Further proof I’m gettin’ old – a cuhraaaazy idea like a dedicated home for professional-grade video game remixes is now 15 years old. Launched in 1999, OC ReMix (note the intercapped “R” folks) has since grown into a nearly household name within the games industry. From its numerous free tracks to official soundtracks to composer interviews, it’s definitely a place to bookmark if you enjoy game music culture in the slightest.
I first heard about OCR back in 2002, via some EGM that’s long since lost to time. It took me a few days to get around to checking it out, but once I did, I was more than a little shocked. See, up until OCR, I assumed my passion for game music was unique, and shared by only a few other close friends. Seeing OCR’s (already!) long list of high quality remixes (ahem, ReMixes) made me realize my weird obsession with VGM wasn’t unique at all… and rather than act all sad about how my exclusive game music club wasn’t a uniquely Brelston thing anymore, I friggin’ rejoiced. HOW can this possible, HOW can this many people feel the same way I do??
It led me to download as many songs as I could on 56k; with the tech at the time a 3MB song would take about 5 minutes to download so I had to be somewhat choosy. But before long broadband found its way to Middle of Nowhere, America and then I was burning CDs, making mixtapes and leaving them around my work place for other people to discover. OCR became a site I checked daily, and occasionally more than once per day.
Fast fwd many years and, while I haven’t kept up as much as I’d like, I have had the opportunity and privilege to work with, and get to know both Larry Oji and David Lloyd (aka djpretzel). They’ve accomplished a great deal, I wish them the best and hope to god that by their 30th anniversary they’re going strong.
Sprinkled throughout this post are some older ReMixes that stuck out to me back in the 02-03 area. If you like any of them… there are hundreds more to check out 🙂
I’ve never been that much of a fan not because of the site or the quality of the remixes themselves, but because I just don’t like remixes in general, of any type. I’m the kind of guy that likes songs and music the way they were originally composed, and any changes feel unwelcome or unnecessary to me.
That being said, I definitely appreciate what OC ReMix does, and I’m happy that there’s a huge following surrounding them. Even if it’s not my style, knowing that so many people love and appreciate videogame music enough to even look for remixes makes me really happy.
Also Brett, WHERE’S THE END OF YEAR RECAP???
And yes, I know this was a crappy year for games in general, but there was still a lot of good stuff I think. Hell, Shovel Knight and Velocity 2X alone could make up half of the episode alone.
Brelston,
2 things: First, THANK YOU for turning me on to OC ReMix. I had some friends that mentioned it, but I didn’t really give it much thought until I heard you plugging it on your show.
Second, Everybody here check out “Digging in the Carts”: A Redbull documentary that focuses on all the amazing Japanese composers that we love and how they influenced today’s generation of music artists. Just Blaze, one of Jay-Z’s go-to producers talks about how much Yuzo Koshiro’s Revenge of Shinobi influenced him. They cover composers like Yoko Shimomura, Hip Tanaka, Nobuo Uematsu, Hitoshi Sakimoto, and so on. Go here: http://www.redbullmusicacademy.jp/jp/magazine/digging-in-the-carts
Hey! that documentary does sound really interesting! I’ll definitely give it a look! 😀
I listen to the Gunstar Heroes tribute album at least a few times a week. It is soooo good.