12 Things You Didn't Know About Video Game Soundtracks

Some scores wrote themselves, others killed children. Possibly.

By Benjamin Richardson / June 1, 2016

Though it was only ever true of the earliest arcade titles, video game music once had a reputation as nothing more than simplistic bleeps and bloops - barely music at all, let alone a legitimate genre that could be enjoyed in its own right.

Thanks to the efforts of innovative engineers and budding electronic musicians, game music gradually established a niche for itself, unashamed of this ill-gotten 'bleeps and bloops' reputation, but instead embracing it as its own unique aural fingerprint.

Game soundtracks began to diversify in the '80s in order to encompass already established genres, and soon they even possessed enough mainstream cache with the public to be performed in concert halls, partly thanks to the pioneering efforts of Koichi Sugiyama.

During the '90s, the genre - and moreover, the video game industry - sufficiently grew to the extent that songwriters from the world of film and popular music wanted in on the action. By the new millennium, the concept of video game soundtrack CDs and regular touring orchestras playing beloved pieces from the most popular games (and even some relatively obscure ones) was no longer deemed unusual.

Today, being a fan of video game music is not something to be ashamed of admitting (not that it ever truly was). By now, we're all familiar with the works of the industry's leading lights Uematsu, Soule, Shimomura, et al. However, the genre has a rich and fascinating history beyond these established names; there's much more to be learned. Here's some snippets for starters...

12. The Tetris Theme Didn't First Appear On The Game Boy

Korobeiniki - colloquially known by the entire world as simply 'the Tetris theme’ - became arguably the most iconic piece of video game music of all time thanks to Bullet Proof Software’s ridiculously popular Game Boy iteration of Alexey Pajitnov’s block-buster block-adjuster. However, the portable puzzler was far from the first time the theme had appeared in the Soviet square sorter.

Andromeda began to sell unlicensed copies of the concept in partnership with Robert Maxwell's Mirrorsoft, and though the game was widely popular, it was played in silence until their 1988 Commodore 64 port.

Though the first with music, the C64 version's soundtrack for the addictive Eastern brainteaser took a markedly different approach to its successors. It was however notable for Wally Beben's 26 minute long psychedelic backing track, giving the game an altogether more alien-esque feel than its forebears. For the most part though, the scores of future adaptations traded firmly on the game’s Russian roots.

It was Spectrum Holobyte's Apple IIgs iteration that was the first to employ Korobeiniki, a folk song based on an 1861 poem by Nikolay Nekrasov, which had absolutely nothing to do with falling blocks but everything to do with the courtship between a girl and a market trader.

The track was adapted by Nintendo soon after: first of all as title screen music for Bullet Proof's 1988 Famicom version, before finally appearing as the default music for the Game Boy's killer app in 1989. The game sold like hot borscht, and the 'Tetris theme' became firmly ingrained in the minds of a generation of people worldwide in the process.