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Pokémon Community Thread 3http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=594546
Welcome to the general Pokémon music appreciation thread, here on behalf of the fine girls and boys from the Pokémon community thread, bringing you a refined selection of Pokémon's greatest hits.
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What's so special about Pokémon music?
Pokémon is one of the highest-selling game franchises in the history of video gaming. A lot of people, young and old, have been exposed to Pokémon in at least one form or more. And the most memorable aspect of these games is the music itself. Game Freak's crack game musicians, assembled from different origins and odd backgrounds, have consistently made endearing and unforgettable soundtracks to which individuals of all ages have been exposed. Whether one likes the music or not, it's a part of the games that sticks with people, and a lot of people happen to like Pokémon music.
Why are we having a new Pokémon music thread?
There's nothing wrong with any of the old ones, except that this one has a bit more purpose involved.
This thread isn't simply useful for talking about old favorites, cool remixes, and a bunch of what-if scenarios. New album releases provide ballast and plenty of interesting topics to discuss. If anyone would like ordering information and tips, for example, that's perfectly welcome in this thread. Want to recommend new favorites from the game's soundtrack? Fine with me!
What Pokémon soundtracks have been released as albums?
The only mainline Pokémon game soundtrack that hasn't received an album release is Pokémon Gold & Silver, an ill circumstance that convinced Game Freak to start releasing each new soundtrack on CD. I'll be linking to each album entry page for each soundtrack, so that you can look up album details, online providers, scans, and liner notes. Even though it takes time to order and receive copies of these album releases, all of the music from these albums can be viewed on YouTube and other streaming sources. Of course, I'll be providing YouTube links to all of the specific musical tracks I select for this opening post.
Who does the music?
Junichi Masuda: long-time musician and lead developer for Game Freak. His musical style focuses on simplicity of phrasing, basic melodies, and use of repetition and rhythmic silences. The big man normally composes battle music for every installment, often letting others arrange his compositions.
Go Ichinose: current sound team leader for remakes. His musical style isn't afraid to barrage listeners with complex melodies, romantic flourishes of great dexterity, and a tendency towards the whimsical. He's also pretty lazy, yet has worked as a game designer and general mentor at Game Freak from time to time. After designing and developing Soriti Horse for a time, he's overdue to participate in another Pokémon soundtrack following a complete absence from X/Y's sound team.
Hitomi Sato: current sound team leader for sequels/third editions. Her musical style revolves around unorthodox, interval-based melodies, smooth development of chord progressions, and a sense for restraining the epic. She's probably the busiest person on the team: in addition to composing and arranging, she mainly recruits new employees for Game Freak. Her contributions to X/Y are slim, perhaps because of the additional work load she has as a designer.
Shota Kageyama: former sound team leader for B/W and X/Y. His musical style is most familiar to JRPG fans, bringing a slew of catchy melodies, rich textures enhanced by superior sound, preference for orchestral arrangement, and occasional detours. Guy's the youngest on the sound team, but he's gotten around fairly quickly (working with Yasunori Mitsuda, for example). After X/Y, he left the sound team; he's started an independent music production studio and will work freelance for who knows who.
Minako Adachi: currently a leader in things like techno beats, unexpected surprises, and having worked on a Zelda soundtrack before. Being the most experienced member on the sound team, Adachi's Pokémon stylings aren't yet consistent, though her work on X/Y reveals an interest in textural diversity.
Fellow travelers include Satoshi Nohara and Teruo Taniguchi from Game Freak and Shinji Hosoe's record label SuperSweep respectively.
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Pokémon Red & Green / Red & Blue (Yellow)
Masuda (composer, arranger, sound programmer)
Junichi Masuda is also Game Freak's most important Pokémon developer, and was the primary musician behind R/G's soundtrack. Before he took leadership of the franchise, he did music and sound programming for this game over the course of several prolonged years of development. Compared to a lot of Masuda's other soundtracks from the same era, Pokémon Red & Green's musical line-up is more polished and more effective at conveying the emotional range Satoshi Tajiri, Ken Sugimori, and Shigeki Morimoto desired. Masuda's soundtrack isn't as impressive as it used to be, but it complemented the setting perfectly, at the same time that Masuda laid the foundation for other game musicians to follow in his wake.
I don't think the soundtrack has any particular advantages over the later mainline Pokémon soundtracks. But it's important to know where the games' soundtracks' roots lie. The glorious marches and route themes, carrying players between areas on waves of emotion; those rampaging battle pieces, hectic and unburdened by typical notions of what a "JRPG battle theme" should sound like (in this case, Masuda was channeling techno!); even the brooding dungeon music, providing an unsettling contrast to the rest of the game. Red & Green established both the game structure and musical structure of future Pokémon games, focusing on the friction between the Champion quest and defeating evil teams roaming around each respective region. And, of course, the musical structure followed a similar path for the longest time, up until Black & White's soundtrack was released. R/G's soundtrack is decent at the least and revolutionary at the most. The game and the music both paved the way for more JRPG developers to experiment with modern-day settings in their own games, and Game Freak rose to the big time with the game's financial success.
Opening
Route 11
Viridian City
Lavender Town
Wild Pokémon Battle
Gym Leader Battle
Champion Battle
Pokémon Gold & Silver (Crystal)
Masuda (composer, arranger, sound designer)
Ichinose (composer, arranger)
Aoki (composer, arranger, sound designer)
Masuda handled most of this soundtrack, but was now accompanied by Ichinose (writing many town themes and such) and Aoki (providing sound effects and Pokémon cries + Crystal music). As far as I'm concerned, the soundtrack's as inconsistent as its predecessor, often just as underdeveloped too. Masuda's output with the route themes and some of the battle anthems feels unconvincing, while Ichinose's multiple town themes and arrangements of Kanto music are impressive and, to this day, some of the most memorable ditties in Pokémon music history. The soundtrack also benefited from the improved sound capabilities of the Game Boy Color, with which the sound team added richer arrangements of old material and new music showcasing more of a Famicom-like sound. Over time, Pokémon soundtracks have had to grapple with memory restrictions and the capabilities of both sound chips and in-house sound trackers. While there have been moments in Pokémon history when a lack of distinctive samples and top-notch sound quality hurt a soundtrack more than anyone expected (see Pokémon Diamond & Pearl), the first three generations' scores were equipped with effective sound manipulation, allowing the music to compare with less memory-burdened games of the time.
Ultimately, I think this game was the turning point for Game Freak in general. Masuda began to focus more and more on his battle tracks, while Ichinose took over as sound director, achieving many of his greatest successes within the third Pokémon generation. While Aoki would abruptly leave following Pokémon Emerald, and though new sound team members like Sato and Kageyama have absorbed many of Ichinose's old duties, both he and Masuda form the backbone of the sound team today, mentoring and preparing new music as effectively as possible.
Intro/Titles
Lake of Rage
New Bark Town
Violet City
Legendary Beasts Battle
Champion Battle
The End
Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire (Emerald)
Ichinose (composer, arranger)
Aoki (composer, arranger, sound designer)
Masuda (composer, arranger, director)
Sato (Emerald contributor)
Ruby & Sapphire is the version set a lot of Pokémon fans like to forget. These games didn't allow players to transfer their last-gen teams over to their new save files; the region of Hoenn was new, more exotic and distant from the Kanto-Johto combo of G/S; the Pokémon fad itself, having reached a zenith in Gen II, had declined by Gen III. Yet these two games begat a new era of Pokémon gaming, directed by Masuda and brought to life by developers like Shigeki Morimoto. Ichinose, graduating from his previous role, headed the development of a more distinctive musical style in his Pokémon productions, and other members of the sound team followed suit.
Regardless of what people think of the games, the music itself is a remarkable feat of engineering. This is still the best Pokémon music soundtrack I've ever listened to. It's very consistent in quality, describing the exotic world of Hoenn through well-developed town themes, dramatic route and battle music, and a lot of adventurous interludes that took advantage of the Game Boy Advance's limited sound chip to deliver an unforgettable experience. Ichinose didn't introduce his romantic musical style in R/S, but he did evolve and craft it into something greater. Even Aoki, who'd been a by-stander in the Gen II, contributed a number of excellent arrangements for tunes old and new. Masuda didn't forget to put out exceptional battle anthems, grooving his brassy influences into a series of constantly-improving battle themes. In fact, there's only one flaw to this soundtrack: people either like the brass arrangements, or they don't.
Much like the new games and their inability to connect to previous games in the franchise, this album is rather alienating within the Pokémon fan community. And though I love it to bits, there are many other voices out there proclaiming it as "shit", "fucking awful", and other crass descriptors. Feel free to appreciate this one however you like, it's a doozy either way!
Opening / Title
Rustboro City
Pokémart
Mt. Pyre Outer Walls
Wild Pokémon Encounter
Team Leader Battle
Ending
Pokémon FireRed & LeafGreen
Ichinose (composer, arranger)
Because of the disconnect between G/S and R/S, Game Freak acted quickly and released a remake of R/G/B, creating a chain of modern installments allowing players to transfer Pokémon from old regions to new games. For better or worse, Ichinose found himself working alone on the newly-arranged soundtrack for this version set.
I actually don't think Ichinose went far enough with his arrangements, however. A lot of the music on this album is very faithful to the original material, though he did some sprucing up with his stylistic touches. And the samples he chose feel limp compared to R/Sthere's no reason for the Wild Pokémon Battle theme to sound so weak and dull! That said, there's a lot of good stuff in this soundtrack, more than I've let on about. It's certainly not offensive, even if it's definitely conservative.
Champion Battle
Cinnabar Island
Ending
Pokémon Diamond & Pearl (Platinum)
Ichinose (composer, arranger, sound designer)
Sato (composer, arranger)
Masuda (composer, arranger, director)
Nohara (jingles)
Around the same time he was working on Drill Dozer, Ichinose was partnering with Sato on Diamond & Pearl's eclectic, jazzy soundtrack. While the former game's soundtrack was a solo effort from Ichinose, the clear contrast between Ichinose's romantic style and Sato's more cerebral harmonies is a major element in this collection overall. This version set often gets over-looked in favor of other mainline games in the series, but it's definitely worth checking out. First: to hear the inconsistent battle anthems. Second: to listen to a wide array of interesting contextual material that's catchy and well-developed. Third: because it's got the most modern arrangement and style of any Pokémon soundtrack out there.
I think that no other Pokémon soundtrack has been able to have such mediocre battle tracks yet still carry itself on the superb quality of the non-battle music alone. Sure: some of the jingles aren't as good they used to be (only Ichinose and Adachi are any good at eyecatch themes). And the contest music wasn't as consistent this time around. But Diamond & Pearl's music gets ragged on for a lot of the same reasons. Granted, I think the sound quality is fine outside of the battle tracks. Following Diamond & Pearl's album release, the samples used by the sound team were simply different, more transparent and clear than ever. Though Kageyama's introduction initiated changes to the way the musicians chose their samples, the experience of scoring D/P allowed relative newcomer Sato to take more control of scoring future games and gave Ichinose a much-needed break from driving the team's efforts.
Route 206 (Day)
Route 216 (Day)
Eterna City
Jubilife City
Old Chateau
Lake
Lake Guardians Battle
Pokémon HeartGold & SoulSilver
Ichinose (composer, arranger, sound designer)
Sato (composer, arranger)
Kageyama (composer, arranger, sound designer)
Masuda (composer, arranger, producer)
Kitsuta (Kanto arranger)
Nohara (jingles)
Game Freak soon went forward with their next remake in the post-Gen II chainso too did the sound team expand to berth more creative diversity and ranging direction. Ichinose may have been sound director on HG/SS, but the combined efforts of Sato, Kageyama, and Creatures Inc. arranger Kitsuta accompanied him to the grand finish. The end result is a rather inconsistent soundtrack that, nonetheless, pleases me more than what Ichinose had done with FR/LG. Kageyama's arrangements generally feel blander than the rest, but Sato's highly-harmonic work complements Ichinose's melodic wizardry and Kitsuta's conscious manipulation of nostalgic call-backs to great effect. I won't forget to mention that the samples chosen for HG/SS give the battle tracks a lot more punch and power than they had in Diamond & Pearl before. It's usually not a good idea to screw with the battle ambiance in Pokémon games, so the sound team listened to their fans for this one.
More interesting than all of these new arrangements put together was the inclusion of the GB Player, a way to listen to newly-remade versions of the original Gold & Silver music in the remake. While Kageyama and Ichinose didn't make an exact recreation of the original music, they produced an excellent approximation that gives off the impression of sounding 8-bit without actually producing the kinds of sounds a Famicom sound chip could make. All of these tracks are on the game album, and they're all worth one's first impressions.
Route 29
Dark Cave
Sprout Tower
Cherrygrove Town
Viridian Forest
Rival Battle
Kanto Gym Leader Battle
Pokémon Black & White
Kageyama (composer, arranger, sound designer)
Ichinose (composer, arranger, sound designer)
Sato (composer, arranger)
Adachi (composer, arranger)
Masuda (composer, arranger, director)
Nohara (jingles)
Now here's an interesting soundtrackin some ways an indication of Pokémon's future, in other ways a silent salute to precedents set forth from the franchise's inception. Kageyama got to be the lead musician for the first time, making for a more homogenized, quantity-rich lineup of tracks. Overall, this soundtrack's the most orchestral and story-focused production yet done by the sound team, mixing in melodramatic context pieces with a wide variety of excellent town themes, dungeon BGM, and even a few special arrangements included at the end of the album release.
The main reason a lot of Pokémon fans love this soundtrack is simple: the battle music kicks ass. Really. This album has some of the best Pokémon battle music yet released into the wild, and Ichinose's style of arrangement sticks out within the battle-theme framework Masuda gave him (former arranges, latter mostly composes). I find it funny that, though he arranged most of the battle tunes that everyone seems to love so much, his contributions to the rest of the soundtrack are much more limited, compared to Kageyama's context tunes and Sato's never-ending selection of super-harmonic material. I still love the soundtrack, all that said. It deftly references music stylings from JRPG franchises as varied as Mother and Tales, all while staying within a definite Pokémon mold.
Anville Town
Undella Town (Autumn-Spring)
Gate
N's Bridge
Rival Battle
Final Battle with N.
Ending
Pokémon Black & White 2
Ichinose (composer, arranger, sound designer)
Sato (composer, arranger)
Masuda (composer, arranger, producer)
Kageyama (composer, arranger, sound designer)
Adachi (composer, arranger)
Nohara (jingles)
Taniguchi (contributor)
It makes sense that this battle-centric installment has the best battle themes, at least so far. The Pokémon World Tournament in B2/W2 alone features more battle tracks than in most other Pokémon games, these being hit-or-miss rearrangements of classic themes dating all the way back to R/G/B. Outside of that, though, this Ichinose-directed soundtrack is solid across the board, going further than normal for a third version with numerous new overworld themes from Sato and complex context pieces from Ichinose. Most importantly for collectors, the album release's the first to appear on a non-Nintendo-related label, this one dubbed OVERLAP. We had some discussion about the new music when the album first released right when I posted the thread, so feel free to peruse.
Title
Aspertia City
Roxie's Gym
Hoenn Champion Battle
Corless Battle
PokéWood Filming
Champion Battle
Pokémon X & Y
Kageyama (composer, arranger)
Sato (composer, arranger)
Adachi (composer, arranger)
Masuda (composer, arranger, producer)
Some others, full details later.
Kageyama's farewell from the sound team is very solid, if regularly disappointing. Take, for instance, the battle themes: Masuda's returned to both composing and arranging most of them, opting for a slick-sounding techno style sticking closer to how he originally imagined R/B's anthems. The consequence here is a selection of tediously spare and elongated tracks that lack compositional variety and don't have the excellent chord progressions or luscious arrangements Ichinose or Kageyama would provide (whereas others' arrangements take advantage of notably increased sample quality). As for everything else, there's some surprising growth in the sound team, as Adachi does many of the better tracks and Kageyama develops his route and dungeon themes better. I still think he's playing too much to those who love traditional JRPG music, but his arrangements match and enhance the flowery visuals of Kalos better than in Unova.
Friends
Anistar City
Cave
Kalos Power Plant
Route 15
Trainer Battle
Legendary Battle
Covers courtesy of Andrex, ShmeebAlina, and Bulbapedia.
