Television and mainstream media have long taken a harsh stance towards video games and the culture surrounding them. Â They prefer not to talk about the medium as a whole, and when they do, they nearly always seek to cast video game culture in a negative light. Â Long has video game music also been lambasted by the mainstream as a medium inferior to that of “real” music. Sure, game soundtracks started out on technically limited hardware, but those early hardware limitations often helped to bring melody to the forefront. Â Game soundtracks have evolved leaps and bounds since those formidable years. Â It has taken the gradual downfall of the mainstream media establishment and the rise of internet culture to bring video game musical scores into the mainstream, and ultimately it was the fans themselves that have stood at the front lines providing the performances of their favorite video game tunes for the world to hear in a new light. Â Here’s ten of the best performances to date.
#10 Blindfolded Pianist – Super Mario Bros. Theme
This started out on ebaumsworld.com waaaay back in 2005. It eventually took off and turned Martin Leung into the original video game piano web celebrity. This status eventually led to him playing game centric events such as E3 the next year, followed Tommy Tallarico hiring him as the featured pianist for Video Games Live, a role he continues on and off again to this day.
#9 Flute Link – Video Games Live Ocarina of Time MedleyÂ
Another web sensation to come out of nowhere is Flute Link, aka freelance musician and Overclocked Remix staple Laura Intravia. Aside from being one of the most talented piccolo and piano players you will ever find, she’s also a hell of a comedian. Her trademark Link and Navi flute duel has become a staple of anime and game conventions, and has even been featured at Video Games Live on more than one occasion. Â
#8 Shnabubula – Playing Super Mario While Taking Mushrooms
Soundfonts are basically a standardized file format for sound samples that you can play back and manipulate on a keyboard in digital audio tools. It’s possibly to simulate just about any instrument known, but Shnabubula here decided to take a collection of warmly familiar old-school Super Nintendo instrument samples and produce one of the craziest and most brilliantly mad game arrangements ever. Listen until the end when it goes completely insane. Everything from Michael Jackson to Disney get a nod in this one. Wait until 5:55 for a good laugh.
#7 Corporeal – Halo Theme
Corporeal hit the scene back in 2006 and gained so much love that they wound up playing live during Microsoft’s E3 presentation in Santa Monica the next year. They have a CD available for purchase on their website www.corporealmusic.net.
#6 TSSF: Mega Man 9 Soundtrack: The Real NES Version
Right now you might be thinking, “This is just the soundtrack to Mega Man 9 on the NES. What exactly makes this so special?†Well, the fact that it’s on the NES is what makes it so special. The soundtrack to Mega Man 9 (and 10) both garnered attention not only for their 8-bit visuals and gameplay, but for their true to form 8-bit musical score. The interesting thing is that the soundtracks aren’t actually running on real (or emulated) NES hardware, but rather from very convincing sampled 8-bit sounds. Mega Man 9 staffers actually went on record as saying the music wouldn’t be possible on real hardware. Cue TSSF to prove Capcom wrong. He arranged by ear the entire soundtrack to Mega Mans 9 & 10 in the real NSF sound format used by the NES. You can run these babies on real hardware via flash cartridge. Here’s a comparison to show you the difference in fidelity between the sampled NES score on the Wii/PS3/360 original, and the remakes on real NES hardware.
Hornet Man, Original Mega Man 9 Version
Hornet Man, TSSF Real NES Remake
Now tell me in all honesty that the real NES version doesn’t sound miles better? It has that impossible to describe, yet unmistakably familiar warm 8-bit glow to it.
#5 DrRolde – Super Mario World Castle Theme on Grand Organ
Koji Kondo’s castle themes are amongst video gaming’s most enduring themes. Here we see it played on the grandest of instruments – a Church organ. Props to the Church that let this dude rock out classic VGM on what is undoubtedly a priceless treasure of a musical instrument.
#4 Aivi Tran – Space Junk Galaxy
Super Mario Galaxy and its sequel have some of the best piano themes in all of gaming, but the best one is easily Space Junk Galaxy, made all that much better by self taught pianist Aivi Tran. At her personal blog Waltz for Luma you can find all of her other arrangements and original compositions and transcriptions. She truly is a master of music, but also amongst the greatest video game internet virtuosos ever.
#3 PoopPoopFart – Spiral Mountain
Former Rare composer Grant Kirkhope never gets enough credit for his work on the Banjo-Kazooie series. Only because it was limited by crappy cartridge memory and the N64’s notorious low fidelity audio does this soundtrack get often overlooked by the mainstream. PoopPoopFart’s self accompanied live arrangement of Grant’s immortal bluegrass tinged Spiral Mountain theme shows once and for all just how timeless the music of Banjo-Kazooie really is when you untether it from the limitations of the Nintendo 64. Extra props for the autographed The Wizard movie poster in the back.
#2 Kyle Landry – Ocarina of Time: Kokiri Forest/Title Screen Medley
Kyle Landry is easily one of the greatest internet musicians ever with talent on the ivory keys that can practically make you melt to your knees in aural  bliss. His musical arrangements of classic video game themes are nothing short of stunning, but this nuanced and touching medley of music from Koji Kondo’s musical masterwork The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is one of the best web performances ever. Check out his channel for some other truly inspirational stuff. Listen to his arrangement of the Super Mario Bros. 2 Overworld Theme below.
#1 Tom Brier – Super Mario World: Air Platform Theme Ragtime
Meet Tom Brier here. He is the unofficial internet god of ragtime music. Just type his name in the search box and enjoy the resulting musical goodness that follows. Tom is featured in a ton of different videos playing ragtime renditions of timeless video game themes, but the thing that makes this even cooler is that while he is easily the best video game pianist you will ever hear, he has heard none of these songs prior to sight reading them right off the page. He generally plays them straight the first run through, then once he has the melody in his head, he goes to town with embellishments and expansions of the original melody the likes of which you can’t imagine. It’s almost impossible to pick one of his videos, because they are all so good, but we’ll try anyway. Here we see Tom go to town on the Air Platform Theme from Super Mario World. Ragtime was huge in the 1920s, but then died out in the mainstream as time went on. Tom just proves how much the spirit of ragtime exists in so many contemporary tunes, right under our collective noses.
As a bonus, here’s Tom bringing to life the Shooting Gallery theme from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Enjoy the brilliance.
