The world of video-gaming is producing some of the most defining scores of our generation. It’s no surprise, says writer Mat Ombler

Score

Noun, a recording of the musical accompaniment of a film, TV show, or video game.

Ask someone to name a famous score and they might speak about the melodic leaps of John Williams’ Star Wars theme; or Alex North’s lilting, muted trumpets setting A Streetcar Named Desire in motion. Yet, musical scores now dominate another world – one that, in 2021, is worth more than the film and music industry combined. And in the $90 billion business of video-gaming, they reach an audience far greater than the rest of the entertainment industry shows ever could.

It makes a lot of sense. In fact, the very nature of video-gaming is dependent on exceptional scores. If music can be used as a tool not only to echo, but establish, control or amplify our emotions, where could it be more necessary than in worlds we’re not only immersing ourselves in, but actively engaging with?

Special care and attention is paid to the gameplay tempo and flow, which is built around emotional pillars.

What’s more, Grand Theft Auto V, for example, has sold over 145 million copies since its release in 2013. Its score features original music from Rockstar’s in-house composer Woody Jackson, as well as contemporary electronic artists, rappers and producers such as Tangerine Dream, The Alchemist and Oh No. This is alongside licensed music from hundreds of different artists including Stevie Wonder, Frank Ocean and Snoop Dogg which blasts out car speakers through in-game radio stations as you cruise the streets of Los Santos.

It’s no surprise, then, that there’s a generation of gamers crediting video games for introducing them to new bands, music styles and genres. You might be one of them, whether that’s Jonathan Morali’s score for the Life is Strange games introducing you to indie folk music or the melody-rich scores for RPGs such as Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger and Skyrim leading to a greater appreciation of classical music.

What’s more, Grand Theft Auto V, for example, has sold over 145 million copies since its release in 2013. Its score features original music from Rockstar’s in-house composer Woody Jackson, as well as contemporary electronic artists, rappers and producers such as Tangerine Dream, The Alchemist and Oh No. This is alongside licensed music from hundreds of different artists including Stevie Wonder, Frank Ocean and Snoop Dogg which blasts out car speakers through in-game radio stations as you cruise the streets of Los Santos.

Grand Theft Auto V

It’s no surprise, then, that there’s a generation of gamers crediting video games for introducing them to new bands, music styles and genres. You might be one of them, whether that’s Jonathan Morali’s score for the Life is Strange games introducing you to indie folk music or the melody-rich scores for RPGs such as Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger and Skyrim leading to a greater appreciation of classical music.

From chiptune to Abbey Road Studios

The main duty of video game music has always been to serve the gameplay, whether that’s the largely sparse score for The Last of Us creating tension in its post-apocalyptic world or the use of music in Red Dead Redemption and Ghost of Tsushima for world building and supporting character development.

“In Ori and the Will of the Wisps, we focus on well developed melodic themes, smart use of said themes and building them around instrument palettes that are uniquely suited and synergistic to each environment,” the game’s composer Gareth Coker tells us. “Special care and attention is paid to the gameplay tempo and flow, which is built around emotional pillars.” This allowed Coker to create an emotional subtext to what wasn’t on screen, which he says is an “oft-overlooked aspect of delivering emotion in a score.”

Video game scores have had a rather different journey to those in film and TV. The first generation of video game composers such as Rob Hubbard, Martin Galway and Ben Daglish had to be equally skilled at programming. Early video game music (known as chiptune) written for home computers such as the Amiga and Commodore 64 was limited to just four channels. Composers had to get creative to work around the limitations of the hardware.

Code had to be written for musical effects such as vibrato and crescendo. The C64’s SID chip, while revolutionary at the time, could only play three voices. Clever composers soon learned they could replicate the sound of chords by programming arpeggios to play at incredibly fast speeds or rapidly switching sounds.

Video game scores have had a rather different journey to those in film and TV. The first generation of video game composers such as Rob Hubbard, Martin Galway and Ben Daglish had to be equally skilled at programming. Early video game music (known as chiptune) written for home computers such as the Amiga and Commodore 64 was limited to just four channels. Composers had to get creative to work around the limitations of the hardware.

Code had to be written for musical effects such as vibrato and crescendo. The C64’s SID chip, while revolutionary at the time, could only play three voices. Clever composers soon learned they could replicate the sound of chords by programming arpeggios to play at incredibly fast speeds or rapidly switching sounds.

While it was possible to tell these early video game scores apart as composers had their own unique styles, the music still sounded similar. All of that changed as 8-bit, 16-bit hardware and eventually, CD-audio was introduced. Video game scores evolved as composers crafted soundtracks reflective of the music they were listening to at the time. No genre was off-limits.

Yuzo Koshiro and Motohiro Kawashima’s scores for the Streets of Rage games feature ‘90s dance melodies alongside pummelling house, techno and gabber beats – the perfect fit for a side-scrolling beat ‘em up series. Revolutionary at the time, producers such as Flying Lotus and Just Blaze credit the soundtracks for introducing them to electronic music.

The classically-trained Yoko Shimomura initially wanted to be a piano teacher but started her career at Capcom instead, working on titles such as Street Fighter, Final Fight, later joining Square to work on Kingdom Hearts. She’s one of the few composers to have a score not only recorded but performed live by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios.

While it was possible to tell these early video game scores apart as composers had their own unique styles, the music still sounded similar. All of that changed as 8-bit, 16-bit hardware and eventually, CD-audio was introduced. Video game scores evolved as composers crafted soundtracks reflective of the music they were listening to at the time. No genre was off-limits.

Yuzo Koshiro and Motohiro Kawashima’s scores for the Streets of Rage games feature ‘90s dance melodies alongside pummelling house, techno and gabber beats – the perfect fit for a side-scrolling beat ‘em up series. Revolutionary at the time, producers such as Flying Lotus and Just Blaze credit the soundtracks for introducing them to electronic music.

The classically-trained Yoko Shimomura initially wanted to be a piano teacher but started her career at Capcom instead, working on titles such as Street Fighter, Final Fight, later joining Square to work on Kingdom Hearts. She’s one of the few composers to have a score not only recorded but performed live by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios.

The ‘90s also started the movement of real-world artists and bands composing music for video games. Michael Jackson wrote the original (later scrapped) score for Sonic The Hedgehog 3. Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor – now a double-Oscar winner for his cinema scores – composed the Quake soundtrack, and Stewart Copeland, drummer for The Police, is responsible for all of the music in the first three Spyro The Dragon games.

Video game music has a longevity far beyond the games it was written for.

It’s not surprising that such musical talent is associated with games. After all, gaming is a listening experience that often lasts for hours, or repeats over and over again. High quality equipment, then – be it headphones or speakers – really helps to create that all-important sense of immersion; the precise reproduction of sound transporting a player to another world. But do you even need to be playing a game to listen to video game music?

Scores that stand the test of time

Video game music has a longevity far beyond the games it was written for. There are over 25 specialist video game music labels pressing classic and new video game music to vinyl. Coupled with the rising sales for vinyl, this is a recipe for success.

“It’s taken many years, but we’ve finally started to see video game music penetrate mainstream media. The Tokyo Olympics Opening Ceremony is a prime example of how Koji Kondo’s theme for The Legend of Zelda is now as culturally relevant as John Williams’ score for Star Wars,” the founders of iam8bit, an LA-based specialist stockist for limited edition gaming soundtracks, explain. ‘We’ve seen significant growth in the demand for video game vinyl as a result of this. In fact, overall sales increased 300% during the past 18 months alone.”

All of this is in addition to producers and musicians such as Die Antwoord sampling music from Streets of Rage, Jon Batiste performing jazz arrangements of Street Fighter and Final Fantasy to millions of viewers, and sell-out concerts where music from Pokemon and The Legend of Zelda is played by the orchestras around the world. It’s no surprise that video game music seems to be slowly taking over the world.

Mat Ombler is a freelance journalist specialising in video game music. His work focuses on the intersection of video games and music and has been published in outlets such as The Guardian, Vice, Polygon, Eurogamer and Gamesindustry.biz.

In his spare time, Mat speaks as an expert on video game music and has appeared on BBC and Sirius XM to discuss the cultural impact of video game music.

Lexicon of Sound