Game soundtracks inspired by prog music

Dan Forden stated that the music from The Living Forest in Mortal Kombat II is heavily inspired by Jethro Tull; particularly, the flute textures used:

In the lands where I was born and grew up, namely post-Soviet Ukraine, Sega Mega Drive (that's how Sega Genesis was called outside of North America) was a cult thing. SNES was too expensive, its cartridge packages easily dissolved (literally), Sega was the reallest cult deal. 

Hi,

Christopher Larkin, that composed soundtrack for Hollow Knight, have interest in progressive music. Info from his site: "While his studies transported him to the world of classical and contemporary classical music, he maintained a strong connection to electronic music, progressive rock and videogame scores."

Interesting. Forget about trying to write great prog music. Rather, can the snazzy riffs be used in video games as a possible future revenue stream? Ka-ching! Yes ... will ponder more on this. Nobody pays for music now these days anyway.   $0.001 per YouTube streams. A few thousand streams can pay for what? Perhaps a meal at Taco Bell?   Hmmm. Very powerful the dark side is.

Clegg wrote: Contra 3: The Alien Wars for SNES is probably my favorite video game soundtrack. The music to me sounds like it was inspired from 70s Jazz Rock/Fusion. Mainly a mixture of Jean-Luc Ponty, Herbie Hancock (early 70's - Headhunters era), Mahavishnu Orchestra and some Return To Forever. All with a Sci-Fi influence added into the mix. Listen and compare for yourself: This one always reminds me of Contra 3 There's also this Return To Forever track where in the first minute and elsewhere, sounds like it came from a Sonic The Hedgehog game for Genesis.

Edited by Frenetic Zetetic - July 22 2018 at 16:30

The Mortal Kombat team was inspired by a lot of 70's prog bands. Dan Forden (lead sound design for MK1-MK4) was a HUGE Jethro Tull fan. Ed Boon admits to being a massive Genesis fan, even adding the easter egg "blood code" for the Sega Genesis home version of MK1: "ABACABB".

Skybird wrote: (Long time lurker, first time poster, as this thread mixes my two main hobbies. Hello everyone!)Another Japanese composer between prog and video games is Motoi Sakuraba ( http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=6843 ). His album list here is incomplete, as it's not featuring some but not all of his video-game OST (here's a complete-looking list : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motoi_Sakuraba ). Many RPGs, starting at the PlayStation golden age of Japanese RPGs, such as Baten Kaitos, Valkyrie Profile, and many Tales of... games features his bombastic keyboard-heavy style, à la ELP.  In the 80's, Motoi Sakuraba was a member of the band Déjà Vu ( http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=75 ), with the (according to me, cult classic) Baroque in the Future album.

Wow, thanks for the awesome recommendation of Baroque. I Love Motoi Sakuraba, I even own the Baten Kaitos officlal soundtrack. Never even heard of this album from him though!

I'd add in UNDERTALE as one, each song is pretty much a different style. Arguably one of the BIGGEST soundtracks from a game ever, from arguably one of the best games ever. 



Just about the only game soundtrack I can easily listen to from START to FINISH and enjoy every bit of it. 

Also, I'll throw in Stewart Copeland with these prog folks for his Police-to-SPYRO OST's. Keyboard-led, insanely CATCHY and DREAMY 



And a quick warning to those thinking about the new PS4 Spyro Re-Release.. They completely changed the soundtrack, so I'd advise against it.