Video Game Music Isn't "Better" Than Regular Music

[@RogeeRoger]

Incredible video bro, the nuance in which you worded this to never come off as disrespectful to the video game community was incredible. I loved this video so much

[@jiikae]

Definitely the goal! Because at the end of the day people are just trying to enjoy art so I don’t want to dismiss how people choose to do that. As long as its harmless!

[@ckenshin3841]

Growing up I only listened to video game music, but I had a friend who introduced me to hip hop mixed to video game music. As I began listening to more of that I also became more open to listening to more hip hop on its own. But I don't think I would have been able to get there on my own without some sort of entry to get me more interested and of course another friend who was willing to share things with me.

[@jiikae]

This is great. And its also why I don’t want to straight up bash people who only listen to VGM because for some of them it CAN become an entry way to other music

[@hasangordon4807]

I feel like I might be able to offer a somewhat interesting perspective as someone who grew up with this mindset as well, when I was younger I use to spend a lot of time listening to VGM and a lot of time in Video Game communities so I kinda ran with the same opinions as well, I grew up hating rap music for no reason without ever actually listening to it,( on a side note, I do think it’s interesting how out of all genres gamers hate the most it’s rap music specifically) it wasn’t until my close friend at the time actually introduced me onto some music outside of my comfort zone that I began to realize how skewed my perspective was. I still listen to VGM a lot today but I’ll always appreciate him for “setting me straight” lol.

[@jiikae]

Hasan! This is a GREAT story. Glad you grew a wider appreciation. And honestly, a whole nother video can be made about why rap specifically is usually picked on by that crowd. But yeah, may do a follow up stream about it or something.

[@alek_7823]

Commenting to boost, great vid dude

[@nishquikpops]

The song Darkness of Eternity from FF9 is basically Nobuo Uematsu's ode to King Crimson.

[@jiikae]

Fire. I don’t know much about FF but I’m definitely willing to bet Uematsu studies a lot of different genres

[@nishquikpops]

@@jiikae yeah definitely. But I can hear the 70s rock influence very strongly in FF7 and 9 👌🏽

[@Zephhi]

@@jiikae Uematsu is a heavy prog head, you can hear it in all his original music and he has a cover band named The Black Mages where it just sounds like straight up prog rock lol

[@eastcoasttone3952]

2:50 That info about Shoji Meguro being inspired Jamiroquai makes so much sense now that I think about it. I was a fan of Jamiroquai before I even knew what Persona was so it's no surprise that I instantly fell in love with that track the first time I heard it.

[@jiikae]

Yes! Jamiroquai is amazing. And the Persona 5 soundtrack definitely channels a lot of that same energy.

[@Robin_House]

Dude, you make such amazing videos. Every topic you discuss feels tailored to me specifically and you cover them so well. Your channel feels like a breath of fresh air I didn’t realize I needed

[@jiikae]

My goal has been to fill a void that I think is missing in games discussion. So I’m REALLY glad you feel seen. And I appreciate you giving my channel a shot. Bless you!!!

[@tinotcg5815]

You're a boss! On a side note i think VGM is severely underrated and is just as real music as all music is and always has. Music is music!

[@jiikae]

Exactly. Its all just sound and melody at the end of the day!!!

[@AmpdEngineering]

Top tier topic👏🏾 Basically why I mostly listen to acid jazz also

[@jiikae]

S-Tier genre.

[@earthan]

Yes! It is always rewarding to track down the influences which inspired your favorite artists or artworks. And if you have creative inclinations yourself, it also can create a sense of being part of a lineage of sorts, which can help fight impostor syndrome. Everyone is building on the ideas of those who came before!

[@spectrumbots4268]

It's due to the lack of exposure to listening to the soundtracks of other mediums beyond video games and anime. Here are some examples of non-video game music: Beethoven's Für Elise, Mariah Carey's Say Somethin', Michael Jackson's Thriller, Rico Nasty's Time Flies, and Dark Country 4's Devil's Got You Beat.

[@dyssel01]

While I can definitely enjoy music for its own sake, it's more memorable for me when that music is attached to a game, movie or show. It's easier to connect with I guess.

[@jiikae]

Understandable for sure!

[@brotherscarecrow]

Glam Slam mentioned!!! Thats a deep cut lol

[@jiikae]

YESSIR!!!!

[@lpstweetytv5242]

Yeah, I've noticed people saying this and it frustrated me a bit. As someone who listens to a lot of music in general. A lot of vgm soundtracks, which I do love, are often heavily inspired by regular musical genres. Okami - Traditional japanese Persona - Acid Jazz, Sonic - New Jack Swing, italo house, DnB, Breakbeat and of course Rock. Many times you can find songs that are direct inspiration, so much so that the game may have an inferior version of it lol Ive been exposed to a lot of new genres that I now love because of it, and I hate the idea of other people rejecting non soundtrack music due to some weird elitism

[@maagic2031]

I think hearing music from a video game kind of skips that "investment period" you have to do to really get into a song or artist. Like a decent example might be any classical style song in an rpg vs Tchaikovsky's fourth symphony. Tchaikovsky's fourth symphony is a really beautiful and storied piece revolving around fates and how inescapable it can feel when it seems like your happiness doesn't align with "fate". This just gets more impactful knowing that Tchaikovsky was a gay man and the majority of the first movement is a waltz that breaks the rules of what a waltz is to be. But if you never go out and read any of this, it just sounds like violins n shit. Any classical style piece that shows up in a video game gets to skip this stage because the plot, which you've been reading, *is* the context. You already know the emotional significance of the song structure because it contours the the plot that you care about. Another good example would be "Look Pimpin'" from MadWorld. I've heard a lot of gamers say it blows contemporary rap out of the water which... that's a take. But I can't fault people for the take too much because where any other boast-y song like Look Pimpin has to rely on you believing that the artist is really like that, Look Pimpin is the anthem for a fictional character, a final boss who has been beating your ass. You don't have to buy into anything for it to work, just playing the games does the heavy lifting to get a listener to have bare minimum engagement. I don't even think this is wholly bad, I think it's cool that people who otherwise wouldn't really engage with music have a medium that encourages them to do so. It's just a bit annoying when they don't realize that it's purely presentation and mostly detached from the actual quality of the music.

[@jiikae]

This is an AMAZING point. When a game adds context to music, it does encourage people to get around engaging with the music on its own merits. Listening to music in isolation means you have to live with it and do that part yourself!

[@NevermoreFE]

I think that most people start to develop their musical taste at around middle school age, like 11-15. And in more recent years (I say "recent" but it's more like the past 20 years) more kids that age are spending their free time playing video games. As a result, their musical taste is being formed by the games they play. Like yes, P5 fans would probably like acid jazz, but these people aren't spending their time looking for music artists or new albums, they're spending their time playing video games. As you get older, it becomes more difficult to change your music taste or to branch out and listen to something outside your comfort zone. As a result they continue listening to game music well into adulthood. I feel like the people who hate on "regular" music are just people who missed out on getting into music in their formative years, so they hear whatever is popular on the radio and hate on it. They compare it to game music, which is what they heard for most of their life. Like, of course there's good game music, and there's also a lot of good "regular" music, but it's hard to get people to branch out into regular music unless they have a friend who can guide them.

[@jiikae]

Great comment! And yes, people’s upbringings play a HUGE role. Its hard to imagine people not getting into music in their formative years but it mostly definitely happens

[@gin9410]

I dont really like separating vgm from regular music at all, every game pulls from different genres and styles of music so its insane to me that there's people who only listen to vgm. Like, i personally do listen to so much video game music (shoutout to xenoblade x, i see you in the background) but i grew up with my dad's pink floyd, supertramp, styx, etc. CDs so i cant imagine not ever listening to stuff like that. I absolutely have a different relationship with vgm due to the personal connection with the tracks due to the interactive medium it plays in, but the feelings i felt listening to Dark Side of the Moon for the first time are something i will never forget. I do have the issue that i end up hyperfocusing on one artist for a month or two and only listening to them during that entire duration, be it vgm composers or not, im trying to fix that but this might take a while lol

[@courtneymr5u1cid39]

Great video. Hopefully you make more

[@jiikae]

Thank you!!!

[@courtneymr5u1cid39]

@@jiikae welcome

[@ThatsAggravating]

great video!

[@jiikae]

Thank you!

[@Stairmaster_]

Yeah, I think you nailed it

[@jiikae]

!!!! Appreciate you!!!

[@shootingdio7200]

Now that’s a good video.

[@jiikae]

Thank you for watching!!!

[@Sultansekte]

What i would add on the point of cultural exposure is that many of these people have never heard an album, as it has become less common in our society, especially in certain regions. That is, they often don't realize that songs have a larger context, much like the music within a game. If you then consider how media, journalism and reviews influence cultural context, where they can very quickly get the last 50 years of video games with the same game recommendations and thus broaden their tastes. Music has almost become niche, most people don't even know "what" they could be listening to, as this type of media introduction is missing. I often notice this with people who become music fans through Fatano. It gives them the opportunity to find new music and discover new releases. So the fact that people make statements like "video game music is better than regular music" is for harmless reasons, they just don't have the access and ability to find new music, which is not directly their fault alone. If you compare video game critics attention and movies (like letterboxd reviews), music review sites like album of the year are tiny in comparison. I think all those reasons come together to why those statements exist.

[@jiikae]

GREAT reply and yes exactly! I’ve been saying that interest in music has been niche for a while now, glad someone else also is seeing it. It’s not this ubiquitous thing that everyone participates in anymore because of media consumption has evolved. And yeah for lack of a better word…education is a huge aspect of how people understand music and a big part of that was music journalism in the past, but as that has died down, so has people’s interest. And that’s how you get people who have limited frames of reference when it comes to enjoying music now. Can’t know what you don’t know situation.

[@UncleBeastyYT]

It’s just a case of people not liking to get out of their comfort zone. Fun fact. It was rumoured for years that Micheal Jackson composed some of the melodies for the Sonic 3 ost and that was confirmed to be true not that long ago by his nephew Taj.

[@1029tintin]

Big response here because I have a lot of feelings about this subject: Honestly if these gamers just listened to NIN's Downward Spiral, QOTSA's Songs For The Deaf or Madvillainy it would probably fix this problem. It's what happened to me lol. I used to be one of those "VGM only" people with a couple exceptions like Gorillaz and The Strokes, but the instant I listened to those albums in like 2019 I was like "I didn't know music can be this. This narrative that envelopes the whole album from front to back. I need to listen to more music." And now I listen to albums regularly. My negative feelings for "VGM only" people mostly come from a sad place tbh. Like, they're missing out on so much, and they're lives would genuinely be a lot better if they just opened up a little bit to this stuff. And as someone who's on the spectrum, something that helped me a lot with enjoying music was accepting that I probably wasn't gonna enjoy a lot of it the first time. I'd really only get the nuance of it on relistens. There are exceptions, but this has mostly been the case, especially for weirder music. Like, one of my favorite albums of all time, The Microphones' The Glow Pt. 2, took me like 3 listens to really get it. But music is way more accessible and less time consuming of a medium of art than video games. Me finally 'getting' The Glow Pt.2 only took me 3 hours collectively. I think a lot of gamers go through this problem, but they haven't realized it, so they think "regular music" just isn't for them. And that's a shame honestly, because there's so much to love.

[@jiikae]

Thank you for this. I also really like the idea of needing to “grow” with music and re-listen to it to truly gain a more complete appreciation. I think that applies to everyone!

[@eclipsXe]

Harmless yet silly comment you only see on the internet

[@jiikae]

Yup. No issues with it the comment in and of itself. But yeah it definitely comes from a specific type of person.

[@Zephhi]

It's such a stupid take to say "it's better than real music". It's fine to care only care about it as well, and as a person who does majority listen to it, I see why people do cause it's great. However all VGM is just derived from real genres so a lot of the time they're just yapping Also btw idk if you want feedback or not but the background ringing noise is kinda irritating imo, don't know if you can fix that

[@jiikae]

Exactly. And yeah honestly I was just lazy and didn’t think most people would care about the noise, I usually use a noise reduction filter though. Just forgot this time 😂

[@Zephhi]

@@jiikae Ah lol.