FAQ

I primarily rate individual tracks, i.e. I give 0 to 5 stars to pieces of music and judge how worth listening to they are. Based on this, I give an overall score for the album. The basis for this classification is my subjective, layman's opinion. Having rated over 250 albums, I presume to know my way around the genre of (video game) soundtracks quite well, but I am not an expert. So if you are expecting in-depth analyses and technical terms from music theory, I have to disappoint you.

Here is a short list of the 6 possible ratings and what they stand for:

This is usually not a music track, but, for example, radio moderations, skits or cutscenes.

Similar to 0 stars, but with a musical component.

Tracks that I don't find well done or that bother me in some way.

These pieces can be considered classic average, they are ' mediocre '.

Good to very good tracks that are definitely worth listening to, but are either too long or not catchy / unique enough to make the 5 stars.

With 5 stars, I reward the crème de la crème of video game titles that, in my opinion, should definitely be heard. This is also the best way to judge whether it's just my personal taste, nostalgic glorification or if they are masterpieces after all.

Soundtracks are often a by-product. Whether film, series or video game: there are very few examples that do not include musical accompaniment - and it is usually really worth listening to. Fortunately, more and more producers and publishers are recognizing the market and releasing original soundtracks (OST for short) to offer consumers a curated selection.

As is usual in music, in addition to the original soundtracks, there are also various subtypes such as special and extended editions, radio scores, etc. However, in the case of video game soundtracks, the music sometimes differs between the game versions. This means, for example, that the score for a Dreamcast game can be different from that of the arcade version. In this case, I always try - unless otherwise noted in the respective review - to take all versions into account and at least list them in the score.

Unlike a 'classic' music album, a soundtrack can be released as an original soundtrack or gamerip and thus represent either a curated collection or a hodgepodge of music tracks and snippets. In the case of gamerips, a distinction must therefore be made between the track types:

• Bgm: Background music, often abbreviated to “bgm” in the file context, are usually pieces that, as the name suggests, contain background music.
• Loop: Loops are pieces that are designed to run in a continuous loop. They usually, but not necessarily, do without a clear beginning and a pointed end and are usually ended by stingers.
• Stinger: Stingers are tracks that are only a few seconds long and are used as a transition or to end a track. They 'stab' into the musical carpet and conceal the work of the technical framework in the background.
• Ingame: Tracks that also run in this form in the game are sometimes labeled “Ingame”. This can be used to differentiate an OST if the in-game version differs from the published version. Alternatively, these tracks can also contain sound elements from the game, for example if it is music from a cutscene.
• SFX: “SFX” is the common abbreviation for “Special Effects”. Tracks with this addition often contain sound effects from the game, similar to in-game tracks. While these mostly appear in OSTs, SFX tracks are usually part of gamerips.

I'm not a specialist in the field of copyright law and can't give you a precise definition. Generally speaking, music tracks are intellectual property and are subject to copyright unless they are too old and have been transferred into the public domain (which is likely to take some time for video games). This is not a problem with OSTs, as you purchase a copy or pay to stream the album for private use.

Gamerips, on the other hand, are the external and unauthorized extraction of files from a medium. However, and here I am on the side of conservatism, the lack of effort on the part of artists or publishers can lead to music, i.e. art, being irretrievably lost.

I don't want to start a fundamental discussion at this point, I don't want to judge whether the creators have the right to determine the context in which their work may be used (for example, only as part of the gaming experience). In my opinion, everyone should have the freedom to experience a piece of music outside of a game.

When I talk about music on this website, I limit myself to the following meta information:

• Title
• Track no.
• Artist
• Album
• Album artist
• Rating

I deliberately omit points such as CD numbers because they seem irrelevant to me in the digital age. I also treat artists the same as composers, even if this is factually incorrect. As Wikipedia defines, an artist is a “performer of a musical work”. For instance, it could be an orchestra that plays the composer's works. As this is too granular for me, I'm taking the liberty of reduction here - unless otherwise noted in the respective review. For more in-depth information, you can visit websites such as mobygames or VGMdb.

There can be several reasons for this: The simplest explanation is that there is no official release and no definitive track names or spellings can be found - just like with gamerips. As is usual in the information age, sources may also contradict each other or be inconsistent. In that case, I go with what seems most logical to me.

And sometimes I'm just a bit of a stickler and try to make everything uniform according to my own feelings. For example, I name tracks XXX [Bonus] instead of Bonus Track: XXX. Or I adjust the spelling and write connective words like “in”, “for”, “a”, “with” etc. in lower case. The biggest incision is when I rename tracks. However, this happens very rarely and usually only with the Theme Songs, which I give the name of the respective game (unless the track name already appears in the score). The reason for this is that many modern OSTs follow this convention.