The Greatest Game Music

Reviews of truly outstanding game music

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Formula 1 Soundtrack

Formula 1 Soundtrack

Formula 1 Soundtrack, Mike Clarke / Stuart Ellis, 1996

If you developed a racing video game in the mid-90s, there was apparently little choice other than to score it with electronic beats. And few companies knew this rule as well as Psygnosis. After all, they actually helped write this musical law with their enormously successful Wipeout franchise. Those games helped to take video game soundtracks into the mainstream like few other titles before.

Keeping this in mind, it’s surprising that 1996’s Formula 1 received a straight out, pure-bred hard rock/metal score. The masterminds behind Formula 1‘s revved-up beauty of a soundtrack are Mike Clarke and Stuart Ellis. While Ellis joined the project as a session guitarist, Clarke’s name will be more familiar to game music aficionados. As Psygnosis’ Sound Director, Clarke had mainly worked on Amiga titles before leaping into the CD console era. He would later return to work on the less remarkable Formula One 99. However, more helpful musical references for Formula 1 from Clarke’s career are Lifeforce Tenka and Destruction Derby Raw.

All three scores are guitar-driven howls of instrumental force. But the Formula 1 soundtrack doesn’t go for the grime and grit of the lesser Destruction Derby Raw, or for Lifeforce Tenka‘s processed, haunting feel. Instead, Formula 1‘s pristine instrument sounds and the technical exactitude of its hundreds-of-notes-a-minute guitar soli match the immaculate high-tech precision of the racing cars that this music underscores.

Formula 1 Soundtrack

Psygnosis also licensed music from guitar virtuosos Steve Vai and Joe Satriani for the Formula 1 soundtrack. That of course meant that the pressure was on Psygnosis’ in-house musicians to match such instrumental prowess. Thankfully, when necessary, Stuart Ellis certainly lives up to the note-shredding standards set by these guitar gods. At the same time, Formula 1 never turns into a hollow display of instrumental pyrotechnics.

“Track 1” kicks proceedings off with rock-solid, crunchy hard rock riffage and a comfortable groove. Its bluesy feel might be a rarity on the album, but smoothly eases listeners into the album. “Track 7” later revisits the same sort of groove-rock feel. It’s the kind of metal that’s confident enough to rely on a great riff and let it work its magic. Of course, there’s no shortage of guitar showmanship during these tracks’ soli.

“Track 2” and “Track 11” are more pressing and urgent affairs. The music picks up speed and mental images of cars racing at breathtaking speeds are impossible to suppress. Ellis once more proves that his riffs are just as excellent as his soli, and like other cues, “Track 2” slows down to catch its breath at the beginning of its last third, before putting the pedal to the metal for a furious finale.

When you put together fast cars and hard rock, it’s difficult not to think of “Highway Star”. And indeed, “Track 3” does sport shades of Deep Purple. A Hammond organ not only adds splashes of colour and character, but also underlines the influence that Ritchie Blackmore’s work has on Formula 1‘s sound. Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Van Halen are other valid points of references that identify the Formula 1 soundtrack as a first-rate representative of classic heavy metal.

Formula 1 Soundtrack

Things only get better with “Track 4”, whose soli tear into the song with hair-raising intensity. Still more interesting is the cue’s central riff. It’s a rhythmically tricky, yet unexpectedly grooving show stopper that might be the album’s most creative single musical idea. It regularly trades places with monolithic jack hammer riffing, backed by the album’s first pronounced use of double bass drums. True, the drumming and bass lines of Formula 1 don’t attract as much attention as the guitar fireworks. Still, their rhythmic support is never less than flawless and at all times maintains the album’s exuberant energy.

After the heaviness of the preceding cues, “Track 5” is a welcome breather. With its care-free attitude, “Track 5” barrels down the race track with a big grin on its face. Of course, there’s still space for lightning-fast guitar soli that lead to a huge, euphoric finale. That moment of exhilaration is followed by the Formula 1 soundtrack’s most creative concoction, “Track 6”. Clarke and Ellis prove their versatility and mix in funk elements that are as energetic as their rock counterparts, but lighter on their feet. The cue’s stroke of genius is the way it electronically chops up the guitar riffs during its B section. It then tosses shreds of the riff across the stereo field, in a way that cleverly matches the tracks’ opening stuttering funk rhythms, but in entirely unexpected ways.

The score’s other noteworthy genre experiment takes place on “Track 10”. A particularly sludgy riff and growling bass lines make for the Formula 1 soundtrack’s grimiest track yet. Unexpectedly, Clarke and Ellis balance this focus on the bottom end with swelling and tinkling synth pads. Initially (as on “Track 9”), their job is to provide the guitar soli with an amorphous, cinemascope-sized backdrop, so they feel even larger than life than they already did before. But then, “Track 10” even drops guitars entirely during its mid-section. Instead, it throws in an unexpectedly atmospheric section dominated by those whale call-synths – before crashing back into the grinding opening riff with fierce abandon. You couldn’t ask for a more satisfying conclusion of one of game music’s best metal scores.

  1. 01 - Track 1 Mike Clarke / Stuart Ellis 2:38
  2. 02 - Track 2 Mike Clarke / Stuart Ellis 2:53
  3. 03 - Track 3 Mike Clarke / Stuart Ellis 2:54
  4. 04 - Track 4 Mike Clarke / Stuart Ellis 2:48
  5. 05 - Track 5 Mike Clarke / Stuart Ellis 2:58
  6. 06 - Track 6 Mike Clarke / Stuart Ellis 3:05
  7. 07 - Track 7 Mike Clarke / Stuart Ellis 3:16
  8. 08 - Track 8 Mike Clarke / Stuart Ellis 2:34
  9. 09 - Track 9 Mike Clarke / Stuart Ellis 2:52
  10. 10 - Track 10 Mike Clarke / Stuart Ellis 2:51
  11. 11 - Track 11 Mike Clarke / Stuart Ellis 3:13

 

Tagged With: 1996, Mike Clarke, PlayStation, Psygnosis, Racing, Rock/Metal, Stuart Ellis

Psybadek Soundtrack

Psybadek Soundtrack

Psybadek Soundtrack, Mike Clarke, 1998

Including Psybadek in a list of “The WORST Playstation Game[s] Ever Made” (as a YouTube reviewer does) is probably taking things a bit far – remember that there were loads of horrendous shovelware for Sony’s console, particularly in its later years. Still, Psybadek remains a bit of a mystery. This is a game by one of the 32-bit era’s most successful and trendiest developers (Psygnosis), released in between heavy-hitters by that company like the WipeOut, Colony Wars, Destruction Derby and Formula 1 titles. Yet, according to both contemporary and more recent reviewers, Psybadek falls flat on its face, with nary any redeeming features. At least Psybadek’s mix of racing and platforming elements showed that the developers were thinking outside of the box, even if that genre combination was ultimately poorly implemented.

As Gamespot noted in their review though, there’s one aspect where Psybadek – unexpectedly – shines: its score. Their claim that “the soundtrack is easily one of the best in video games anywhere” might sound like hyperbole. However, this is indeed one of the era’s best electronic game scores and far better than what you would expect to find in a game with such an otherwise poor presentation. Thanks be to veteran composer Mike Clarke, who had delivered numerous soundtracks for Psygnosis since the early 1990s, including one of the best metal scores ever to grace a video game: Formula 1.

For the Psybadek soundtrack, Clarke takes a very different – and arguably more creative – approach. He works with a big beat framework for each track’s rhythmic base during the first half of the score. He then combines these rhythms with retro-styled melody leads that oscillate between jazzy and psychedelic (maybe the game’s dunderheaded title achieved one good thing – inspiring Clarke to attempt this genre fusion). His approach isn’t unprecedented – Propellerhead’s “History Repeating” had set the template for this combination of contemporary beats and suave James Bond-style brass sounds the year before.

Psybadek Soundtrack

Still, it’s not a style often heard in game soundtracks – kudos to Clarke for pulling off an electronic racing score that dares to differ from the late 1990s norm for the genre. Without the need to emphasise a futuristic setting, the Psybadek soundtrack is a much warmer and melodic creature than, say, the WipeOut and Extreme-G scores. Instead, the music embraces a fuzzy sense of nostalgia to welcome listeners. Just take the vintage sound Clarke often clads his instruments in, as if they were playing through an old transistor radio. It might sound incongruous on paper, but Clarke never pushes the effect too hard. Instead, his clever audio engineering lends the modern rhythms a distinctive, colourful edge. It also prepares the ground for moments like the jazzy trumpet solo on “Track 1”, which perfectly suits the cue’s retro-flavoured undercurrent.

The Psybadek soundtrack ingeniously revisits this mix of old and new from different angles as it proceeds. “Track 2” expands on the previous cue’s strung-out mood with a wild combination of biting vintage keyboard arpeggios, acerbic guitar lines, surf rock episodes, hip-hop rhythms and jittery sound effects that twitch through the multi-coloured haze. It’s a thoroughly heady trip that can feel like a woozy drug-induced dream, but Clarke always remains in control of the track’s flow. During its almost seven-minute run time, the cue’s elements develop organically – witness the percussion- and guitar-led build-up towards the end of its second third – and any sudden shifts consciously underscore the piece’s entertainingly unpredictable nature. “Track 4” is equally fun – this time, the contrast is between urban elements (more pressing rhythms, sounds of cars) and rural inspirations like a harmonica lead. Once more, Clarke makes this unlikely combination work beautifully.

Psybadek Soundtrack

The second half of the Psybadek soundtrack goes off on various tangents – but there is no dip in quality. “Track 5” and “Track 7” hew more closely to racing game music conventions of the era, with their greater reliance on techno rhythms. Still, their spacey synth pads float through the stereo field like translucent gates to the stars, warped by forceful solar winds – enough to recall the trippy atmosphere of earlier compositions. “Track 6” takes an almost diametrically opposed approach. Far more acoustic than electronic, the composition introduces Mariachi trumpets, swiftly strummed guitar melodies, lavish string orchestrations and increasingly busy drums to end up as the score’s most upbeat cue. Ultimately, “Track 6” is simply another clever way for the soundtrack to tap into its obsession with 1960s music, this time recalling the ‘acid rock played by orchestra’ approach of Love’s masterpiece Forever Changes.

“Track 8” goes for a much more dramatic sound, opening with sampled African chants before segueing into the soundtrack’s heaviest bass line and some hand percussion. Clarke once more displays his penchant for experimentation, marrying these locally specific influences with an anthemic staccato synth melody. Its timbre is much colder than the surrounding textures, but the chanting and the dominating staccato lead nicely match each other’s flair for big gestures. The Psybadek soundtrack fittingly closes with its most unclassifiable cue. “Track 9” goes from dry guitar riffs and bouncy 4/4 dance beats to increasingly dense layers of electronica – before it all breaks down into a pounding big beat episode and mutant surf rock. Again, it’s a combination that shouldn’t work, but Clarke pulls it all together into a kaleidoscopic whole that continually surprises – a mirror image for the entire Psybadek soundtrack.

  1. 01 - Track 01 Clarke, Mike 4:51
  2. 02 - Track 02 Clarke, Mike 6:38
  3. 03 - Track 03 Clarke, Mike 5:30
  4. 04 - Track 04 Clarke, Mike 7:37
  5. 05 - Track 05 Clarke, Mike 3:19
  6. 06 - Track 06 Clarke, Mike 3:30
  7. 07 - Track 07 Clarke, Mike 3:31
  8. 08 - Track 08 Clarke, Mike 3:20
  9. 09 - Track 09 Clarke, Mike 5:23

Tagged With: 1998, Electronic, Mike Clarke, PlayStation, Psygnosis, Racing

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