Music Review: Super Ponybeat

Before I review this music album, I have a confession to make. I am a Brony. For those of you who are unaware of the term, a Brony is a person, usually male and in their teens or 20s, who watches the TV show “My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.” You may gasp, you may ask, “But isn’t that a show for little girls?!” Yes. Yes it is. The whole purpose of the Brony movement is to prove that just because something is marketed to a certain audience doesn’t mean a completely different audience that has nothing in common with the first group can’t enjoy it as well. It’s about shedding off the limitations of stereotypes and what is considered “right” and “wrong” for someone to do. Me, I just love the characters, and the story, and the animation… pretty much everything about it. But I digress. As the fanbase for a show grows, it only becomes natural that those fans become more and more involved with the show on an independent scale, which is where the album for this week’s review originated from T. Stebbins, entitled “Super Ponybeat.”

Music Review: NiGHTS: Lucid Dreaming

Video games seem to have it all. Even from their early arcade days, when the game had a singular, simplistic objective, video games had the populace enamoured. As time progressed, they expanded, evolving into interactive complex stories with surprise twists, with a variety of increasingly spectacular gameplay, not to mention the inevitable increase in graphic quality. One of the things that has always been at the core of great gaming, however, has been the soundtracks. To keep the sound of a game fresh and interesting when you have hours upon hours of playing ahead of you is a feat in and of itself, but audio directors always find new ways to go above and beyond when it comes to catchy game music. But for some of the older video games, from the 64-bit era and beyond, their soundtracks find themselves being lost to the ravages of time despite their superior quality because the sound has become outdated in these High Definition times. Thankfully, a website called OverClocked Remix has made it their mission to remix popular video game soundtracks, bringing a whole new dimension to the catchy tunes that filled our childhood. One of their most recent collaborations is entitled “NiGHTS: Lucid Dreaming,” an album comprised entirely of remixes from the Sega Saturn game “NiGHTS into Dreams.”

Music Reviews

As you may have noticed in my previous reviews, I tend to focus a lot on the figuratively quiet influence of music upon the audience. Though most people don’t often recognize or focus on music in games or movies, as their primary concern is with the plot, auditory perception is possibly the most important element of any form of entertainment. The plot, the gameplay, the characters, they all count for nothing if the sounds that accompany them are abrasive and make you wish you could rip your eardrums out of your head. So I have decided to review music on this blog as well – though I don’t think I’m going to change the title of my blog; too much work. While this won’t be a regular segment like Friday Night Retro or Maniacal Monday, as I don’t wish to overburden myself with the shadow of college looming just around the corner, I will be doing my best to review a soundtrack or music album at least every other week, and keep you guessing about which day it gets published. 

This Week: NiGHTS: Lucid Dreaming, an OverClocked Remix Album.