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?

 

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.