Diggin' in the Carts

In this episode we look at the birth and rise of music in video games. From the earliest sounds and melodies to the first fully formed continuous music to be pioneered in the arcade games from Namco. We meet Junko Ozawa, one of Namco’s earliest sound team composers, and also the legendary Hirokazu ‘Hip’ Tanaka, who joined Nintendo in 1980 and was responsible for composing some of the giant’s most loved classics like Metroid and Tetris.

In the second episode of Diggin' in the Carts we take a look at the "bubble era", where inflated stock and real-estate prices in Japan meant that 8-bit technology was soaring: and so was the creativity it inspired. The Konami sound team leader Hidenori Maezawa, and 8-bit composer Masashi Kageyama trace back to the technolgy's roots, uncovering the birth and boom of 8-bit music.

As the ’80s give way to the ’90s, 16-bit technology arrives and video games become more vivid and more dynamic than ever before. A generation of young composers who grew up inspired by the game music of the previous generation take video game music to new heights, with the new systems allowing for game music to sound more cinematic than ever before. At the same time, video games are experiencing a boom across the globe thanks to titles like Street Fighter 2 which ensured that the music of composer Yoko Shimomura was blaring out of news agents, fish and chips shops, and – of course – arcades the world over.

By the beginning of the ’90s, video game sales became colossal worldwide and a war erupted between the two biggest companies in the business: Nintendo and Sega. Although Sega had their flag firmly planted in the arcades in the ’80s, the home console market belonged to Nintendo. That started to change when Sega’s Megadrive developed a reputation for putting out games that were just that little bit “cooler.” In part down to the unique sound of the Megadrive’s inbuilt FM Synth, some of the most incredible game music heard to date was unleashed with J-Pop star Masato Nakamura assigned to compose the Sonic The Hedgehog soundtracks, and Yuzo Koshiro bringing the influence of the clubs he was going to in Tokyo to one of the most memorable soundtracks in video game history, Streets of Rage

Almost a decade before names like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest started to make an appearance around the world, role playing games were already a big deal in Japan. In fact, they were so important that games companies were employing the likes of Koichi Sugiyama, one of Japan’s most respected classical composers to give the 8-bit and 16-bit sound a sophistication never heard before. In this episode, we follow the music of Final Fantasy as the compositions of Nobuo Uematsu come full circle. In their early incarnations, it was 8-bit music imitating the orchestral sound. Nowadays, some of the world’s leading orchestras perform the music that once strove to elevate itself to their level.

Since 32-bit and CD technology spelt the end of the chip era in the '90s, video game music has never been the same. These days, unlike the distinctive early soundtracks of Sega and Nintendo, games are more likely to feature “real” music; Flying Lotus-curated mixes, or compositions performed by full orchestras. So as we go Diggin’ In The Carts for the final session, it’s time to get to know the composers and producers who took the mantle of this next generation of video game music. This episode features Michiru Yamane, most well-known for her work on the Castlevania series, alongside director/writer Hideo Kojima, Metal Gear Solid’s Teruta and Namco composer/engineer Yuu Miyake.