Musicbox II

It's Norouz but it feels less like Norouz for me than it ever has. Nema has a good post about Norouz and what it is which I will link to. And I wish everyone who'se in the vibe a happy new year.

With that out of the way, it's Friday and it's time for another Musicbox entry! This time I want to talk about computer game soundtracks and I'll introduce a couple of brilliant ones.

Anyone who'se at some point even remotely been into playing games knows Neverhood. It's one of the greatest adventure games of all time. It's all about a bizarre clay world with clay characters doing extremely bizarre and wacky things.

The soundtrack, exactly matches that. It is a bizarre and wacky mixture of jazz, blues, and "noises" !!! The soundtrack has 39 - mostly short - tracks, some of which are guaranteed to make you laugh out loud, or at least put a smile on your face. Most of the "songs" have incomprehensible lyrics and are just funny gibberish. The few of them that do have actual lyrics, are similarly non-sensical. The lyrics to "Potatoes, Tomatoes, and Peas" go:

"Potaties love, My gravy love [...] I put 'em in my hat/And I eat 'em just like that/ I put 'em in my ears and in my shoes/I put 'e in my pants and I do a little dance/ They always seem to take away my blues"

My favorite is "Operator Plays a Little Ping Pong", the last bit cracks me up EVERY time.

It's rather difficult to listen to the whole CD in one sitting, but there are quite a few songs which always do seem to take away the blues.

Resources :
- A nice review by Steven Baldwin

Now, the next soundtrack is similarly bizarre, but not in the same humorous way. It is that of "American McGee's Alice". This was probably the last adventure game I played in full, and one of the best game I have ever played. The game itself is a twisted rendition of Alice in Wonderland. Alice's parents die in a housefire and she is now insane and in a mental hospital. The game takes place in Alice's mind, which is a magnificently twisted, desolate, deseased, and demented wonderland. As she battles the - now evil - wonerland characters, she is on a quest to win back her sanity.

Funny enough, I have always hated "scary" games (thinking about "Ultima Underworld" and "Resident Evil" still makes me shudder). But for some reason the diabolical frenzy of this game was actually soothing!

Now the soundtrack was one of the main reasons I liked this game so much. It is composed and arranged by Chris Vrenna, artist and founding member of Nine Inch Nails.

The soundtrack, much like the game, is eery. There are a lot of sound effects (crackings, tickings) and also a lot of orchestral and choir elements. It is eery, as beautiful as you can make it.

As a stand-alone CD, it's not as easy as listen to as that of the Neverhood. Specially if you have never played the game. But it still has a few extremely good tracks, like "Village of the Doomed" and "Flying on the wings of Steam".

Resources:
- Delirium - an Alice Fanlisting
- Down the Rabbit Hole

p.s. The track samples that I provide will be deleted and replaced each week