Since the early days of 2013 I've found myself listening to the Crash Bandicoot soundtrack a lot, and I mean a lot. Looking at my last.fm page (http://last.fm/user/velocity_eleven) it is my most listened to album of the past 12 months. It's not that this is my favourite album, not by any means so why have I listened to it so much?
Well to start with I suppose we could ask the question of why we listen to game soundtracks in the first place. Is it purely on the quality of the music? Well I would say not purely, they allow us to "reconnect with the game world" pardon my artsy-speak. Crash Bandicoot was the first PSX game I got and I have strong memories of it. One memory in particular (which you may not consider a nice one) was one night when I had a watch with an alarm on it, it had the snooze option enabled and it would keep going off throughout the night. I couldn't turn it off because the buttons were very hard to press and they hurt given how small they were. I was kept awake all night to the point where I eventually stopped trying and just kept myself awake. I spent the whole night playing Crash Bandicoot and I specifically remember playing on Toxic Waste (perhaps my least favourite level). I was young and I hadn't stayed up so late before so being awake when the sun was rising was a completely new experience for me. This was in my old bedroom that faced east, so the sun actually appeared through my window as it rose. Given this, it was probably around summer when it happened. Despite not having sleep and having my annoying watch bleep every so often, it was quite relaxing. I was in bed playing Crash Bandicoot and the sun was rising. It was like a kind of meditation, in a way.
Now Crash Bandicoot's soundtrack itself is rather tribal and minimalistic, which itself fits into this memory. I guess I associate it with relaxation along with the game world itself. The music is catchy but never over-bearing and to be honest, I can't think of any other game soundtrack that meets all these characteristics. Crash 2 and 3 surely have good soundtracks but they are much more lively and far less tribal. I listen to the album when I'm relaxing. Relaxing "in the background" so to speak, as I'm often doing other things, such as writing this right now I'm listening to The High Road. I listen to it when I'm working on something or generally lazing around on Facebook. There are other albums that are good for this sure but Crash is always the one I come back to probably due to the memories associated with the game. I have also done the same with other game soundtracks such as Rayman and Streets Of Rage. I do love game soundtracks in general for the musical quality and the memories of the games associated with them. Game soundtracks are like a way to bring back the "feeling" of the game without the time needed to be used actually playing it. I do love other game soundtracks too, just yesterday I was listening through Final Fantasy VIII and I have had a phase where I listened to Final Fantasy Origins a lot as well as Super Hang-On, but Crash Bandicoot is always the one I come back to.
I suppose Crash Bandicoot is the only album that truly fills this need I have. The need for a tribal, natural, minimalistic album whilst also holding the benefits of being a game soundtrack. It has become some sort of ritual now, I listen to it before going to bed and I use it to time how long I am going to spend before doing something else (it's 69 minutes). Even the tracks that don't fit this description like Heavy Machinery or Cortex Power, I still do enjoy them in the same way. As for my favourite tracks, I'm not sure, they're all great pretty much. Some that stand out to me though are The Great Gate, Sunset Vista, Temple Ruins, The High Road and Koala Kong. My only real down points of the album is this game's version of Cortex's theme and how the first few tracks are all essentially the same tune along with the intro sequence.
Overall I do love the album though and I imagine I will listen to it every day for a long time. It has so much ambiance in it along with nice tunes, and you don't really get soundtracks like this. Most game soundtracks have a lot going on in them, not many focus on simply creating an atmosphere. Well some do, to an extent, but still Crash Bandicoot's soundtrack is what I'm loving right now.
No comments:
Post a Comment