I was going to limit this to electric guitars but whatever, just name a song/band/artist that reminds you of a VGM album or track.

Joe Satriani's Surfing with the Alien's guitar tones mixed with Yngwie Malmsteen's atmosphere and Baroque styling-Lords of Thunder

Steve Vai-Cyber Org

I wouldn't be surprised if Jeff Beck's Come Dancing inspired Yuji Toriyama for RMX Arrange

the solos on Dio's Rainbow In the Dark and Last in Line-They ARE Toshinori Hiramatsu and 80% of VGM rock

I'll probably come up with some more.

Nothing terribly noteworthy, but my mom says a lot of stuff I listen to reminds her of the group Kansas. I hear it a lot from her.

And me being a fan of fighting game music, I take something of a liking to some wrestling entrance music themes, since both are really used for the same purpose (well, character themes in any event). If anyone remembers the old-school Ricky Steamboat entrance theme from his 1989 WCW run...That sounds completely like something I'd usually listen to (his entrances are disturbingly cut on any DVD he shows up in...BOO!). And also, there was music from a promo way back when...It was for a Ric Flair vs Hulk Hogan retirement match in 1994 and the it was a music video of Flair's career. Hell of a good instrumental rock tune in the background, probably something I compare to a lot of what I listen to today...Which is amazing, considering the tape got eaten many years ago (before I got into the VGM scene), though I did manage to record it onto a cassette. One of these days, I'll convert it to MP3.

The Christian thrash metal band (not to be confused with the Satanic nwobhm band) Deliverance's album "Weapons of Our Warfare" had a sound that closely resembled Lords of Thunder's... at least to me, anyway. I just finished ripping my Deliverance album collection to mp3. All of their stuff is great. They were (still are?) an awesome band.

I suppose you mean rock vgm that reminds you of non-vgm. It's not like there are artists out there borrowing from game tunes or something.

Anyway, to respond:

- Satriani comes to mind inmediately. One vgm track in particular: track 3 (A-Jax?) of Shooting Battle II is similar in style and feel to one of the slower tracks on Silver Surfer, both are awesome and favorites of those albums.
- 'Toon' from LoX KLEENE: awesome track, the guitarwork here is as derivative as it gets though (Metallica's older work comes to mind).

That's it for now.

I guess it depends on who hears what first, not necessarily who borrowed what from where.

Personally, I didn't even particularly like rock until I start delving into VGM...Reason being, most VGM rock is merciful enough to be instrumental, whereas most mainstream rock...isn't. I'll listen to the occasional mainstream song every now and then (normally ones I pick up from other sources...games, entrances themes, etc), but it's hard to take most songs from Motorhead or the Offspring seriously with the lyrics in them.

Surprisingly enough, most non-VGM instrumental rock sounds like VGM instrumental rock. Or is it the other way around?

Hey you don't have to tell me. I can't stand most of the rock groups you see on MTV, especially the highschool variant..eergh. And ofcourse vgm rock is different enough from mainstream rock, but I'm sure you could find plenty of brutal instrumental rock out there, you just got to dig a little deeper than MTV. I mean there is gold to be found in almost every style of music.

But I'll tell ya, I actually hardly listen to rock groups. Though you can count me in for a good 80's classic every once in a while. --> big fan of Transformers the Movie soundtrack ^_^

It's the other way around, as most early and mid 90s VG rock soundtracks were probably heavily influenced by those like Satriani, Dio, and most other 80's artists. I wish I could find something close to Frank Zappa in the VGM world.

Yngwie Malmsteen's "Far Beyond the Sun" sounds just like "Dwelling of Doom" from Castlevania 2, great stuff.  And if you want some awesome early 90's CV and Ys style power rock, check out basically anything from Vinnie Moore.

A Finnish metal band named Mors Principium Est has a song with striking similarities with FF VII's J-E-N-O-V-A. It's called Another Creation and can be found on their debut album, Inhumanity. On top of the musical likeness, the song has lyrics like "Let planets impale the space / Fly through the northern sky" - sounds familiar? In fact, this really might not be a coincidence at all, as I've heard the band members are gamers and fans of e.g. Final Fantasy VII. Still, I find the resemblance somewhat disturbing every time I hear the chorus.

I've also bumped into few other metal songs I'd like to mention, although being obvious tributes, and not stuff that just reminds of VGM: the game music songs on Elvira Madigan's album Angelis Demonae. Someone gave a link to a review of the CD, and it was quite funny to notice a black metal album having VGM arrangements on it, especially something like Time's Scar and At Zanarkand. Band's homepage has some samples, so check out.

Not as much as Ys IV's "The Ordeal Becomes Great" sounds like Far Beyond the Sun. The Yngwie album predates both games by a number of years, but the Ys similarity is blatantly intentional.

Malice Mizer reminds me a great deal of Castlevania Battle type stuff.

are you refering to post-gackt MM? i think its the 'beast blood' keyboards that do it...

Bump...

The Tower of No Return (Atelier Iris "Deceitful Wings")=Hordes of Locusts (Satriani)

Extremely similar in style (drawn-out repetitive, with mild hints of mid-eastern woodwinds...I'm almost sure the similarity was intentional on Hiramatsu/SSH's part, since both could easily be trimmed a bit).

Ys 2 "Protectors"=Flash of the Blade (Iron Maiden)
Toon (from "Kleene" Arrange...To add to Yuj's comments about derivative guitar work in this particular track)=2 Minutes to Midnight (IM)

I stand by my comments posted above though...I love the instrumentals in many of the Iron Maiden songs I'm hearing, but the vocals range from 'tolerable' to 'shut up already'.

Also got to listen to Breed to Breath (Napalm Death), which was the direct inspiration for "A Solitude That Asks Nothing in Return" from GGX/GGXX (so says wiki...the openings are very similar), but the death metal vocals pretty much kill the song as a good listening experience. The song just screams "motorcycle gang...engines"

Thanks for the bump.

I agree with Nemo, even though I have only heardone track(The Maze on the live album) it does sound like Falcom. At the 4:00 minute mark until the end(it's 6 minutes) it sounds like a lost track from one of the Ys PCEs or JDK 1(or a combination of stuff from the album).

A lot of stuff from Emerson, Lake and Palmer sounds like a Final Fantasy battle theme, especially the music on "Pictures at and Exhibition".  No surprise, since Uematsu quotes them as an influence.

Of course, Pictures itself is an arrangement of a 19th century Russian piano piece.

-Joshua

And?

Vinnie Moore is awesome, my favorite album is "Maze", but you can't go wrong with any of his stuff. Since this topic is back, for anyone who likes Silent Hill music, check out The Gathering, just an unbelieveable cross of trip hop and hard rock/doom metal laced with gorgeous vocals.  I'd recommend their 2006 offering "Home" for starters, but their whole discography is really essential. You can thank me later.

Needled 24/7 by Children of Bodom, like a lost track from JetsN'Guns. I seriously urge fans of JetsN'Guns to listen to some of Children of Bodom's compositions, as they are almost identical except CoB has metal vocals.

I'm starting to love this thread like a cousin I see once every couple months.

"Gangland" (Iron Maiden)...Opening riff (and the same one used for the "Deadman...Tell no Tales" refrain) is used extensively in JDK Band's "Kill or Cure" (aka The Strongest Foe). Drumming (same track) is similar to several of their Popful Mail arranges, to the point that this track came up on random and I got "Gangland" instead of a Popful Mail arrangement I was expecting.

Heh, given how familiar I am with the JDK Band, exploring Iron Maiden has almost been educational. Too bad Dickinson and Kishimoto are about equal in their English skills...

Funny that you mention Rainbow and Lord of Thunder in the same post, since one of the tracks on the redbook of Gates of Thunder is a cover of Rainbow's song "Light In The Black". Awesome cover for an awesome song. =p

I don't like this thread because it's bass-ackwards - in most cases, the topic is music that influenced VGM composers, not the other way around. Iron Maiden's influence on late 80s/early 90s VGM is undeniable and Motoi Sakuraba clearly takes some inspiration from UK.

Either way, I don't understand what it has to do with your cousin :-p

Hypothetical example...I'm appreciative of STC acquiring the ability to bump threads.

*shrug*...I listened to JDK Band seven years before I touched IM and probably wouldn't have paid them extensive mind otherwise, so its' a cool way to be introduced to them. Backwards, but it works for me. I've heard a lot of indirect kinda-sorta influences, but there are a few that are strikingly obvious I like pointing out.

Funny thing: JDK Band started its' massive downturn the same time IM did (right in the timeframe when Dickinson originally left). Kishimoto must've been heart-broken.

Sorry about the backwardness, I put it like this because I assumed the members on this board listen to more VGM than non. I hope you didn't interpret this as VGM influenced Non-VGM, as this is just about tracks that sound alike.

While I'm thinking about it though, one that does work in this direction is Aeris' Theme from FFVII -> the piece "Biaxident" by Dream Theater side project Liquid Tension Experiment. I can't comment on the intent of the performers, but the similarity is clear to me.

I guess it depends on the ratio, but I'd hope this isn't true for the most part.  Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with it, but at least for me, an expanding appreciation of VGM only created a greater appreciation for music in general since VGM is a reflection of non-VGM.  In-turn, this forced me to explore non-VGM much more than VGM music.

Just to add a little note somewhat related to this discussion, I have just read that one of Turrican's tracks ("Subsong 2") was actually based on Transformers the Movie! See this link.

Anon48

The Edgar Winter Group song "Frankenstein" must have been one that the Follin brothers enjoyed since it's very similar to their style, from the rocking part to the more experimental on distortion ones. If you like Follin VGM (especially NES soundtracks like Wolverine and Silver Surfer), you should check it out!

And early Deep Purple has many similarities as well (and not just about "Highway Star" in Rock 'n Roll Racing, eh!).

I've been on a Balance of Power (Lance King era) binge of late, and anyone who digs JDK Band stuff should check them out.  Insanely excellent power metal with just ill riffage, plus my man Lance King provides some of the best vocals metal has ever witnessed.  His style is basically Kishimoto fully realized.

I thought that was Bruce Dickinson. ;p

Bruce is cool, I mean I love Maiden, but he just doesn't have the range L.K. does and L.K. just flat out wails without doing the gruff vocal thing.

Slayer's Show No Mercy is full of tracks with excellent metal solos reminiscent of the Dracula Battle albums. You might want to check that out sometime.

*bump*

"Vision of Nowness" (Go-Go's) has a VERY similar melody line and backing style to Megaman 3's second Dr. Wily level. It could almost pass for an arranged vocal version of it.

Opening and main keyboard section in "Hot Girls in Love" (Loverboy) = Wicked Child (Castlevania).

Also, one I just recently found, but it makes perfect sense...The opening level music for the Goonies II is based off the song Cyndi Lauper did for the movie (Goonies 'R' Good Enough). Still, that was pretty wild, considering how many years I'd listened to the chiptune version.

Giving Pandora a try the other day introduced me to this song 'Samus' by a post-rock/progressive metal band called Irepress. I hadn't looked at the name of the song but noticed the chiptune-like sound of the guitar in places and the overal atmosphere, which reminded me of Metroid's music. Their Myspace page confirms the connection:

http://www.myspace.com/irepress

There's also this song by Andy Mckee called 'Samus Stardrive'. I'm not 100 percent sure of the connection, but his music is great anyway so I thought there's no harm in mentioning it here. Here's a page with a sample from the song:

http://www.candyrat.com/artists/AndyMcKee/ArtOfMotion/

There are some videos of him playing complete songs on Youtube too (though the above song isn't among them). There are some other great artists (Antoine Dufour, for instance) on the above website by the way, if you like acoustic guitar music.