The Craze Is Out There

The winners of OCReMix’ Voices of the Lifestream AMV content are announced and their works are filling up the front page. While regulars might go straight for the forum, or just log into the irc channel and get direct links to new developments (threads, remixes) via associates on #ocremix, people new to OCR likely come by the front page, making them exposed to the emo virus.

 

The Final Fantasy craze never seems to be over. By the time this has finally been shoveled away, some other final fantasy content or fan work appears. At the time of writing, there are three final fantasy remixes on the OCR front page “latest remixes” list. That’s a quarter of the total number of remixes in the list. While 25% may seem little, consider that Nintendo’s three main franchizes have less, only two remixes in the list.

 

It’s alarming to see the craze like this, knowing it’s actually at a low point at the moment. Numerous great games are omitted due to the game bias of the nostalgic idiots that remix. Casual gamers that played Mortal Kombat, Excitebike, Starcraft… Those games are found represented by an empty list, and many games do not even have that.

 

If my lawyer hadn’t told me to stop speculating about large corporations, I’d suggest that somewhere, the presidents of Square Enix must be sitting, petting their cats, twirling their moustaches (not the cats’), blowing the smoke from their cigarettes in the faces of the contract-bound video game industry-equivalents of director Skinner (note: not principal Skinner).

 

As a site that appreciates video game music, OCR should be able to ask “where’s the love?”, and not be met by an answer implying inbreeding.

 

The Mandatory Genre Bias Post

Since my lawyer had advised me not to speculate in the dealings of humongous companies with prepostorous resources and lawyers enough to fill an oil tanker, I thought I’d get back to OCReMix, since my lawyer suggested I focus on a “non-profit organization” with less legal resources. I’ve come to believe OCR is responsible for a significant amount of “music” that is meant to be felt while high.

 

It goes without saying that video game music has evolved from bleeps and bips to quality electronica, but here lies the crux. Trance artists like Blind make their living on recruiting “agents” among people who “want to help out another remixer” in an attempt to buy themselves some higher status through association with celebrated remixers in the inbred community. The result is that the artist gains gigs and fame, while his “agents” remain insufferable sycophants pestering others on the OCR boards.

 

Let’s test this hypothesis by listening to three random remixes from OCR. The first one is a Chrono Trigger piano piece by Suzumebachi, called Forever. The second one is a Breath of Fire piece by Ghetto Lee Lewis. The third is a Mega Man X4 remix by the artist formerly known as DJ Terra.

 

The mixes speak for themselves.

 

OCR has previously been accused of being a techno site, and is often found favoring electronica over, say, viking metal. No doubt numerous remixers rely on electronica to produce their works, but when the focus goes from audible harmonic vibrations in the air to vibrations in the floor and in the spines and hearts of all junkies soon to suffer from arrhythmia and whatever the drugs themselves cause.

 

I’ll give OCR one more chance to redeem itself, one last random remix. What does that tell you?

 

Monotonic Monopoly

OCReMix has an annoying tendancy to remix tracks from the same games over and over and over again. Leading the race is Chrono Trigger with a prepostorous 86 remixes, followed by Final Fantasy VII with a stupendous 79 remixes. Coincidentally, both these games have had OCR fan arrangement albums made. Anyone see a pattern here?

 

Let’s test that hypothesis. If a fan album is the cause for the ridiculous amount of remixes, the same should be true about the other games with associated fan albums. All games with associated albums should be having fantastic amounts of remixes. Kirby’s Adventure proves this is false.

 

The humongous interest in the music from these games can be attributed to composer extraordinaire Nobuo Uematsu, but since my lawyer says I should refrain from attributing anything to that particular composer again in these analyses, another cause to blame must be found. One could argue that the games were popular among music nerds and nerdy musicians back in the days before video games were as normal as they are today, but that would exclude more unlikely possibilities, something I’m sure dr House wouldn’t approve of.

 

In the spirit of House MD, I should consult a number of experts before telling them they’re all wrong, but as I’m trying to maintain a secret identity, I’m gonna ask myself instead. Those possibilities I’ve come up with that I will completely ignore are: people like the story, people like the music, people like the gameplay.

 

I’m gonna suggest Square (with a total of 418 remixes) has been attempting to take over the world since long before becoming Square Enix (2 remixes). Much like megalomaniacs like EA, Square Enix is all over the market, and seeing what a fan of FF7 my sister has become from just seeing the emos in Advent Children, this seems plausible. Subliminal messages is one possibility, but I seem unaffected. Then again, I missed out on FF7, which suggests exposure to both is required. Further research would likely confirm this, but I’m convinced I can’t be wrong about anything so further research is unneccessary.

 

I can only assume exposure to subliminal messaging both games causes a psychosis-related condition in which reality is shifted towards diverting attention to the music of the games, ignoring the propaganda they may contain. It seems that since I have played Chrono Trigger, I can’t examine FF7 without exposing myself to this. I assume a symptom on the condition is the inability to notice this.

 

Further research might required to independantly confirm this, but i am confident I am right no matter what I propose. There are most likely subliminal messages in both games, but requiring exposure to both games to induce the psychotic state, like in that one Batman movie. Fortunately, I figured it out.

 

The Craze

The most celebrated and famous composer of today might not be dead. I’m talking about the legend Nobuo Uematsu, Japanese video game composer. While his life and works might be fantastically interesting, I’m concerned about his fans.

 

OCReMix has a number of Nobuo-fanatics, such as Children of the Monkey Machine, mp, FFMusicDJ, and site founder and owner DJPretzel. My lawyer advised me not to further speculate about DJPretzel, so I will focus on the other Nobuo-groupies.

 

Children, or CotMM, having 10 Nobuo-track remixes accepted onto OCR, is presumably the worst of the fanatics. Apparently, he expresses his interest in the composer in a remix titled Eyes on Me (Obsession), which seems like a fitting name. The first step is admitting it.

 

FFMusicDJ also seems aware of his condition. Both he (or she or it) and Cot collaborated on the examples I’ve mentioned. While it’s possible to fight off addictions alone, it helps to be accountable to someone, which Cot and FFMDJ both seem to have arranged.

 

This leaves us with the enignatic lowercase zealot, mp, who appears aware of his addiction but deals with it differently. Apparently, Violent Rage attempted to rehabilitate mp, as they collaborated in producing a remix that I assume was made to vent the frustration over the unreciprocated feelings for the composer. It seems that this was unsuccessful, as mp produced two more remixes of Nobuo-tracks before…

 

Still, the very night I was writing this, I noticed the craze is not over. A Nobuo-track remix produced by OCR homie Zircon made its way to the site’s vast database of remixes. The track in question is the winner of a Nobuo-competition. Is this a passing trend, a fad that will fade? I think not. While the relatively recent release of a Final Fantasy fan arrangement album might delay further arrangement projects that grand, there’s no doubt more will follow.

 

Who is to blame?

 

The Most Productive Remixers

The OCReMix community is a interesting place. At the time of writing, the average number of songs is 3,07171314741 per remixer. 50 remixers are responsible for more than 50% of the remixes, leaving the remaining 1452 remixers sharing an average of half a remix. While collaborations make these stats somewhat unreliable, it still points towards nepotistic tendancies.

 

While we might forgive the founder and administrator for the site and “non-profit organization” that is OCR for this 68-remix bias, McVaffe and Mazedude seem to be unjustly favored. Such major contributors to the growing database of rearranged video game tracks must either be extremely talented and productive or enjoy unfair treatment in their favor.

 

Let’s examine these possibilities. After listening to a random McVaffe remix, I feel confident in my assumption that he (or she, or it) is a typical electronica “musician”. Four on the floor, loops and minimalism throughout. Repetition isn’t a very time-consuming process, so we can classify Mcvaffe as “productive”. It seems to me like McVaffe has been banned from OCR, as his latest remix is dated 2004.

 

Mazedude has a more interesting style, but the creepy style he (or she, or it) employs is offputting and bizarre, ultimately more confusing than anything else. Mazedude remains an OCR leech, most likely through bribing the judges to get the works of his Halloween fetish hosted and corrupting millions of innocent surfers.

 

Where does this leave DJPretzel? Presumably, as the owner of the site, he is collecting ridiculous amount of profit from donations, google ads, selling OCR-branded merchandise, and supplying video game music addicts with diverse “discount” items via Amazon. Hence, he only needs to maintain his image as a friendly musician and fellow fan, and he has all the time in the world to produce remixes while sitting in his mansion growing round.