I’m indebted to countless musical artists for Anodyne 2’s OST, but in particular I have to primarily highlight Susumu Hirasawa and Rei Harakami, and then all the Videogame OSTs on here. Then comes all the other songs. This is most of the songs I remember actively listening to during the game’s development, it doesn’t include things that are more ‘permanent’ influences (like romantic-era piano composers, shostakovich string quartets, etc…). If I dig through my Youtube playlists I can probably find more, but 70-80 or so artists and their albums/songs seems like enough for now!
As a side note, I don’t use streaming services. How I’ll find music is either searching for references for a given song, random browsing through my Soundcloud feed or peoples’ likes, Bandcamp articles/browsing, or by chance from friends on Discord or Twitter. Then if it’s useful I’ll have it on rotation with a few other songs until I think I’ve understood it well enough, then I might buy it and put it in my mp3s folder.
(Spoilers for Anodyne 2): Some of these songs I referenced heavily (Kelly Chen’s song for the groove in “Fashion Storm”, Pleasure System’s song for “Thousand Thousand Layer…”, 33EMYBW’s song for the Nanobot fight, Antimonesia for the Attic level, Tempura Kidz for “sparkle sparkle..”, Perfect Blue song for the Gargoyle Chase, Rei Harakami’s “Pone” for the chords in Dustbound Village, probably more).
Anyways, enjoy, please research these artists and give them your money!! (And give me money too, via bandcamp, maybe.. https://htch.bandcamp.com/album/anodyne-2-return-to-dust )
Also… a note on music influences – sometimes one of these might sound like a song in a game but actually I listened to the song after writing the Anodyne 2 song. Music is odd…
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Susumu Hirasawa – pretty much everything, esp: Tamashii no Furusato (i borrowed the idea of blending pentatonic melodies with regular scales), Garden where the Solutions are Found (listened to this one a LOT), Gemini 2, Solar Ray 2, Millenium Actress OST, Parade, Technique of Relief, Philosopher’s Propeller, Hansen 108,Siren, Holy Delay (one of the best loops, before the vocals kick in), Paranoia Agent OST, “Indra”, work as “Shun”, Landscapes #1
Kaku P Model, esp antimonesia, kai = kai
Rei Harakami – Lust (one of my favorite albums), “Pone”
Mondo Grosso – “Hello Do You Copy”, “Labyrinth”, “Solitary”, “Late night blue”
33EMYBW – Golem – “Ship of Theseus” (I recommend this artist and the label this was published on, lots of interesting club music)
Kelly Chen – Hua Hua Yu Zou
Sega Bodega – 3310
Wednesday Campanella – “Aladdin”, “Gala” (KOM-I? Kenmochi Hidefumi reading this? Want to have a song in a video game? Contact me hello@analgesic.productions )
Utada Hikaru – Fantome track 1 4 9 10
Kirby Super Star, Dream Land 3 OST
Joe Hisaishi – Kaiju no kodomo OST
Pleasure Systems – “heirloom”
Teruo Nakano – “現象界パレット”, “eardrum”
Perfect Blue OST , esp “Uchida’s Theme”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1Dy0Zfw6Qs
999 OST – “Digital Root”, “senary game”
magicalmushie – “musica universalis”
Phantasy Star III Main Theme (LIVE, 1990)
包美聖 – 小茉莉Little Jasmine (by Mei-Sheng Bao)
Melos Han-Tani (…that’s me!)
no. 9 – “left the wind’, “tomorrow land”, “Will”, most of their work etc
Forever Kingdom OST – “forgotten valley”
P-model: “colors”, “eisei alone”, big body, “Chevron”, much more.. (Eisei alone I listened to a LOT)
“every other beat missing” music meme
SMT Soul Hackers OST – Tenkai Airport (Reality)
Travis Strikes Again OST – Seeming Sad
Kikuo – “red moon”, “Blue cave’, “Yume miru kikai ningyo’ (i recommend all of kikuo’s work)
sparite – “exoticism”
SMT IV OST, esp: Kagome Tower, Naraku Dungeon, Tokyo Overworld, Blasted Tokyo
Breath of Fire V OST, esp “Power Supply Building” and “Lifeline”
Hiroshi Yoshimura – Flora 1987
Maple Story OST (First few years)
Daoko – “Iya”, some other songs off that album
Rimi Natsukawa – 島唄 (shima uta)
Kinesthetiac – “Rat Park”, “Tomb”
Meytel – “Kireinakisetsu”, “わたしのみらいに関係ない”
Lamp – “Symphony”
neotenomie – ‘other‘, prism stalker OST , other songs..
ilkae/zebra – “Clocks”
Tempura kidz/pc music – I like it
serpentwithfeet – “bless ur heart”
Kohl – “The inquisition”
Family Basik – “music for absentees”
Parks Burton – Pare (highly recommended, I also did a remix for htis)
dj girl – “Fast Track“
A.G. Cook in general
Threads of Fate OST
Saga Frontier II OST (Masashi Hamauzu more generally)
Tatsuyuki Maeda, Tatsuya Kousaki – Astal OST – “Crystal Palace”
Fryd: “hellbeast” (I can’t find this one anymore)
Dragon Quest II Symphonic Suite – “Endless World”, various other songs from Dragon Quest, like 8’s overworld
SMT Nocturne OST – Shinjuku Medical Center (Post Conception)
Ulrich Schnauss – A Strangely Isolated Place – blumenthal and other songs
June Chikuma – Les Archives (Bomberman Hero composer!)
Sonsofu – “Overlapping Particles”
OH HEEJUNG – Yop
FFX OST (The remastered is good too)
FFXIII, FFXIII-2 OST
Mitsuto Suzuki – Neurovision
ambient-melodic 