LogFAQs > #963006630

61th
Game: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker *Remix
Title: Dragon Roost Island
Composer: Kenta Nagata, Tetrimino
Nominator: @jcgamer107
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdudAZ2Cm34

I actually have really mixed and fluctuating feelings on the original. Its a great tune, I love the instrumentation and it's very iconic and catchy and memorable---thats exactly my hangup. If you know me well, well...often that's something I DONT want a song to be. Its a factor that makes it very easy for a song to wear out its welcome for me, i often /really/ don't want songs to stick in my head. and this factor even makes me feel quite alienated and isolated by other vgm fans for specifically gravitating toward vgm for it being those things (especially lately, i've been really down because of how uncomfortably out of place i feel in most vgm fan communities for this clash). I'm into Zelda music for atonal proggy boss themes or trippy atmospheric dungeon themes (it's even a contender for my favorite game series "for music" overall!). dragon roost island stands in opposition to what i'm into zelda music for, and is infinitely more popular so sometimes I get in this mindset that its an "enemy" too.

and while I loved the original when I first heard it, fairly quickly it regressed to a 4.0-6.0 because I got the song in my head too often and I didn't want that. i could get into more lengthy detail multiple paragraph detail about exactly why i have problems with this particular melodic line especially, but i think negativity is a bit tedious so i don't wanna drag my frustrations out (especially not on a nom i'm obviously ranking pretty high)

But it fluctuates, sometimes it'll jump back up to 8.9!!!! I think whenever Dragon Roost Island is "new", i want to very specifically hear it again. And ALSO when I approach it from more of an aesthetic vantage point rather than melodic (ie "comfy folk tune played on acoustic instruments" [imagery I like]), I get WAAAY more into it because its establishing a world i want to be in (to be clear: wind waker is a top 10 video game for me, i love anything that helps take me to that specific watery open and empty world i love; and dragon roost island does do very well to convey that!). I also love things that just "feel like they'd have folky lyrics", like there'd be a bard singing a story along with the song, and i imagine that very easy with both the original and this arrangement!

Anyway both right now and at the time I made this topic, the original dragon Roost was somewhere in the 8.x range. Like, right here. But I would not expect that to always be the case, depending on mood the original could actually rank very low as i said. but make no mistake from that early negative disclaimer, at least in my current mood; i DO love the original!

On the contrary though, if there was a fresh jazzy and proggy take on the familiar theme, doing something new and playful with it, I think I'd always be in the mood for that! That'd make it /always/ feel "new", especially if there were a lot going on. I could have the mood and imagery established but a take that gives me more options to latch onto, and prevents the issues i otherwise have

Oh wait!!! That's what this is!

I think the fact that it turns a melody i have mixed feelings about, into something I consistently like, also proves the staying power of the arrangement decisions

The piano is the strongest layer here, the little jumps where it starts playing chords higher up, and general focusing on extended harmonies being clear, really makes this always have something pretty neat for me to be able to fixate on

And oh my god the#times that the bass dips up a little higher it suddenly makes me realize that this song can feel like "chrono cross", that "highish fretless bass flourish in a [world music] song" is one of my favorite tropes (also I just realized thats Anthony Morgan! Someone im familiar with in other contexts. Crazy surreal to suddenly just now while typing this writeup to realize its the same musician I've loved elsewhere). that high bass dip feels just so much like "the cool part" in Dream of the Shore Bordering Another World

I'm not letting this affect my placement, but I love how this cover has a video too with all 4 players constantly visible. A lot of the time when I look at vgm cover videos with performers, I'm disappointed that I can't see every layer all the time. There's so often one layer i wanna see how its being performed at a given time but the video is enforcing a focus on something specific. (Maybe part of my feelin on this is my obsession with watching and making indiv channel visualizers for midi/chiptune I've had since i was literally 3. And being spoiled by the ability to always see exactly which thing is making which sound when I'm watching a visual to accompany the music in that way). So I strongly appreciate this approach!

This video works like an "organic" midi channel visualizer...each channel is a separate real living person playing a real instrument and that is really cool to see for real! Not often does one have that luxury of seeing in that much clarity or detail exactly what process is behind every note in the song all at once all the time.

I do like tetrimino in general, I've been a fan for a while but I actually can't remember now if I was introduced to it by you with this nom, or earlier haha

Maybe unsurprisingly, this is my favorite i am familiar with by them:
https://youtu.be/1qpvyhN8rqo

Oh wait actually no I changed my mind now. THIS one is my favorite from them
https://youtu.be/JjnB5NuH63M

back to this specific dragon roost remix: I really appreciate that this song has the cool 5/8 section. Often when I hear the original I think "this song sounds like its supposed to be in 5/8 instead of 6/8". Just something about that 6th beat strangely feels forced in to make something more mathematically normal in the original, even if the phrases and rhythms in every other way to me imply that something less than that length would be the more natural feeling container (at least by my perception). This might just be me being insane and having listened to too much odd time stuff but I think I sorta felt this even before I got really into odd time. I think that amazing piano layer being so smooth in this remix really helps with smoothing things out during the odd time portion as well

While I love this cover compositionally, I do prefer the instrumentation of the original

Honestly I think something as simple as putting the original in 5 all the way through would immediately curb a lot of my mixed feelings on it, since itd make the melody more flowy, have more asymmetrical space to weave around alternating patterns. it would still feel like "world folk music on imaginary dragon fantasy land with pan flute" but with less of the stilted and harmonically recursive feeling that bothers me about the original. and less of the feeling that I'm being battered with only being allowed to fixate on a melodic line. this remix mitigates ALL those issues in its own way, but i really do think "the original dragoon roost island but with one 8th beat removed" would have the same effect on creating a big jump in my consistent ability to enjoy it

too bad there's not a version of the original dragon roost island thats in 5/8 all the way through...