Help identify the genre/style of two videogame tracks and suggest (commercial) music like them (Super Metroid and Full Attack)

[BloomingLate]

Hey everyone,

I recently remembered a piece of music from an old (oooold) CD-i game called Full Attack (from Family Games I.) It's has a very catchy bass-line and some "alien" sounding synths. That triggered a memory from a track from Super Metroid that (in my memory) sounded kind of like it. I was wondering if you guys can help me identify the style/genre of these two tracks and maybe point to some commercial music (maybe from the 90's era) that uses similar sounds and instruments. I'm curious to know if stuff like that was available outside of video games.

Here are the sample tracks to compare and identify:

Super Metroid

Full Attack

Bonus points if you ever played Full Attack on CD-i!

 

Edited June 14, 2021 by BloomingLate
failing links

[Garpocalypse]

The examples seemed a little too genre ambiguous to pinpoint but the second one reminded me of some punk electronic stuff from Chemical Brothers, Depeche Mode and The Prodigy.  I'd start there and see if you find what you are looking for. 

Edited June 18, 2021 by Garpocalypse

[yangfeili]

Maybe give this a go?

EDIT: I'm going to throw this one in too by the same band. More of that catchy bass-line and synth sound:

Although these are back in the early 80s, so fall more in the "Sort of stuff the video game composers were listening to and likely influenced their work" rather than stuff that was contemporary with the 90s game soundtracks. This band in particular incorporated a lot of the more synth/electronic aspects after touring in Japan and coming into contact with the group Yellow Magic Orchestra, and David Sylvian and Ryuichi Sakamoto would go on to do some collaborations. YMO is almost certainly a big influence on a lot of early Japanese game composers.

Edited June 18, 2021 by yangfeili

[BloomingLate]

19 hours ago, yangfeili said:

Although these are back in the early 80s, so fall more in the "Sort of stuff the video game composers were listening to and likely influenced their work" rather than stuff that was contemporary with the 90s game soundtracks. This band in particular incorporated a lot of the more synth/electronic aspects after touring in Japan and coming into contact with the group Yellow Magic Orchestra, and David Sylvian and Ryuichi Sakamoto would go on to do some collaborations. YMO is almost certainly a big influence on a lot of early Japanese game composers.

Interesting! Thanks for this!

After posting my original post I considered that maybe the sound belongs more to the 80's than the 90's. I don't think I have been exposed much to 80's pop music so its hard for me to judge.

I actually knew about Japan (the band) through a trance remix of "Ghosts" (Tenth Planet); it never occurred to me to listen to their other stuff :)

I did a quick scan through a "best of" video of Yellow Magic Orchestra that you mentioned. I definitely get that videogame music vibe. VGM sure has developed since those days :P

On 6/18/2021 at 9:39 AM, Garpocalypse said:

The examples seemed a little too genre ambiguous to pinpoint but the second one reminded me of some punk electronic stuff from Chemical Brothers, Depeche Mode and The Prodigy.  I'd start there and see if you find what you are looking for.

I'll have to check those out later, thanks! Would you concur that the bass / synth sounds in the examples are more 80's than 90's?

[sci]

I'm going to +1 that it's more of an 80s sound, though I'd say it's closer to the turn of the decade

what comes to mind: the synthy portions of Ozric Tentacle's "Erpsongs"

https://youtu.be/_k-kJu8Ejz0?t=1067

(should start around 18 minutes in)

and Jean-Michel Jarre's "Oxygene", which was a huge influence for electronic musicians everywhere at the time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttpPIRnEFVE

[BloomingLate]

On 7/2/2021 at 9:44 PM, sci said:

I'm going to +1 that it's more of an 80s sound, though I'd say it's closer to the turn of the decade

what comes to mind: the synthy portions of Ozric Tentacle's "Erpsongs"

https://youtu.be/_k-kJu8Ejz0?t=1067

(should start around 18 minutes in)

and Jean-Michel Jarre's "Oxygene", which was a huge influence for electronic musicians everywhere at the time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttpPIRnEFVE

Thanks for your additional input Those are very interesting examples too. A little further in in the first video sounded very Metroid-y to me!

I had no idea idea this kind of music was out there, outside of video games. I just figured VGM composers were doing their own thing. It never occurred to me that they might have been influenced by what was going on around them. Come to think of it, I have heard of JM Jarre before. I think my wife has some trance remix of his Oxygene 10 *checks* *confirms*

I was born in 1985 so most of this stuff was happening before I arrived at the scene and became musically aware. It is striking how different modern music sounds compared to back then!