My Favourite Musical Moments of the 2010s

[Music] imagine a world before snap - enemy combat systems a world where chest high walls litter every game environment and people still play rock band imagine a world where every game isn't trying to be Dark Souls things have changed a lot in the last 10 years and as we enter a new decade it's a perfect time to look back and reminisce about our favorite games and music from the last one today I want to talk about a handful of musical moments from the last decade that stood out to me not soundtracks not even necessarily tunes but specific moments in game music that I still think about today there was a lot to choose from and this is by no means an exhaustive list so try not to get annoyed when I leave off your favorite game score okay without further ado let's get started snipper clips had the most slept on soundtrack of the 2010s and I can prove it on the surface the music seems innocuously cheery but turn a closer ear and you'll find that composer Callum Bowen was pulling out all the stops when writing the music for the soundtrack and noisy notebooks see a delightfully catchy melody and jovial oompa riddim set the stage for a series of bizarre modulations and harmonic curves these singable catchy melody effortlessly sweeps us from the key of e-flat to the key of B by taking this earlier melodic figure and transforming it to spell out a very clear 2/5 leading right to our new tonic B major chord [Music] we continue on in a similarly cheerful fashion for a while before the same melodic move is used to modulate us from the key of B down to the key of G wait a minute b-flat to B to G that's right folks snippet clips just to distribute equal train matrix II Coltrane matrix is a harmonic sequence that modulates between three keys and major third apart and quick succession most famously used as the basis for the jazz classic Giant Steps the fun doesn't stop there once in G we get one of these sickest builds I've ever heard in my life this B and D the third and fifth of the underlying each each board each rise up chromatically bar by bar until they land on D F creating a G C minor over G C F diminished over G progression that leads us up to a g7 [Music] this g7 sets up yet another modulation to the key of C and it feels so satisfying once we finally get there by the time this tune is through we have successfully made it through six different key changes in the span of 65 bars with another key change to loop us back to the start of the piece I have never seen John Coltrane's Giant Steps progression expressed with such cartoonish color such odd vivre and that makes this one of the best musical moments of the last decade for me the standout piece from shovel Knights phenomenal soundtrack was the heart-wrenching Requiem of shield Knight but if I had to pick one musical moment it would have to be this bar of the starlit wilds the theme that plays during each campfire scene in the game is a rearrangement of the Requiem of shield Knight to be in a major key turning the very minor D B minor f-sharp minor progression into a DB minor F sharp major progression this surprising major tonic gets me absolutely hyped every time I hear it but not only that it also features the flat sixth alongside the major triad making it an extremely rare example of a harmonic major chord [Music] it's hard to describe exactly what this d-natural note does to the cord it's set up well by the D and B minor chords that came before it and it's not used in a horribly dissonant way or anything but the color it brings to this f-sharp major chord adds so much depth it's not quite a bittersweet feeling it feels more like the sense of you may have won this round but you're not out of the woods yet this cord has stuck with me all the way until now earning its spot as one of the best musical moments of the last decade LA noire soundtrack has aged much more gracefully than the game surrounding it conjuring up a smoky neo-noir aesthetic that gives every scene of the game a sense of gravity and intrigue the track new beginnings part 1 is based off of one main musical idea an a7 sus chord played by brass ensemble gradually crescendoing into an E minor 11 chord these chords are both colorful on their own I especially love how the E minor 11 is voiced as add a major triad over top of an E minor chord but what really sells each resolution to E minor is the huge dramatic crescendo up to it with the increasing rhythmic speed of this triplet figure rolling into a huge release [Music] this piece is great but the musical moment I want to specifically highlight comes at the very end after a minute of setting up our expectations for a resolution to E minor the very last ASIS crescendo pulls the rug out from under our feet by moving to an unexpected D minor major nine chord [Music] [Applause] [Music] this resolution hits so hard the cord quality fits perfectly with the games film noir style and the sudden drop from the key of E minor to D minor feels like a downward spiral into darkness a foreboding omen for the story of our detective Cole Phelps okay so this one might be cheating since it's a remake of a piece from 1992 but Mario Kart 8's arrangement of donut plains 3 just puts a big stupid smile on my face every time I hear it I love the organ I love the surprise move to f major from a flat and I love these sick bebop lines that just come in out of nowhere [Music] but if I had to narrow it down my favorite part of the whole piece is the harmonized organ melody right near the beginning the way these perfect fifths grammatically scoop up to the third and seventh of the underlying a flat major seven chord just kills me and then the split off in two different directions with the bottom line walking up to the next bars melody note while the top line approaches it from a semitone above to hasty [Music] the combination of these two notes gives the underlying B flat seven chord able flat 13 flat nine sound you may recognize this juicy dominant voicing from the very beginning of this video [Music] not a conscious theft but I clearly like what I like hotline Miami is one of those games that's remembered just as much for its soundtrack as for every other part of its design proving that bashing gangsters heads in and fat 80s synth beats go together like peanut butter and jelly which is why it's so interesting that the game cuts the music the second each level is finished forcing the player to backtrack through their trail of destruction to ambient wind noise and a dial tone drone maybe it's not so much a musical moment as a sound design moment but the way the music is suddenly sucked away really draws attention to itself and creates the sharp divide between the exhilarating hyper violence of the gameplay and the sickening results that get left behind for a game that's all about examining how we view violence in video games this sound design decision is a perfect way to deliver the message the developers were trying to convey which definitely makes it one of the best musical moments of the decade there are plenty of moments in breath of the wild that give a big purple nurple to my nostalgia nipples with classic melodies from past games coming back in completely new forms for reto village the stables Hyrule Castle and plenty of other places scattered all over the gigantic world map to pick out a single moment though I'd have to go with the one that I think best exemplifies the compositional attitude of breath of the wild soundtrack the cue that hits you just as you approach the dilapidated temple of time [Music] these 10 bars are like a master class of modern jazz reharmonization all on their own putting the instantly recognizable temple of time theme from ocarina of time in the completely new sparse style of the breath of the wild score the original melody used the sound of the Dorian mode to evoke the style of a Gregorian chant the main melodic motif of a leaf down of a fifth followed by two leaps upward of a third outlines a minor triad which is followed by a winding figure that emphasizes the raised sixth of the D Dorian scale before resolving back to our tonic [Music] there's no harmony in the original temple of time theme but the D Dorian sound is inescapable right off the bat the breath of the wild version completely changes the tone by harmonizing the first two notes as a D major six nine chord the way this chord is voiced as a stack of fourths coming down from the tonic is a typical jazz piano voicing for a major chord and gives off a very striking sound the following four notes which clearly outline a D minor triad are harmonized as a colorful G minor nine chord C the clashing notes between these first two chords the D major chord had an f-sharp and B natural while the following G minor uses an F natural and b-flat for a dramatic color shift you'll notice that every chord in this reham has at least one note that clashes with the chord before or after it a relatively common approach to modern jazz reharmonization the following phrase shows us another common jazz piano technique chord planning these three melody notes are each harmonized as the major seventh of a major seven chord giving us a b-flat major seven two C major seven - a flat major seven progression this a-flat jumps back to our original forth based D major sound before ending off on a dominant sharp 11 chord which honestly is the most a jazz thing you could do comparing these open piano voicings and constantly shifting tonality z' to the originals Gregorian chant style is kind of mind-boggling which is why I just couldn't leave this tune off of this list looking back at just how much has changed in the last 10 years of gaming makes me so excited to see what is coming for the next decade and I can't wait to share these new musical moments with you guys as we move forward into 2020 and beyond obviously there are like two million great musical moments that I didn't mention here so please feel free to post your favorites from the last 10 years of gaming in the comments below and if you find yourself in the Minneapolis area between March 6th and 8th you gotta come check out vgm con I'll be presenting a few panels they're talking about analyzing music and the different ways that that can help you grow as a composer or musician there are going to be a ton of other super cool guests and great musicians there too last year was my first time going and I had so much fun I am so excited for this year anyways you can find me on Twitter at 8-bit music theory and if you want to support what I do consider checking out my patreon page here thanks so much for watching and I'll see you all next time [Music] you

Channel: 8-bit Music Theory

Views: 302,991

Rating: 4.9704909 out of 5

Keywords: Snipperclips, noisy notebook c, The Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild, Nintendo Music, Hotline miami, indie games, indie game soundtracks, shovel knight, mario kart 8, donut plains 3, LA Noire music, best of the decade, best games of the decade, 2010s gaming, best video game music, 8-bit Music Theory

Id: 9kqj_XrBdxg

Length: 13min 49sec (829 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 22 2020

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