley, it's not for everyone of course

cheers,

-avatar!

edit: Also, I'd like to add that in general I'm not a fan of MIDI, but SIA just sounds SO good, that I can't help but love it!

Thanks, Ashely, Avatar. I've been wanting to track down SIA forever now, and I will get around to it. I've been well aware of the discs' faults for a while, and it doesn't bother me. I appreciate the well-intended heads up, though!

Yeah, Rockman 8 OST is getting a pass if it omits a lot of what I would have wanted to hear. Sorry, Capcom!

PS: Ashely, you happen to know the name of that jazzy song we discussed? It's not a vocal track, it plays if you put the Megaman 8 game disc into a reg'lar CD player. I've never heard it in game. Here's a youtube clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0NZNi1d9Ag

I love this track to death.

Yeah, that's the Credit Roll music in the US/PAL versions of the game; it replaced GANASIA's "Brandnew Way" from the Japanese version.

It's track number 31, Staff Roll, on the soundtrack.

Edit:

Yeah, I got to agree, it's a very nice track.

Still, I think the Mega Man 8 Soundtrack was the better soundtrack to come out of the Team Entertainment OST Mega Man releases. Not music wise (Mega Man 7 trumps it) but overall product-wise. The Mega Man 7 soundtrack has tons of problems - some of them downright sad to the point they should be ashamed to call it a officially licensed product - and it still doesn't sit well with me even thought I bought it.

According to Last.fm:

Most of the Megami Tensei soundtracks (especially Persona 4, Persona 1 and King Abaddon) - No surprises here, Shoji Meguro IS my favourite composer and Megaten my favourite series both game-wise and soundtrack-wise.

Bio Hazard Sound Track Remix, Resident Evil Survivor (rip), Biohazard 3 - The first one is quite cheesy but for some reason I'm really fond of it, and Survivor's atmosphere is top-notch.

Infinite Undiscovery - Hardly has any real standouts, yet as a whole it's wonderful.

King of Fighters '94 AST - One of the best arrange albums I've heard, with lots of great tunes. "Esaka" is amazing, one of the most memorable VGM tunes for sure.

BlazBlue - I think I need to revise my "TOP 8 Soundtracks of 2008" list. Now.

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver - No wonder I consider this a masterpiece when it boasts 6 hours of "it's so different I don't even know the genre" music.

Siren Original Soundtrack - While I have to be in a certain mood to enjoy it, it's still excellent. Actually I'm starting to have doubts if Silent Hill 1 really does deserve its #1 spot as my favourite dark ambient soundtrack.