Ah, there's The Moon! Soooo... what could be left for place #1 and #2 then? Shadow of the Ninja stage 1 hasn't been in the list yet, right? That's my first guess... I have no idea what else to guess. Another Mega Man or Castlevania track?
Had to comment on this, #39 - Super Dodge Ball - USSR Theme:
Norrin_Radd in his review wrote:
... as it stands, there are almost no examples of Russian folk music on the NES. Since Tetris is actually based on real songs, that basically just leaves this track as the only example of an original Russian song on the NES.
Holy crap, dude! You just made my night! I am gunna be blasting this song as often as possible from now on.
I'm actually on a Dodgeball team in real life, called the Comrades, and this is now the song we will play before every game! HELL YES!
I would agree that Silius and Shatterhand are not known quite as well and probably have less bias. My main issue with Silius is that so many of the songs sound very similar.
That's an issue any time you try to rank different genres of music though. For example, you could say The Beatles wrote the 10 greatest songs of all time. But then what about classical, jazz, etc. It's difficult to compare them.
Overall, I would say the top 115 were pretty close to containing 100 or so of the best NES tunes, regardless of the individual placements.
i would like to thank jace and norrin for writing so many stellar reviews for these songs, it was a joy to read such informed and passionate takes on all these tracks and listen to them all while doing so. special thanks to jace for the wonderful writeup of mm2 wily 1, the review + the final youtube quote listed honestly made me tear up a little bit because that song is very dear to me. i guess i'll also take this opportunity with norrin here to say thank you for making your album melodia di infinita. at a time when i was listening to a lot of contemporary chiptune music, i listened to this album constantly, and i still consider it one of my favorites. certain moments of unfinished symphony really manage to capture the raw joys i get from nostalgic game music in an utmost intensity...! so thank you again for composing some of the most affecting music i've ever heard.
having forgotten about bloody tears (the song name is incorrectly listed as vampire killer in the list, btw), i was expecting the solstice main background theme to take the #2 slot, as i consider that one of the most unique NES songs ever written and i figured a community like the shizz would love that kinda song. i'm rather shocked it didn't even make the top 115. was sad to see other favorites soundtracks of mine like bucky, recca (especially would've loved to see jace or norrin write about this one), gradius 2, jackal, and darkwing duck fail to make the list at all. and yeah the lack of final fantasy and mario 1 & 3 is also somewhat surprising.
i can't remember the last time i was checking back daily to see the next entries in a countdown list thing like this. big round of applause to everyone who was involved in this creating and presenting this.
^Dude, one of my favorite tracks (I gave it a 100, the top rating!) only placed 1,047!
(It was track 3 in the Captain Skyhawk nsf)
And I know this might be cheesy, but...thanks to everyone for the props. It really was very time consuming, and I did my best to express something *true* about each song as best as I could. Raub and Norrin (and bucky, who was a big part of things early on) were my soul brothers in this, and I'd like to offer them a special high-five of solidarity.
Biggest thanks of all to juef for setting all of this up, and for handling my constant editing and missed deadlines like a total champ. It has been one of the most fun and personally gratifying endeavors I've embarked upon in the past couple of years.
This forum has had a great reaction so far...if any of you want to see what it was like for us in Phase 2, I don't think anyone would mind you poking in here and rating some tracks, it's still live after all: http://bestnestracks.captaintortilla.com/
i guess i'll also take this opportunity with norrin here to say thank you for making your album melodia di infinita. at a time when i was listening to a lot of contemporary chiptune music, i listened to this album constantly, and i still consider it one of my favorites. certain moments of unfinished symphony really manage to capture the raw joys i get from nostalgic game music in an utmost intensity...! so thank you again for composing some of the most affecting music i've ever heard.
Wow...
I can't believe people outside of my usual internet friends have heard that album, let alone enjoy it. This actually meant quite a lot, my friend. I really hate to whore myself out like this, but you may be interested to know I've got a butt load of Melodia-esque NES chiptunes in the upcoming game Retro City Rampage (hopefully released in Jan or Feb).
Anyway, I must say I am very pleased to see there is another community on the net that is as devoted and protective of NES music as we are at theshizz. Sometimes I just assume that theshizz is the only place that really dissects this stuff on the level we do, because honestly, I wouldn't know where else to look. But I am totally glad to see the love is very strong on this forum as well.
Please do not take the results as a true ranking of the best NES tracks. It's more or less a very accurate placement of tracks that most of us already know are good. For example, the fact that CV1 and CV2 ending themes placed right next to each other is nothing short of magical. This is a very accurate list. Accurate in some way that may not be describable. Top 100 NES tracks is a super vague title, and assigning a number to an awesome track you've never heard of, and an awesome track you've heard since you were born is a very strange endeavor.
The real joy of this entire project though (in my opinion), is the list of nominated songs in it's entirety. I firmly believe that every amazing song on the system with any sort of universal appeal is represented in the list. The actual ranking at this time could be completely different if we did it again tomorrow. But that list (with some fine tuning) could very well represent the complete archive of NES music worth listening to. A representation to the world, of what they are missing when they assume the world of NES music ends with Mario 1-1.
I'd be very curious to hear any tracks that this community can think of that were not nominated. If anything, my greatest fear with this project, was that some gems may have been left behind. Rollerball is a good start Nrg ^_^
Joined: 5/1/2004
Posts: 4096
Location: Rio, Brazil
Well, the ending theme for smb3 is ranked 248 :P I guess it just means a lot to me then, or perhaps people are unfamiliar with the song and rated it based on the first notes. The second part of the song is so emotionally driven, it closes the game in a perfect way.
It felt like zelda, blaster master and bionic commando were overrated. Blaster master and bionic commando seem to be games that were pretty popular back then in the US, but they weren't released in Brazil, even by pirate manufacturers, so I look at these songs freshly new and they don't mean much to me. I can instantly appreciate a lot of tracks from the list that I had never heard before though. I just feel that these 2 games get a lot of praise from nostalgia. Zelda, well, I don't know, I guess hearing the same loop on every zelda instalment gets old.
I'm updating my playlist with games from the top 200 right now. Some great stuff there.
Joined: 8/6/2006
Posts: 784
Location: Connecticut, USA
I've never found the ending to SMB3 very memorable at all. My friend and I used to talk about / play Mario songs, and he'd play the SMB3 ending music and I wouldn't recognize it at all as he played it the entire way through. In fact, I'm trying really hard to remember it right now and I can't. It's not for lack of playing SMB3 either, I've played it just as much as the next 80s child.
Here's the top 50 songs by unique game, from the same listing I used for the previous filtered results. Unfortunately this only does things by track number, not track title, so I don't know that it's especially useful.
# 1: Megaman II, track #11
# 2: Castlevania II - Simon's Quest, track #2
# 3: Silver Surfer, track #1
# 4: Megaman III, track #1
# 5: Duck Tales, track #7
# 6: Castlevania III - Dracula's Curse, track #9
# 7: Akumajou Densetsu, track #1
# 8: Batman, track #1
# 9: Legend of Zelda, The, track #1
# 10: Shatterhand, track #1
# 11: Double Dragon, track #3
# 12: Bionic Commando, track #5
# 13: Solstice - The Quest for the Staff of Demnos, track #6
# 14: Journey to Silius, track #6
# 15: Ninja Gaiden, track #15
# 16: Metroid, track #1
# 17: Zelda II - The Adventure of Link, track #1
# 18: Super Mario Bros. 2 (U), track #3
# 19: Mouryou Senki Madara, track #2
# 20: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, track #1
# 21: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II - The Arcade Game, track #117
# 22: Super Dodge Ball, track #10
# 23: Blaster Master, track #2
# 24: Shadow of the Ninja, track #7
# 25: Ninja Gaiden II - The Dark Sword of Chaos, track #1
# 26: Castlevania, track #4
# 27: Contra, track #6
# 28: Gauntlet, track #5
# 29: Adventures of Bayou Billy, The, track #2
# 30: Mr. Gimmick, track #2
# 31: Megaman V, track #9
# 32: Super C, track #1
# 33: Gremlins 2 - The New Batch, track #3
# 34: Megaman VI, track #4
# 35: Smurfs, The, track #1
# 36: Double Dragon III - The Sacred Stones, track #2
# 37: Dragon Warrior III, track #26
# 38: Overlord, track #1
# 39: Hero Quest, track #1
# 40: Rollergames, track #7
# 41: Contra Force, track #4
# 42: Goonies II, The, track #3
# 43: Bad Dudes, track #3
# 44: Crisis Force, track #1
# 45: Jackal, track #3
# 46: Double Dragon II - The Revenge, track #17
# 47: Kid Icarus, track #2
# 48: Mitsume ga Tooru, track #6
# 49: Toukon Club, track #2
# 50: Ferrari - Grand Prix Challenge, track #1
Pyrel - an open-source rewrite of the Angband roguelike game in Python.
That's a pretty rad list too!
# 48: Mitsume ga Tooru, track #6
# 49: Toukon Club, track #2
# 50: Ferrari - Grand Prix Challenge, track #1
All games with music that needs more praise.
Holy crap, dude! You just made my night! I am gunna be blasting this song as often as possible from now on.
I'm actually on a Dodgeball team in real life, called the Comrades, and this is now the song we will play before every game! HELL YES!
Glad to be of service!
BTW, thanks for the work you and everyone else involved put into this project! Lots of nice tracks I hadn't heard before. So... what system are you doing next? :)
Other stuff i noticed:
Track #3, Silver Surfer Stage Theme 1, reminded me of the music for Tom and Jerry... so I looked it up, and sure enough, same composer(s?). His (their?) music in that game is also all over the place. Here is a taste of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFGKzc66XtQ
I hadn't really listened to #73, Shatterhand Ending, when I watched the TAS. But now when I listened closely, I realized that part of it is ripped right from Duck Tales, The Amazon! :O Hear for yourselves:
Shatterhand ending: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=lzQIZMXVVxk#t=46s
Duck Tales Amazon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=NQtRnc1D7YY#t=18s
I note that the #20 entry on this list was #116 in the original ratings -- in other words, the 14 games or game series in the exclusion list managed to fill in almost 100 songs in the top 116.
That is pretty bad, imo.
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Joined: 11/27/2004
Posts: 688
Location: WA State, USA
Jace wrote:
This forum has had a great reaction so far...
Well, this place did start off as "nesvideos" ;-)
Truncated wrote:
Track #3, Silver Surfer Stage Theme 1, reminded me of the music for Tom and Jerry... so I looked it up, and sure enough, same composer(s?). His (their?) music in that game is also all over the place. Here is a taste of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFGKzc66XtQ
Man, Tim and Geoff Follin are quite possibly my favorite musicians of the chiptune era. It's one thing to work wonders with the C64, but it's an entirely different thing to take that same talent and apply it to every other set of limitations like the Amiga, the SNES, the Megadrive, no limitations whatsoever, or even to Spectrum's pathetic little beeper. Seriously, y'all owe it to yourselves to check his stuff out if you haven't.
Nach wrote:
I also used to wake up every morning, open my curtains, and see the twin towers. And then one day, wasn't able to anymore, I'll never forget that.
Tim Follin did a Starsky and Hutch video game, huh? I wonder if this has anything to do with Treasure Master's title theme being a rip of Starsky and Hutch's.
Can anyone think of other games that "borrowed" music from other popular media? I thought it was interesting that the final castle in the NES version of Fantastic Dizzy uses a tune from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Link to video
put yourself in my rocketpack if that poochie is one outrageous dude
