As vinyl comes further and further to the forefront of physical music sales (even rivalling digital in some countries), more and more artists, composers and content owners are grabbing the opportunity to press their long-lost music to wax for the very first time.
While they boast a dedicated subculture of their own, video game soundtracks often fall to the wayside in the world of vinyl, which is completely undeserved. There’s nothing like playing through an excellent video game for the first time, and those experiences become symbiotically entwined with the game’s soundtrack more often than not.
Here are five astounding OST which haven’t, for reasons unknown, received the wax treatment yet.
With the entire world pressing their lost LPs to vinyl for the first time ever, let’s make sure video game soundtracks don’t fall to the wayside.
Jet Set Radio
“Y’all ready to get funky?”
A beastly game and and even beastlier OST. I was actually first introduced into this cyberpunk world of roller skates and graffiti cans by Jet Set Radio’s successor Jet Set Radio: Future. For some reason the more contemporary title has been pressed yet not the original. Seems like an obvious choice, no?
Super Metroid
A full orchestral ensemble layered with dynamic, church-floor vox and cosmic synths as fat as they come, this soundtrack sits somewhere between the drama of Air and the sketchiness of Aphex Twin.
Kenji Yamamoto was the composer at the helm of this title, and has gone on to add his touch to every Metroid game since. That includes the upcoming reboot Metroid: Samus Returns. Sign me the fuck up.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
There’s so many people who have a soft spot in their hearts for Ocarina of Time. Widely heralded as one of, if not the most perfect video game ever conceived, it shot Link, Zelda and Nintendo to the world stage where they have remained ever since.
A man with one hell of a Wikipedia page, Koji Kondo is the composer you can thank for this one. You can also thank him for Super Mario, Star Fox, Mario Party, Super Smash Bros, and just about every other main Nintendo title there is.
Shadow of the Colossus
A cult fan favourite for sure, cries for Shadow of the Colossus to be remastered have been reverberating throughout gamer forums, conventions and the internet at large for years.
It’s soundtrack is far more subtle than most of the OSTs at the time, but to anyone who played the game you’ll know… it was the quieter moments that made Shadow of the Colossus so beautiful.
In some wonderful timing, a PS4 remake of this iconic game was confirmed at Sony’s E3 conference mere days ago.
Bastion
This one has actually just been confirmed for a vinyl reissue, so I’m kind of cheating. This soundtrack is too damn good not to include though.
Composed by Darren Korb (who also wrote all the lyrics) and featuring the gravelly narration of Logan Cunningham as interludes, the entire storyline of Bastion comes through in the soundtrack alone.
A very rare, maybe even unique, example of a soundtrack which could have been released as a standalone LP and still receive the praise it did.
Happy Mag’s Needle in the Hay vinyl competition is giving one artist from Australia or New Zealand the chance to have their EP or album pressed to vinyl by Zenith Records. Enter here.
