Computer Games Music - About The Genre

by Simon Plumbe

A lot of people would think that music from computer games has little or no merit musically and is little more than a random series of blips and bleeps linked together. This perception was at it's peak in the days of the Commodore C64, but even today's composers working in the games industry are given very little regard despite the incredible talent out there.

The games music scene was at its peak in terms of musical quality back in the days of the Commodore 64. While music nowadays is a lot more impressive technically, composers back then were limited with the hardware at their disposal but despite this, there were some stunning pieces of music written that still have a huge following today through the popularity of Commodore emulators for the PC and other computers. But how did the music achieve this cult status?

Music had always been a popular element of games on the Commodore 64 because of the C64's sound chip - the 6581 SID chip. Unlike other computers at the time, the SID was a full blown 4-channel synthesiser capable of producing some stunning results. In the right hands, it was capable of producing some wonderful sounds and with the right composer creating some stirring melodies, music in games became an art form and the music was just as important as any other part of the games themselves. In fact, most of the composers of the day became stars in their own right and most were head-hunted by large companies as the 8-bit market diminished and most of the key players today in the game music business started out with the C64.

What really took the interest in music on the Commodore 64 to a new level was the demo scene. For the unitiated, programmers and artists often produced short programs that were intended purely to entertain and show off their skills and what the computers were really capable of doing. Most of these demos offered stunning visual effects and artwork, combined with great music. These were truly astonishing multimedia experiences that were works of art in their own right, long before the industry latched on to the concept of multimedia.

When the C64 demo scene was in its formative days, there were very few musicians around. There were plenty of programmers all trying to get the C64 to do things it wasn't supposed to, and plenty of artists making use of the various art packages available or by following basic programming guidelines and creating artwork by programming the hardware directly (not an easy task, but quite manageable). However, when it came to sound and music, there was a void of musical talent, and those who were able to write music were in big demand with the software houses writing music for games and they had very little time or interest in the demo scene.

This left demo programmers with something of a dilemma. No matter how good a demo looks, without sound people were going to lose interest, so to solve their problems, programmers simply ripped music from some of the top games of the day, gave credit to the musicians/games/software houses (helped no doubt by the links many musicians had to the demo scene), and incorporated this into their work. Strangely, rather than being miffed at this, the software houses saw this as not only an impressive form of flattery, but also a cheap way of advertising their products. They seemed to believe that if a really good demo used a good piece of music, then people would buy their games on the strength of the music. And on the C64, that actually happened...

The demo that immediately springs to mind is "Thrust Concert". This somewhat simplistic demo took the Rob Hubbard theme tune to Firebird's legendary game Thrust. The demo itself had the music playing and on screen was an animated picture of a band playing instruments in time with the music. When this demo was shown at a computer show, people there ended up flocking to the Firebird stand to buy Thrust, thinking that the demo was included in the game. It has to be said that while Thrust was a brilliant game and well worth the price, its sales were certainly given a boost by the use of the music in this demo.

It also happened on the reputation of music. There was such a strong fan base amongst C64 users for certain musicians that if a particular composer had worked on a game, then there would be people who would go and buy a game because of it. Ocean managed to gain a significant sales rise to Game Over - a rather sub-standard platform/shoot-em-up. When this was released and reviewed, all the press made a big fuss about the title music making extensive use of guitar and drum samples - something that hadn't really been explored to that point - and sales did well as a result.

Out of all of the software houses writing C64 games, only Ocean (and their arcade licence spin-off company Imagine) refused to allow their music to be used, threatening legal action if their music was lifted. A pity really, especially considering the fact that Martin Galway was their in-house musician at the time and was arguably the best musician to ever grace the C64. However, even they changed their minds eventually, and allowed their work to be used resulting in an onslaught of demos with Martin Galway music!

As a result of this open-minded attitude, it created a great deal of interest in music on the C64 and made pieces available to a wider audience. It helped shape and influence the new talent that came forward afterwards including the Maniacs of Noise, and other Rob Hubbard and Martin Galway wannabes. The release of the music package Future Composer, which allowed music to be saved out and used in other software launched the careers of a number of composers including Mark Cooksey who wrote the music for many of Elite's arcade conversions in the late eighties. There was also one musician, Jeroen Kinmel, who hacked into Rob Hubbard's music code and used that as a basis for writing his own music under the pseudonym of Red. He went on to write his own music routines, writing more music before joining the Maniacs of Noise as a professional musician.

Now that brings us onto the late 1990s and something that no-one would have thought possible back in the 80s - the advent of remixes of classic game soundtracks. Probably the project that kicked things off was Chris Abbott's "Back In Time". This CD was packed with full studio recordings of C64 classics as they had never been heard before, all produced with the co-operation of the original composers. Since then, there have been a flood of other musicians remixing these classics, and the Back In Time series has shown no signs of slowing down with three CDs, several live events, and more on the way.

The same happened with the Amiga and musicians there. A number of them had released cassettes and CDs over the years featuring full arrangements of their old songs - most notably Allister Brimble and Bjorn Lynne - while introducing original tracks onto the CDs as well. They have both since had extensive CD and game composing work and in the case of Bjorn Lynne, he has released about 20 albums over the last decade!

These were wonderful times to be involved in the game scene. Most of the best musical talent in the games industry today can trace their origins back to the C64/Amiga, and this classic era is one that will never be able to be re-captured. The toe-tapping music from these old games and demos will remain a thing of the 80s and early 90s. Thankfully, with the work of Chris Abbott, Bjorn Lynne and others like them, these songs are being preserved and enhanced for a new generation...

To hear some of these remixes and new arrangements of some of these classics, along with new an original music written by some of the top games composers working today, just take a listen elsewhere on this site. Enjoy...

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