Category: Music

Another Music Post

The other day I wrote an alcohol-influenced post about royalty free corporate music in video games and movies. I have another observation about music in regard to television shows. Today I started watching Star Trek: Enterprise on Netflix. This series was canceled after four seasons. After only a few episodes, I can say that I really like the show, and I wonder why it failed as a series.

Of course, you can probably guess where I’m going with this if you’ve ever seen the show. The opening title music is terrible. It’s terrible enough to kill the show. The song isn’t so bad on it’s own merit, but it’s awful for a Star Trek series. The theme music for the original Star Trek and the Next Generation was great. Why didn’t they work on a form of that same theme. A variant which sounded either older, clumsier, or simpler, perhaps a single instrument rendition of the theme, would have been better. I feel, it would have made a difference in the overall show performance.

Final Fantasy VII Music

1997 was my favourite year in-game history, as that was the year I learnt to build my own computer for gaming and also majorly cause “The game I waited all summer to play was going to release”. Final Fantasy VII came out on the original Sony Playstation, and I remember all too distinctly getting some LNR Gaming Components to be one among the firsts to try the game. I remember seeing the trailers to that game with that famous opening scene with the train. Back then, that was some amazing graphics.

I had never played a Final Fantasy game up to that point. I have yet to play any other Final Fantasy game that even compares to it. I bought VIII when it came out, and I liked it, but it was missing something. After years of examining my fondnesss for Final Fantasy VII, I’ve come to the conclusion that what really makes Final Fantasy special is it’s confusing story and it’s wonderful music. As a side note, I bought FFVII on PSX, PC, and finally on PS3. I didn’t complete the game until I played it on PS3 in 2010/2011.

Final Fantasy has a good story, but it was completely confusing. I loved that. It made the game more interesting. FFVIII (which I never completed) also had a confusing plot. I really need to complete it next. Plot for plot, I think that FFVIII is just as good as FFVII. It’s hard to tell. One thing is for sure, however, FFVII has the best music. I would say that FFVII has the best music of any game ever. I’m listening to the Piano Collection version of the sound track and  it’s amazing. It brings back some great feelings from the game, but it also stands on its own as good quality composition.

I’ve recently commented that new movies aren’t even worth pirating these days. When I think of good movies, I think of movies that came out during the 80’s and early 90’s. I realize that a lot of this is my own bias, as I was growing up during that time period, but movies today are just terrible. The best movies today come from Pixar. They are about the only movies worth having in a movie collection. I spend most of my movie watching time viewing classics. There’s just nothing out there today that really grabs me.

I don’t think it’s the overuse of special effects or the concentration on 3D technology that makes the movies terrible though. I think it’s the lack of quality musical compositions. Think back to some of the best movies, or watch some of the movies that have awesome scores.

Superman 1 – 4 weren’t that great, but they had an amazing soundtrack. The original Star Wars trilogy was awesome, but think about the score that went along with it. ET, Jurassic Park, The Godfather, The Last of the Mohicans, Jaw, and many other movies benefited greatly from their music.

I think the same can be said about Final Fantasy VII. You know I read a review of Final Fantasy VII back when it first came out. They gave the music a very low rating. It’s funny. I don’t play FFVII anymore, but I still listen to the music.

Used Acoustic Guitar

I’ve been working on a new site called used acoustic guitar for the last couple of days. While setting up various product feeds to generate a little revenue, I discovered that there are some amazing deals on used guitars these days. This is especially true for very expensive guitars such as Taylor and Martin acoustics.

I’ve recently started playing guitar more, after a few years of rarely touching it. For years, that’s all I did. Now that I have a wife and a few kids, it’s increasingly hard to find the time to play. I had also lost some interest in it. I’m getting back into because I’m learning a new technique that I’ve never been able to learn before called Travis Picking. Now that I’m concentrating heavily on learning this technique, I’m finding that it isn’t too difficult and that it’s like learning the guitar all over again.

Setting up the site has helped me realize that there are tons of awesome deals out there though. I guess that stems from the very hard time we are going through economically. There are many people selling their things just so they can pay their bills. If you have money, this is a buyers market all around. There are great deals on many things.