Music is a huge part of our everyday lives. Whether it’s listening to your favourite artist in the background while you work; it’s on the radio when you drive; or it’s someone performing on your local high street, music is everywhere. And one place it’s particularly prominent is on screen, via television programmes, films, and of course, video games.  

People who aren’t super into them may make the mistake of calling music in video games a genre of its own, which it isn’t. Games feature many different genres of music, often even in the same game. Lots of this is made by composers that are just, if not more, skilled than the people who make the music you hear daily. Ultimately, there’s a lot of music out there, and there are a lot of games out there, so it stands to reason that a lot of music you hear originates from video games. I thought I would share a not-so-brief history lesson on the evolution of music in games, examining how it works and what limitations composers have been under in the past, before rounding things off with examples of music I find particularly outstanding. 

 A good place to start would be with the ZX Spectrum, considering its audio capabilities are the most limited of all. The Spectrum had one audio channel capable of playing one note at a time (imagine an audio channel as one person with one instrument; if you want to play another instrument, you’ll need another audio channel). Sometimes, even playing this single note would be too much for the processor, and while it dedicated itself to the cause, other operations would be paused or interrupted. As a result, many games just didn’t have music at all.  

An exception to this is the title theme for Agent X (1986), composed by Tim Follin, and proof how effective the systems are when someone knows how to use them. Despite the limitations of the hardware, it still manages to be recognisable as a rather well composed prog-rock track, despite sounding like it’s being played on a printer instead of actual instruments. More impressive is that through some clever programming trickery, Follin was able to create the illusion of several notes being played simultaneously, which is quite the feat.

The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) has five audio channels: two pulse channels which produce square waves (typically used for melodies), a triangle channel for baselines, a noise channel used for percussion, and DPCM channel that could play short low-quality samples. All of these could play simultaneously without pausing other operations. 

Super Mario Bros (1985) was composed by Koji Kondo. In the ‘ground’ theme, the melody is recognisably made up of two notes (the pulse channels). The triangle creates a simple baseline, and the noise channel makes some percussion. The DPCM channel isn’t used here but is used with the bongo drums in Super Mario Bros 3 (1998).   

The next generation of consoles, primarily the SEGA Mega Drive and Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) used two different methods. The Mega Drive had six FM Modulation channels from the Yamaha 2612 chip, which could play short, low-quality audio samples. FM Modulation allows programmers to control the waveforms produced, giving a wide range of different potential instruments. Along with this, the Texas Instruments SN76489 provided three PSG channels, which can noticeably be heard in tracks for Sonic 3D Blast (1996), creating arpeggios. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (1994) initially had some music tracks composed by Michael Jackson and his collaborators, though much of it went unused. 

The SNES, on the other hand, used a custom-made Sony Digital Signal Processor (DSP) that could play eight channels with instruments consisting of digitised audio samples. The rest was reserved for sound effects. The only downside to its competitor was a comparatively slower clock speed. Soundtracks of note on the system include Super Mario World (Koji Kondo, 1991) and Chrono Trigger (Yasunori Mitsuda, 1995). Both consoles’ differing sound hardware and capabilities gives the music a unique feel that isn’t possible on the other.   

From here, home consoles don’t have the most interesting hardware. The Fifth Gen consoles (Nintendo 64, Sony Playstation, and SEGA Saturn) were capable of CD-quality audio. However, due to the N64 using cartridges, space was limited, meaning that many N64 games use midi samples for their music in a similar way to the SNES. This is most notable in early games for the system such as Super Mario 64 (1996) and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998), where the limitations are noticeable. 

The Gameboy Advance was very limited, not possessing a dedicated sound chip at all, and instead playing music off the CPU. For backwards compatibility with the Gameboy and Gameboy Colour, it features two pulse wave channels, a noise channel, and a wave channel. However, it also had low-quality PCM channels that could play audio samples stored in eight bits or lower. Because of this, the GBA is often regarded as having very poor sound quality. This did not stop some excellent soundtracks being released onto the system, like the Megaman Zero Series from 2002-2006, which later had five Japan-exclusive albums released with the soundtracks in re-arranged full instrumentations. 

In contrast, their next handheld system, the DS, had vastly better audio quality than even the SNES. Containing both its own ARM7 processor chip and including the one used on the GBA, the DS did not have to split processing power between music and gameplay on a single chip. It also had sixteen audio channels. I believe the most impressive soundtrack on the system belongs to The World Ends With You (2007/8). Composed by Takeharu Ishimoto, it contains around three albums-worth of music with lyrics, going for a pop and rock style of the mid 2000s. Not only does this fit the aesthetic of the game, but it also makes for a soundtrack that holds up exceptionally well today. 

Ultimately, ‘video game music’ itself isn’t a genre. Games contain many different genres of music, from peppy pop tracks, banging rock, grand orchestral, rap, choir, and anything else you can think of. There’s so much of it out there that you’re guaranteed to find a soundtrack you enjoy, and the hardware and limitations composers have to work with over the years has created some remarkable soundtracks. I would recommend giving them a listen!