Musical Influences and Video Games.

Whether it was influences within their distinct eras, or simply based around notoriety for the musicians, the more I thought about video game themes and melodies, the more I remembered listening to certain songs from outside of games that share similar aspects to them in interesting ways. Basically, I wanted to know what piece of music from a game you can recount sharing certain comparisons to another song outside of games. My example of this would be the theme to Tetris and it's similarity to the Russian song "Korobeiniki". This comparison just came to me so recently that I didn't believe it at first until I listened to both songs together. I still love seeing these kinds of things in games.

Tetris theme:

"Korobeiniki" Song:

I submit the Intellivision game "Thunder Castle":

The opening music (00:00 - 00:16) is from Henry Purcell's "Abdelazer Suite":

The death music (about 4:45) is from the 2nd movement of Beethoven's 9th symphony. The exact passage runs from a little after 3:45 - 3:55 in this clip:

There's this thing:

Some of them are so uncanny. I could totally see Yuzo Koshiro being way into "Pump Up The Jam."

@ultraspacemobile: That is amazing. I never would have realized Orchestrated pieces would be an influence back to games. Fantastic pull, especially for its age.

@siroptimusprime: I would absolutely agree with you on that statement. I think "Pump Up The Jam" has immortal qualities and can last beyond our own mortality. :p

i can't point to a specific piece of music that this apes, but this is one of my favorite examples of the genesis synth in action. it's essentially the early 90s rave and techno scene distilled, and run through the genesis.

side note- god i love how the genesis sounds. it's got so much grit and grime.

Can't have a thread like this without April by Deep Purple and The Legend of Zelda. I think it's pretty self-explanatory. Just listen to the first 3 minutes or so.

@zithe: Oh man, this song is tits--and it totally works as a soundtrack for Hieronymous Bosch.

The Dr. Mario/Beatles connection blew my mind when I first noticed it.

Im noticing a trend here. All of the games listed so far are 8 or 16 bit. The music in these games isn't influenced by other music, it directly copies other music.

@zithe: i'm not getting zelda from this. it sounds more to me like deep purple are trying pretty hard to get an ennio morricone vibe.

its cool though.

Boom bitches.

By the way Rick Astley kind of dances like Shepherd.

There was this song that I sang in church when I was a kid, but instead of thinking about Jesus, I thought about Marble Madness. I had my priorities straight from a young age. I wish I could remember the name of that hymn, the two are so similar.