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Game Changers of the Hall of Fame
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Questioning this year's shocking upheaval of video game original soundtracks in Classic FM's Hall of Fame
Wednesday 26th April 2017
Classic FM's Hall of Fame, for those of you who don't know, is an annual vote for the UK's top 300 classical pieces of music. Of course, "Classical" does not simply mean music of that specific era, but includes a wide variety of music, ranging from the traditional classics, like Mozart, to contemporary film, TV, and more recently, video game soundtracks.
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I look forward to the Hall of Fame every year, especially recently because of the exciting rise in popularity of video game soundtracks in the past few years. This reached epic heights in 2015 when we saw Nobuo Uematsu receive a well-deserved homage to his Final Fantasy soundtracks by placing in the top 10! As a gamer and even bigger video game ost fan, this felt like a victory. Finally, a public embracing change.
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This year, I voted, as usual making sure to include a couple of game osts in my choices. Interestingly, I didn't vote for Final Fantasy this time around because I thought it would do fine on its own. Then the results came out ...
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Hall of Fame Video Game Rankings 2017
Data extracted from classicfm.com
First of all, how the heck was Kingdom Hearts beaten by Banjo Kazooie? Ok, ok, maybe I'm a little biased, seeing as I recently experienced a magical Orchestra World Tour concert for Kingdom Hearts in March (more on which in a future blog), but to see my favourite game series sink 88 places is devastating. To see all of these core game series sink overall is also disheartening.
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So why did this happen? Is it snobbery? A generational thing? Even though game soundtracks place in the Hall of Fame, it is still a rarity for them to be selected by presenters. I once heard FFX's masterpiece introduced as "To Zanarkland" ... "Zanarkand! Zanarkand!" I shouted at the radio. If the majority of Classic FM presenters are of a generation who have not experienced the magic of video games, it could explain why the likes of Beethoven and Schubert kick game osts into the gutter. Yet this does not explain why the public have deviated this time around.
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Of course there is hope, especially as a newly created programme devoted to video game music called High Score started its weekly slot on the radio station on April 22nd. So here's hoping that bit by bit the public will be turned around, and 2018 brings back the glory to some well-deserving soundtracks.
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