Official soundtrack releases

[Udvarnoky]

Earlier this month saw the release of Mark Griskey's soundtrack for Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. The occasion was probably the new Switch port of the game, but to my knowledge it represents the first official release of a LucasArts game soundtrack album by Disney's music label, which all Lucasfilm music ended up under after the acquisition. Hopefully a sign of things to come?

[BillyCheers]

I guess, especially with Monkey Island, the success of Return will be important. Somehow I can't imagine them releasing soundtracks for the old games just like that, but with new releases/ports it becomes at least a little more likely.

 

I really hope for a decent release of the Return soundtrack at some point - maybe even on vinyl record! 🥰 I had seen that for another Devolver published game the other day... soooo who knows.

[Laserschwert]

I'm pretty sure MI6 will get a proper soundtracks release, because lately Disney has done this a LOT (especially most of the latest Star Wars games all got official releases). Monkey Island is still the crown jewel of LucasArts' classic IPs, so I could see the release of MI6 giving enough momentum for more love towards the other games of the franchise.

[Udvarnoky]

I wouldn't mind Anna Karney's Armed & Dangerous soundtrack seeing the light of day either. Unleash those bagpipes.

[Vainamoinen]

5 hours ago, Laserschwert said:

I'm pretty sure MI6 will get a proper soundtracks release, because lately Disney has done this a LOT (especially most of the latest Star Wars games all got official releases). Monkey Island is still the crown jewel of LucasArts' classic IPs, so I could see the release of MI6 giving enough momentum for more love towards the other games of the franchise.

 

Devolver has a lot of their published games' soundtracks on bandcamp (which, arguably, is the platform that leaves most to the actual artist). The question, as always, is what "steward of the band" actually means and what reins Disney will keep tightly in their hands. Modes of distribution, if that remained with Devolver or Terrible Toybox, that would be awesome.

[Udvarnoky]

The fact that a soundtrack album is being included in the ReMI box from Limited Run is an encouraging sign that the red tape has gotten a little more surmountable with Lucasfilm-owned (and thus Disney-owned) soundtracks. Even the Willow show's score has received a three-volume digital release from Walt Disney Records.

[Laserschwert]

1 hour ago, Udvarnoky said:

Even the Willow show's score has received a three-volume digital release from Walt Disney Records.

As have most of their Star Wars and Marvel shows.

[Udvarnoky]

True, but when they do it for the less obvious IP it feels like a little more meaningful a precedent where our prejudices are concerned.

[Laserschwert]

And there it is:

 

This is releasing tomorrow, and can be pre-ordered, for example, here: https://www.qobuz.com/nz-en/album/return-to-monkey-island-michael-land-peter-mcconnell-clint-bajakian/yner99r4v2o2b

 

It's been condensed down to roughly 70 minutes, which is rather good for a single-CD release, but I wonder what was left off for that. But either way, the first actual official soundtrack release for a Monkey Island game!!! (well, ignoring the SE soundtracks on the retail DVD)

[BillyCheers]

Nice! But it looks like there will be no vinyl release (for now)... Too Bad. 😕

 

Still, I am curious what they put in and what not. 

[Laserschwert]

Well, you can see the playlist here:



But I haven't had time to inspect it closer.

[BillyCheers]

The soundtrack is online since today at Apple Music, Spotify and Co.  

 

I listened to it a bit and am ambivalent: The quality (and mix?) is definitely better than the files directly from the game. So that's cool!

However, I find some decisions a bit strange and some cuts (e.g. in Mêlée Island Ambiences) a bit sloppy.

Overall, though, it's definitely nice to finally have an official Monkey Island soundtrack! 🥳

(And now fingers crossed for a vinyl release!)

 

What do you guys think?

[Remi]

For what it is — a digital release of a CD — it’s pretty close to perfect. 
 

But! The selfish part of me still wants something grander, with longer suites and music from the trailers, etc. 

 

Still, it’s an excellent release which I love just for existing. 

[Didero]

LGH linked this page in the news post, which lists all the places where you can stream and buy it, in case you don't know what Qobuz is, like me

[Laserschwert]

4 minutes ago, Didero said:

LGH linked this page in the news post, which lists all the places where you can stream and buy it, in case you don't know what Qobuz is, like me

Actually, you can also buy it on Qobuz, and not just stream it. Even in lossless, which the other platforms don't support (I think?)

Edited September 15, 2023 by Laserschwert

[LGH_]

Generally, I'm really happy with this soundtrack. Here are my detailed thoughts:

 

First, I need to thank the people releasing fan rips and fan medleys of the game. They did a tremendous work. And they are absolute complete with *everything* from the game. Even if we got an OST now, I will definitely keep these in my iTunes library as well. 😉

 

But I always love getting something official as well! The sound quality is excellent, and it *does*  contain all major Islands and tunes, just not all iterations. For example, in the park music, I really missed the toilet iteration, which I always found quite cool with the e-guitar sound. (Hmm… the repetition of 3x2 measures from 1:40 - 1:55 in "In the park" are new, and were not like that in the game, were they? Interesting to do such a little special effect for the OST 😉 )

 

They also left away a lot of iterations on Mêlee Island. But I must admit that it didn't disturb me too much. I actually find them rather close to each other. The full Mêlee medley can get a little long sometimes.

 

I miss some cut scene music though (like the betrayal scene on Monkey Island, where the OST only contains the part at the end where Guybrush meets Elaine). 

 

I don't necessarily agree with BillyCheers that many transitions in the OST would be sloppy. Maybe I don't hear that as precisely as you do. The only one that I've come across as not 100% prefect (but still 95%) would be 2:14 in "Elaine and Scurvy Island".

 

However, I find it really interesting what they choose to put in their longer medleys, and also the order. For example, it's quite interesting that they've decided to split the LeShip music in two tracks. ("LeShip Stowaway" and "LeShip at arms".) Both tracks actually contain some places from le Ship (e.g. the underwater part and Flambee have been put in the 2nd track), and both contain some cutscene stuff ass well (Stowaway containing the spilled soup, "at arms" containing the sword fight with LeChuck). Interesting take, to do it like this.

 

I also like the "Per Spelmann" medley. First, it's nice to use the actual name of the traditional song, instead of calling it "Brrr Muda tavern". And I love how they also integrated the rather strange iterations in the different contest rooms, but no too long. Musically, they are very interesting, but a little hard to digest. That's why I like how they're only played for a short moment, and that they went back to the main theme at the end of the track.

 

Also, I like that we get a proper ending for some of the titles that I only knew as loops so far (e.g. "Custom Ships", "Per Spelman", "Brrr Muda suite"…). For some others, they've also chosen the classic fadeout though (e.g. "Barebones").

 

Finally, I loved that they've indicated the precise composer creditis for each track. We already knew since the great GDC conference (https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1029371/Thirty-Years-Later-Scoring-Return) in rough that Land did Mêlée, Bajakin did LeShip and McConnell did Brrr Muda and Terror Island. But it was fun to also learn for some of the smaller pieces who did what. I always tried to guess when playing the game. Sometimes I was right (I supposed Bajakian did Barebones, because the guitars and choir-sound reminded me a bit of Outlaws), sometimes I was wrong (I would have attributed the funny Survy Ship music rather to McConnell than to Land). So it's nice to finally learn the truth 😉

 

And then: whenever soundtracks of my favorite game music are released, I'll always buy them. Even if it would have been 100% identical to the fan productions, I always want to encourage publishers that releasing good soundtracks is always a good idea 😉

 

And as jannar85 posted in the news comments: What if Disney would release other Monkey Island soundtracks as well? Imagine they would find high quality recordings in their archives of the digital live instrument recordings for Curse and Escape, *without* being premixed with the ambient game sound! That would be a dream!

 

Unfortunately, I doubt this will ever happen… Even if LucasArts/Lucasfilm did quite a good job at archiving old stuff, as we learned from Tim Schafer when he did the remaster Day of the Tentacle, we don't know if the original, "pure" music still exists. And I guess it would be quite a job to properly remaster it all for an OST. And well, I guess Disney would even get the idea to go there at all. Return was quite a new game now, and Terrible Toybox is still alive and kicking. And the soundtrack was probably mastered in the context of the collectors' editions. So I guess that was different. 

 

But still, let's enjoy what we've got 😉