Sakuraba bashers

[Origin]

Hello, I've been visiting this website for a while and I've decided to post my first message about something that I've noticed for a while now.

Several people, some of whom do soundtrack reviews for notable websites (though I won't name names) seem to have an absolutely intense hatred for Motoi Sakuraba. Basically, they seem to not like a single soundtrack that he has ever created, only going so far as to maybe call one or two of his soundtracks "decent". I just can't help but be absolutely amazed by this.
I haven't seen a single other game composer get as much flak as him, and I really think most of it is just unfair and over the top.

Now I should note that I haven't played any of the Playstation 1/2 games he's composed music for, which is obviously excluding a lot of games. However, of the games that I *have* played on Nintendo systems, I think all of them had quite good to amazing music, with the exception of Tales of Symphonia.

Speaking of the Tales series, he definitely gets a lot of criticism for those games, but I think it's somewhat unfair for a couple of reasons. Firstly, he doesn't compose all of the music, so it's unfair to attribute all of the "bad songs" to him. In fact, I would suspect that most of the particularly dull and uninspired tracks are done by Tamura (not to insult him or anything) because as far as I know, Sakuraba only does the battle themes, character themes, ending theme(s) and maybe a couple of others; this obviously leaves a lot left on the standard 4 CDs worth of music in the average Tales game. Secondly, I don't get the impression that he feels particularly inspired by the series, at least anymore. That's not to say that he doesn't try, but after working on so many Tales games it's not hard to imagine how difficult it is to really feel inspired to do something new.

Of the games that he has composed music for, I would have to say that I think Baten Kaitos was his best. It had such an amazing variety of tracks, most of which were excellent. From orchestral, to hard rock, to techno/dance, to some amazing classical guitar pieces, there's a lot of different genres here and they're all done amazingly well. I think that the soundtrack for Baten Kaitos is easily one of the best videogame soundtracks of all time (which is why I can't help but be completely shocked at the people that say it's merely average or even worse than average).

The only other games of his that I've played were the Golden Sun games. Despite being on the GBA, they had some amazing music. Many individual tracks on their own were very good, but as a whole the soundtracks had this wonderful cohesiveness that I've really never seen in any other games before.
I don't know where he got his inspiration for these games, but he was obviously onto something good. I should note that I, like many others, was disappointed when no soundtracks were released for these games; the thought of hearing the songs with real instruments or even just better samples is very appealing.

Anyway, I should get to the point and finish off this ridiculously long message.... What does everyone else think about all of the negative criticism Sakuraba gets? Is it (or some of it) justified? If you don't particularly like him, just what about him don't you like?

[Fatigue]

I think the main reason why people are giving Sakuraba negative reviews or feedback is that his style very rarely changes. I can only see 3 major points in his career where his style has taken a major turn (all being fairly major titles). But, to be honest, I haven't seen many people (perhaps 1 or 2) who actually despise him. To me, he's an incredible musician and easily one of the hardest working men in the video game industry, but I can understand why some people feel some of his works are 'just average'.

Most soundtracks I have heard from the man are fairly high in quality, although I agree with many others that the 'Tales of' series has a lot of unpolished and often uninspired music. However, the lack of individual composer credits for the series prevents me from saying that Sakuraba or Tamura had done a bad job because it's hard to tell who composed what (but I think we can tell due to Sakuraba's style). That said, Tales of the Abyss had some pretty inspiring moments, which we haven't seen a lot in recent 'Tales of' games.

I'm intrigued that you have heard bad remarks for Baten Kaitos! I've only seen people heralding it as one of his best scores (to which I agree completely).

[datschge]

I think the main reason why people are giving Sakuraba negative reviews or feedback is that his style very rarely changes.
Which is a typical comment by people who only listened to his popular soundtrack releases, none of his less popular obscure soundtracks (most of his TV works) and even less those which didn't get any soundtrack to begin with (nearly all games until 1995). Baten Kaitos wasn't surprising or exceptional besides not being part of the usual Tales and tri-Ace games and thus not following their music styles.

[gamemusicfreak]

After Yuzo Koshiro, Sakuraba is probably my second favorite game music composer. Valkyrie Profile is probably my favorite of his works, followed by Star Ocean 2, and Shining Force III. I like how he has a signature sound, it's like many comic book artists. You can just glance at their work once say: "That's Jim Lee," or "that's Clamp."

To hear of Sakuraba bashers just kills me inside a little.

[Origin]

Ok, I guess I should clarify a few points.

I suppose I was slightly exaggerating when I said "several Sakuraba bashers". There really aren't *that* many, it just seems like there are more than there truly are because no other videogame music composers seem to get the same kind of harsh treatment. For example, Mitsuda is/was fixated on celtic music for a while, but even in the reviews of his albums that noted this in a negative way, they were never really that enthusiastic in denouncing it. Some reviews of some of Sakuraba's albums that I've seen, however, come off sounding like the reviewer has some kind of personal vendetta against Sakuraba, as if he or she met Sakuraba on the street one day and was literally spat upon! I don't really mind if someone doesn't particularly care for Sakuraba's compositions, but if they become so biased that they go into every new soundtrack of his that they review with the pre-conceived notion that everything will sound exactly the same, then it gets on my nerves (especially when this is clearly not the case).

I'm not going to comment on how repetitive Sakuraba's music is or is not because I simply haven't listened to nearly enough of his stuff to make a judgment on that. Of course, I think it's completely unreasonable not to expect a particular composer to have a certain style that is present in most of his compositions, but that's by no means a bad thing. I don't doubt that what datschge says is true, Sakuraba certainly seems more than talented enough to write in a variety of styles if he chooses to or if the situation asks for it.

And in response to Fatigue, I have read a couple of reviews of the Baten Kaitos soundtrack that said that it was average or below average (one was actually not a review of the soundtrack, but a review of the entire game itself with a short section on the music saying that it was somewhere between average and below-average, and the reviewer noted Sakuraba by name in an unflattering fashion, so he obviously had some kind of personal bias against him). Actually, I've seen several people say that the Tales of Symphonia soundtrack is better than the soundtrack to Baten Kaitos, which really, uh... puzzles me.

[datschge]

Don't read game reviews for getting information about the game's music, I disagree nearly with all of them and wouldn't have listened to a lot of them if I followed them. (Even if the music part of game reviews are competent they are usually more about the (over)use of particular pieces in-game rather than the merits of the music itself so this shouldn't come as a surprise.)

Regarding the audience around Sakuraba I personally got the impression that on the one hand he's known enough so that there are rather few reactions akin "this is great, I haven't heard music from him before", but on the other hand fan of him aren't particularly outspoken or defensive so it can happen that topics mentioning him are derailed by some people who jump on the easy "he always sounds the same" bandwagon.

[Origin]

I didn't mean to suggest that I get information on a game's music from game reviews; I don't. I was just using that as an example of someone who doesn't like the music in Baten Kaitos. I know that game reviews very rarely give an accurate representation of the music in a game (I've never based the purchase of a game on music, anyway).

[datschge]

Actually I didn't mean to suggest that you do, I was just ranting. :p Oh, and I did buy Camelot games based on the music alone (I plain love Mario Tennis GBC). :D

[Origin]

It's funny how the music in Mario Tennis GBA sounds almost EXACTLY like the music from the Golden Sun games. Not just compositionally, but I'm pretty sure the samples they use are exactly the same. And of course there's the whole RPG element in the game, even with the same yes/no dialogue interface as Golden Sun. (I don't even have the game, I've just looked at a few videoclips and been able to deduce all of this from that!).

Actually, Baten Kaitos II may be the first game I buy *partly* based on the music (a pretty small part, admittedly). Honestly, I thought the first Baten Kaitos was pretty lacking as a game, but the music (along with the graphics)at least somewhat made up for that.

[datschge]

Actually the instrument set in Mario Golf GBA is exactly the same as used in the Golden Sun games. Mario Tennis GBA has a slightly updated instrument set, most noticable by the new loud drums which Sakuraba also used in Mario Tennis GC and Tales of Rebirth. The music styles between the games is quite different though (Mario Golf GBA is my favorite of this particular bunch).

[Origin]

I'm sure Sakuraba does a fine job in the sports games he composes music to (judging from what little I've heard), but, at least for me, I never really pay too much attention to the music in sports games. As long as it's not really horrible and overly repetitive I'm fine with it. Most RPGs are such emotionally heavy games though that you can't help but criticize every little bit of the music, since it forms a fairly big part of the experience. And I guess also the general expectations of musical quality are much higher for RPGs than for sports games.

[aznmusikboi]

However static it may be, he's got a compositional style that he can call his own and i think that's all that matters, no matter how much flak he takes.

A critical listening to Elegy for the Bewildered for anyone who can appreciate piano music should set things straight.

[TerraEpon]

Out of curiosity, which is such deep Sakura /praising/ that so many people here do any better than the bashing?

-Joshua

[datschge]

Deep cherry blossom praising? What? (scnr)

[aznmusikboi]

0_o?

i'm completely lost.

[Rain Corale]

I plain don't like Sakuraba's music. Hes a talented composer and I acknowledge his prolificity, but his music does not speak to me. No amount of clearing up is in order, none necessary. Apparently that makes me a a Sakuraba basher...plain and simple. While we are on the subject, who wants to be 'Bash Brothers' with me? Together, we can bring bash-dom to the world of Sakuraba like Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco during the Oakland A's Dynasty. YEA! Who's with me!?!?

Sakuraba is in for a world of pain, oh yea!

[Origin]

Rain corale, I wasn't calling everyone who didn't like Sakuraba's music "bashers", only the people who harp on him endlessly for no sane reason. I really don't care if someone doesn't like his music, honestly, but those people that can't get enough of constantly criticizing him need to find another hobby (and, obviously, stop listening to his music if they hate it so much).

[aznmusikboi]

It's good that you clarified that (maybe it was a bit ridiculous that you had to). I've always appreciated more detailed opinions from people rather than "it sucks" or "it doesn't sound good". Being a music major, I myself and quite picky about the music I like, yet Sakuraba's music ranks pretty high on my list, especially because of his choices to incorporate rock with symphonic elements, which people rarely do these days, or have done in the past for that matter. Some of his other strong points I think are his piano skills and use of atonality.

I can imagine that it's hard to appreciate him from a conventional standpoint but I've gotten way past that point.

[Origin]

Ugh, I'm starting to regret using the word "bashers" since it seems to have upset at least a couple of people. I mainly just put it in the topic title because I couldn't think of any better word to use. I obviously wasn't refering to the people who don't like his music for legitimate reasons (i.e. not just "everything of his sounds exactly the same and always will") and don't feel the need to attack him every chance they get. No one on this forum, at least from what I can see, seems to fit under the role of "basher" so please don't think that I'm insulting any of you or anything like that.

I basically started this thread to ask people who don't particularly like Sakuraba why they don't like his music. That's all. I'm sorry if it sounded like I was condemning you or lumping you all in with his most vocal and negative critics, because that wasn't my intention.

[datschge]

Barely any longer thread about him goes differently than this one. Let's just say Sakuraba is polarizing.

[PhantomDiablerie]

Reading this thread brings tears to my eyes, I have nothing but absolute love for this man. <3 I've played the piano for over eight years, have a fair amount of understanding music theory, have an experimental electronic band of my own... and his music is definitely fresh air. I particularly adore his baroque approach to rock/symphonic/synthesized/jazz tracks, and his free switching to and from mind-numbing time signatures makes my brain do cartwheels. XD (Aside from the technical aspects, the emotional content of his music speaks volumes to my soul.)

Has anyone in doubt given his live DVD a serious listen, most notably the drum solo/Rena track? O.O

I can't die before I get to see him live in Japan, and I know I'll be brought to my knees (and probably tears) when I do.

[Fatigue]

I have decided to split the thread as it was becoming very much off topic. The thread has been split at the point where Jormungand has replied to aznmusikboi's post, thus where the argument has originated.

You may find the continuing thread here (http://www.cocoebiz.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3324).