As was the case with Diamond Rugs’ 2012 self-titled debut record, much of the band’s sophomore album, Cosmetics, formed and grew in the studio. That’s an impressive feat, considering that Diamond Rugs is something of a weekender project for members of no fewer than five bands, all of whom keep moderate-to-ridiculous recording and touring schedules anyway: John McCauley and Robbie Crowell (both Deer Tick), Ian St. Pé (Black Lips), T. Hardy Morris (Dead Confederate), Bryan Dufresne (Six Finger Satellite) and the legendary Steve Berlin (Los Lobos, Blasters and about six dozen other outfits). The boys in the band will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our recent feature on them.
McCauley: 植松 伸夫
That says “Nobuo Uematsu.” Video gamers know him. Nobuo-san is best known as the composer for the bulk of the Final Fantasy series. He’s probably not so well known in indie-rock circles, or whatever. I could be wrong, but that’s why I wanted to write a little something about him.
Video-game music has come a long way since the 8-bit sounds of the NES. Some modern games, like Grand Theft Auto V, use “real” music and have radio stations within their worlds. Others employ the use of orchestras and have scores just like the movies. But to me, something about the usage of real recordings make video games seem less … video game-y. The music of Nobuo-san represents kind of a golden age of video games for me: the NES, the Super Nintendo and the Sony PlayStation. It’s extremely nostalgic for me and brings me back to parts of my life like few other things can.
My favorite video-game soundtrack is from Final Fantasy VII. It must have been a wonderfully inspirational time for Mr. Uematsu, because the soundtrack is massive and, despite the PlayStation’s MIDI card sound, so full of life. My friend Brandon and I actually ordered it on CD from eBay at some point when we were in middle school or high school. Eighty-five tracks on four CDs!*
Nobuo-san’s choice to use MIDI sounds, as opposed to using real recordings with the PlayStation’s CD technology, is what makes the FFVII OST so great in my mind. It’s quirky. It sounds weird. I would instantly recognize the strange PlayStation MIDI oboe sound that is so prominently featured in the soundtrack anywhere … but, unfortunately I’ve never heard it anywhere else. I’ve got to figure out how to replicate that sound that I love so dearly. Maybe Robbie Crowell can help me; he’s a keyboard whiz.
Another thing I love about Mr. Uematsu’s music is its repetitiveness. (I know, I know, sounds like an oxymoron.) In a classic JRPG, you may be spending hours upon hours in one particular location, whether you’re grinding your levels or you’re completely lost and wandering around looking for an event to advance the storyline. In these situations, if the music isn’t any good, it just really adds to your frustration, and you may end up throwing your controller at the screen. Nobuo-san has always been able to write pieces of music big and small that can play on loop infinitely, and you’re still able to get some joy out of it. I used to put the controller down on the world map and crank the TV volume so I could listen to FFVII’s “Main Theme” over and over again.
I eventually worked my way back through the entire Final Fantasy series. Little prepubescent me realized that there was this wonderful musician, somewhere across the Pacific Ocean who had been composing all this killer music for all these insanely badass role-playing games. I didn’t have the internet or anything, and Tokyo seemed so far away, so everything about Nobuo Uematsu, besides his name in the credits, was a complete and total mystery to me. I started taking Japanese lessons thinking that someday I’d move to Tokyo and get a job alongside this mysterious man and we would compose music for Squaresoft (now Square Enix) RPGs together.
If weird MIDI sounds ain’t your thing, I get that. There are other options, though! There are many orchestral arrangements of Final Fantasy songs out there, as well as piano collections, and Uematsu’s rock band the Black Mages. Then there’s the production called “Distant Worlds: Music From Final Fantasy.” Distant Worlds is an orchestra that covers the entire Final Fantasy series and is conducted by Arnie Roth. My old pal Brandon and I got together last summer to see this at the Chicago Symphony Center. My wife came along, too. She is not a gamer at all, but she had to admit that the concert was pretty awesome. I think maybe she was a little confused by people dressed up as Mogs and Chocobos, though.**
At one point that evening, Nobuo-san appeared onstage and performed “Dark World” from the Final Fantasy VI soundtrack. A young John’s mind would have exploded seeing Mr. Uematsu in the flesh. But since I’m old and really cool now, I was able to remain relaxed throughout the performance and then let it all out at the end in the form of applause. It was a pretty special evening. Hearing those songs transported me back in time to my bedroom at my grandmother’s house, who once said of Nobuo-san’s music, “How can you play that game for so long without the music putting you to sleep!?” My Nana just didn’t get it.
I suppose that’s it, but before I go, I would just like to point out that everybody knows the Super Mario Bros. theme song (by Koji Kondo, another video-game music genius). The song itself is so deeply embedded in popular culture, it’s proof that video-game music can be transcendental!
Check out the “Final Fantasy VII Main Theme,” “Aerith’s Theme” or “One-Winged Angel.” It’s beautifully written music. It’s also serious music. FFVII holds a special place in my heart because it was the first game I played that had “serious” music.
*There is an 86th song that got cut from the soundtrack called “Comical.” It was written supposedly for a scene that didn’t make the final cut of the game.
**For the record, the author does not do cosplay, though he frequently appears onstage in a chicken costume.
