A Decade of VGM - Part 4
With the arrival of the new decade, now is the perfect time to reflect on the video game music community and how much it has changed over the past 10 years. I reached out on Twitter, looking for VGM artists that have been active for at least the last decade, and I was overwhelmed by the responses. I had originally intended to create one article, but given the number of responses, I’ve decided to split this into five articles, one for each question that I asked VGM artists. If you haven’t read the first three articles, check them out here. For this article, I asked several musicians one very important question:
How has your relationship with the VGM community changed in 10 years?
Ferdk
When I started, there was no sense of a VGM community existing, only because it had just begun. YouTube was the Wild West, and creators were experimenting with all kinds of content. I bet most of us had no idea what we were doing.
Finding people who shared similar interests (videogames, music, guitars) made the community-building aspect incredibly easy, so I reached out to everyone I could find, and they all responded to me very kindly. It was almost a culture shock to find that people treated me like their equal, despite not feeling worthy of their respect. It’s great to see we are still checking each other’s stuff after all these years.
In these past 10 years, many things have changed. The way platforms work have changed as have the amount of new people joining our community. It’s sometimes hard to keep tabs on everyone, let alone follow all the newer people, but I always try to stay in touch as much as possible. Things have gotten bigger, more professional, and more polished. It’s been awesome to witness the growth of the VGM scene.
That being said, it still brings a smile to my face when I find a new creator uploading their first few videos to YouTube, recorded in their bedroom with non-professional lighting, etc. That was us, all of us (that’s still me to this day, but that’s another matter, haha). Putting your content out there seems like a simple step, but it takes a lot of courage and can be life changing. It surely changed my life.
For those that have reached out to me over the years as a member of the “old guard”, I’ve always tried my best to be supportive, doing for them what my peers have done for me: inspire them, encourage them, and make them feel welcome. Every new artist I find inspires me, encourages me, and makes me feel proud we somehow managed to create this space for people to express themselves and share their passion for music and gaming. For as much as I’ve struggled with finding my place in the world, the VGM community has always made me feel like I belong. My wish is that every new member of the family feels the same!
Metatron
Ten years ago, I was posting MIDIs I ran through GXSCC on Newgrounds under the name IchigoChamploo. I loved listening to video game music, and from that love, I got inspired to actually experiment with music. I got a copy of FL Studio and started messing around with it, continuing to make covers and remixes on NG until I went to college.
Once I went to college, I started taking music seriously, trying different genres under different names. I had a few offers here and there for game audio, but a lot of those projects never got off the ground (ex. Mega Man VR, JonTron: The Experience, etc.). Finally, a couple of them did get off the ground, and the first game I did some music for was released in April 2019! Shortly before that, I found a post on Reddit asking for some help with a Final Fantasy VI tribute album, and that's how I got started making music for Pixel Mixers.
Contributing to Pixel Mixers projects has made me a better musician in so many different ways. I was actually getting constructive feedback and was constantly inspired by the other people in the group that were making really great music. I started making more music faster and started getting better at what I was doing. That, in turn, helped me get a few more gigs doing game audio.
Ten years ago, I was a socially awkward teen in Nebraska that didn't have an outlet for my love of games and game music, and now I am surrounded by an amazing community full of people passionate about the same things as me. I went from being an amateur having fun to a somewhat decent musician in a decade, so I'm very optimistic about the next ten years.
Marshall Art
The beginning of the last decade was kind of a transition time for us—MAGFest 8 (2010) and 9 (2011) were my first "real life" introduction to the video game music fan community. Prior to this, we were both watching from our respective homes in Russia and Canada and interacting online (mostly via the message board for the VGM band Minibosses). In the years since, the friends that we made then have grown to feel more like a giant extended family.
Meeting in-person was the catalyst that set Marshall Art in motion. At first, we were just an "internet band" making a few long-distance collaborations, but eventually we grew to be a live performing act (which is a small feat in and of itself, given the distance between us). I think we're fortunate to have played as many shows as we have, really. It blows my mind that we've been able to play on the same stages that the bands that have inspired us once played. Also, we've collaborated with other VGM musicians that have inspired us for longer than a decade.
Things might have changed a fair amount for us in the past decade, but we still hangout on the Minibosses message board.
Photo by https://vikkaphoto.com/.
Under Polaris
It's been wonderful. I grew up loving video game music, especially from games like Doom, Megaman X, and Parasite Eve. I had no idea that musicians made covers or remixes of VGM until a friend introduced me to The Advantage when I was in high school, and the flood gates opened. I would scour Myspace for bands and solo acts like The Megas, PowerGlove, The Oneups, and Mega Ran and they slowly became part of my standard music rotation. In 2009, I went to my first ever VGM/nerdy concert called Nerdapalooza and dressed as Megaman in a ramshackle outfit. I got to see performances from My Parents Favorite Music, MC Frontalot, and of course The Megas, and it lit a fire under me. I had no idea a scene like this existed. People getting together and sharing their love for VGM—I needed to do this too!
In 2010, I started writing my first every game cover of the intro stage theme from Megaman 7 with my best friend Robert Sloan. This slowly turned into me doing my own chiptune-inspired thing called Under Polaris. After releasing more remixes, my partner at the time, Shannon, became a member, and we released a demo in 2012 and started playing shows around Orlando. We got to play the last Nerdapalooza in 2013, and it brought me to tears to play this show that I went to every year.
After that, Robert Sloan joined the band. He was already in his own VGM band named Random Encounter, and they were kicking ass. They toured other parts of the country, playing at cons and festivals, and I got to see even more how much playing live music like this influenced so many people. With Rob involved, the three of us played even more shows in 2014.
It was kind of stop and go after that. Random Encounter was Rob's main focus, Shannon moved to another state, and I just tried to figure out what to do next with Under Polaris. Thankfully in 2016, we released a single for our most popular song called “Core of the Storm” and shows started happening more. We try to play songs that may not get a lot of play in the VGM scene, e.g. songs from games like Crash Bandicoot Warped, Mass Effect 2, and Parasite Eve. We'd finish a show, covered in sweat and make up dripping off, and the crowd would say how happy they were to hear a song from a game they played when they were kids. It means so much that I can help bring out a happy memory that someone had with a game.
Our first official release came out in 2018. Robert and I were going to do a 24-hour stream on Twitch to raise money to make the album, and we hit that goal in the first two or three hours. Shortly after that, we got to play with the band PowerGlove and that was momentous for us. When Rob and I became friends in high school, we both had the same PowerGlove song playing on our MySpace pages, and we realized there was another person who knew VGM bands like this. We got to share a stage with that band, and I still get teary eyed thinking about it sometimes.
In 2019, we got to play a sold out show with the amazing band TWRP. The energy was incredible. So many people in that room loved VGM and were exploding with excitement for the songs we played. When the show ended, and we were by our merch table, there was a gigantic line of adults, parents, and kids, all talking about how much games mean to them and the music that comes with it.
I love VGM. I have met so many amazing people who I can call friends because of it. I’ve seen so many amazing musicians get bigger and bigger sharing their love for it. It's been a hell of a decade.
Michael Staple
From being on YouTube remixing video game music in 2007 to composing originals for video games since 2012 onward, I'd say my relationship with the community has changed drastically. One of my favourite moments was when I went to MAGFest 2020 this year. Being there for four days to meet my fans and online friends that I have collaborated with for so long is one of the best feelings ever, and I will never take the moments with them for granted. I just want to continue doing what I love and share my love for video games and video game music to people young and old.
Adventuria
So, I think that it's really a combination of both how I've changed as an artist and how the VGM community itself has changed at large. Just like any relationship, it's a two-way street.
Back in 2010, the genre was so new and fresh that you could practically throw a few notes of the Mario theme into something and that would be enough to get people excited. A lot of the classic Duane and Brando videos that I made were literally game footage with some gif animations and text thrown on top and they got millions of views. I toured with the Protomen and Super 8bit Brothers back in 2010, and people were so excited to see us everywhere we went because of the sheer novelty of, "Wow, what's that? Is that Battletoads!?" People dug the crass, edgy humor we injected into our songs, and I think there was a big draw for nostalgia after the 2008 recession. Everyone wanted to work and collaborate with everyone else. It was really a matter of being at the right place at the right time.
It seems like in the past ten years we've had a big dying off of VGM-based conventions, and that's really reflective of the scene as a whole. It's a lot less vibrant than it was—a lot fewer acts with less variety. I look around and a lot of the acts that were big around 2010 are all doing side projects or have moved on entirely, and there hasn't really been an influx of new talent into the community to replace them. I'm not saying that there aren't talented new acts popping up all the time, but the early 2010s were an 8-bit gold rush. I think that there's been an increase in nostalgia fatigue on the whole that's fueling that loss of interest.
I've also found that what people found funny at 22 is not necessarily what they find funny at 32. That was something that I was maybe a little slow on the uptake with about five years ago, and it nearly cost me my career. In 2010, the VGM press referred to Duane and I as "the bad boys" of Nerdcore. A few years later and it was shortened to just "the bad." Now even the word "Nerdcore" itself is a bit cringey in some circles. Of course, there was the drama caused by multiple break ups of Duane and Brando, and that really splintered the fanbase and limited who was willing to work with me. Invitations to play cons have been scarce since 2013 or so. It's really difficult to establish yourself as a solo act after you've gotten famous for being in a group. I'm not sure if that's a feature of VGM or just music in general, though.
I've always been a mixed media artist. My videos are almost more important than the VGM covers that I make, and I invest a lot of time into them. As the community has evolved to have higher standards, it's pushed me to increase the overall quality. As I said, the original videos were just game play footage with some gifs, whereas my most recent videos have been entirely animated by hand with no game footage at all.
An important part of the passage of time with regards to VGM is that the window of what's considered "nostalgic" moves. NES, Sega, and SNES have been my bread and butter since the very beginning, but that's actually a little old now. Everything good has been done and younger fans have no real connection to those systems, and it's a challenge for me because in order to stay fresh I need to move forward with the VGM scene. But once you start getting into the PS1/PS2 era, the music becomes more orchestral, and I can't make the same sorts of sprite videos that I'm known for. I am always down to collaborate, but it seems like when I do get offers from people, it's for PS2-era games that are really difficult to write lyrics for because there aren't the same sort of definite musical themes. Rather than force myself to phone something in, I end up passing on the project and that lack of collaboration makes it hard to stay connected with the community as a whole. At least in another ten years, I'll have lots of Switch games to cover.
Chernabogue
Interestingly enough, in 10 years, my relationship with the VGM community didn't change a lot. On a personal level, I’m still trying to contribute to album projects and enter music contests while trying to do my own thing. I do feel the VGM community got more and more open. With the development of different means of communication, it's easier to discuss various topics related to VGM with other people, find collaborators to work on covers and projects, and learn new tricks with music production. As someone who never really studied music, it has been great to improve my skills and find friends, teachers, collaborators, and overall great people.
If you create VGM yourself, feel free to share your own response on social media or in the comments below. Thanks for reading, and if you haven’t already, check out Part 5 here!