Command & Conquer Music Discussion

[RadicalEdward2]

So I've been playing a lot of the old Command & Conquer​ games lately and I've been thinking: I really love the older retro musical scores for the games. Like the soundtracks for the original Red Alert and Tiberian Dawn for example. Those soundtracks were industrial and synth heavy.

To Be Feared - Tiberian Dawn OST

Mechanical Man - Tiberian Dawn OST

Bigfoot - Red Alert 1 OST

Crush - Red Alert 1 OST

With each newer game, they added some new flavors but it eventually grew too saturated with guitar riffs and orchestral (and Renegade X is definitely no exception). I noticed a lot of fans of the games hated on how cheesy the soundtracks were but, I feel it could have had a bit more flare if they tried getting a few artists involved like Amplifier, M..N., Lazerhawk, or even Tupper Ware Remix Party​. Like the music doesn't have to be over the top early 90s mix but, just retro sounding enough that it could be as bad ass as the music in games like Hotline Miami or Far Cry Blood Dragon.

195 - OGRE

Converter - Lost Years

The Friendly Faith Plate - Portal 2 OST

Paris - M..N. - Hotline Miami OST

Hotline - Jasper Bryne - Hotline Miami OST

We've Got Hostiles - Joel Nielson - Black Mesa OST

Bullets - Archive - Cyberpunk 2077 OST

VHS Glitch - Evil Technology

I hope I'm not the only one that feels this way when it comes to the music in C&C games. Heck, some slightly more industrial additions to the Renegade X soundtrack would be nice too. It's not a must but, it would be nice. Whenever I play Renegade X, I usually mute the in-game music and swap it out with something like the Tiberian Dawn OST or something from RetroNewWave on YouTube.

Assuming the majority of members here played the original Command & Conquer games or have similar tastes in music, what are your thoughts?

[XD_ERROR_XD]

I absolutely love Frank Klepacki's works. In fact, i love his works so much that whenever i see a game is being released which he worked on, I automatically consider buying it.They're simply that good. However, i don't have much knowledge of any of the C&C games after Westwood's collapse (just for convenience i'm going to add Generals here), So i can't tell much about those, hell, I'm not even sure if he worked on any of the newer C&C games.

I've played C&C so much back in the day, I can memorize and 'sing' every song from the back of my head (up to Renegade), let me hear the first few notes and i'll do the rest for you! I even made my own lyrics for Just Do It Up and sang it as a school project! I'm never going to do that again though.

About the progression of the music style over the years... Yes, you're correct, But i really don't mind guitar solo's and stuff as long as it's done right. But... I'm not a big fan of Chicajo's work on Renegade X' soundtrack to be honest. He always feels it's necessary to take an existing formula amd change it to it's own, even if it doesn't fit with the genre. He's done it to Renegade X , and he's done it to System Shock.

[RadicalEdward2]

I think Tiberium War and Kane's Wrath were the last decent C&C games because they did pay a lot of homage to Tiberium Dawn and Tiberian Sun and Joe Kucan had involvement with writing the story. As for the music though, everything after Yuri's Revenge and Firestorm didn't exactly have memorable tracks.

In terms of Renegade X's soundtrack, the only track I feel was sort of memorable or worth listening to was Just Do It Up because it seemed like the only track that didn't stray too far from its original sound. Outside of that, the soundtrack sounded like it deviated too much from the classic's industrial style.