For those of you who don’t know, Jeremy Soule is an extremely successful and popular (?) video game music composer. He is known for scores such as Secret of Evermore (His first project definately earns my respect for being a completely new aural experience at the time, those who’ve played and beaten SoE know what I mean.), Dungeon Siege, Icewind Dale, Morrowwind, Total Annihilation, etc… His latest score is the highly anticipated (for me at least, I’m a SW nut !) Star Wars : Knights of The Old Republic for the PC/X-Box. He collaborated with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra in Czechoslovakia. The entire production of the score cost 200 000$ !!! O_o
When I hear this soundtrack, I fear that Yasunori Mitsuda’s Xenosaga score will be bluntly beaten to the ground. If Soule is as talented as critics say(wait… he IS talented :O), then he’s the american version of Hitoshi Sakimoto (Ogre Battle, FFT, Vagrant Story, BoF 5 composer) !!! X_x
Excellent read… I might start hunting down Soule’s albums soon… I’m already in hot pursuit after the extremely rare and expensive Secret of Evermore OST.
I never thought about it before, but Soule would be the perfect person to do a SW score. No reason to stop with games either, I think he should take over for John Williams on Episode 3.
I honestly don’t know. I don’t remember Total Annihilation’s music, but Dungeon Siege wasn’t so hot (save for the forest music), SoE was almost nothing, and Morrowind had a good theme song but the rest was too ambient. That seems to be a recurring theme with him.
Meh, personally I think that the Secret of Evermore music was amazing. SoE, being one of my favorite games ever no matter what most say about it, had the whole humor, gameplay and an awesome music score.
Jeremy Soule is pretty awesome. I like his music even though I don’t like some of his more ambient stuff (like in Baldur’s Gate). John Williams still kicks his ass though, sorry
I remember most of the SOE music being slow and atmospheric, which is great if you’re into that kind of music, which I’m usually not. I’m still downloading a bunch of his songs because of this thread, though, just to see what the hoopla’s about
Finished downloading a few SOE songs to refresh my memory, a lot of the stuff sounds creepier and more haunted than I remembered, but it’s still pretty slow.
John Williams is great for writing themes and stuff like that. But as far as composition goes, I just don’t think he has the skills that Soule does for making an entire musical score.
Ýeah, but he does. He has a natural sense of melody and composition, and how everything just GOES together. He’s just goddamn amazing. And uh, have you ever heard Duel of the Fates? I don’t call that a character theme, and it’s one of the best scores in music I’ve ever heard. After all, that’s why he’s composed the scores for
Jaws
Jurrasic Park
Star Wars
Home Alone
Harry Potter
and probly even more. The guy’s got more for him than Soule does, sorry. Soule is good, but I personally think he’s got nothing on Williams. Not many VG Music composers do.
Why are you guys comparing John Williams to game composers? I thought John Williams only composed soundtracks for movies, it’s a rather different style, imo (which isn’t necessarily better or worse), even if some recent games have orchestrated soundtracks and almost look like a movie
Yeah, it is different. Video game music is repetitive and VG music composers have more leeway because the music doesn’t have to synchronize with the action of the video game; movie music does have to do that. IMHO VG composers are able to make better songs. Exceptions in the realm of movie music are when the composer decides to take what he has and make a song out it, for instance Duel of the Fates.
vg composers can synchronize the music with the action. It also can require some work with the programming team to time things right in cases other than action sequences like FF8’s spider chase.
Yeah, but most of the VG music I like are battle themes or overworld themes that are just repetitive songs. I didn’t know there were instances like the spider chase, but I’m guessing they’re rare.
Yes, but I didn’t pay attention to most of the music besides the ones that immediately caught my attention, for instance the boss theme and the Dollet Invasion. Why, is their synchronized music during all the FMVs? If it’s becoming a trend, I wouldn’t know, because the most recent RPG I’ve played is FF8, though I’ve downloaded select songs from other more recent ones.
