Tuesday 7 May 2019

Incomplete List of Underrepresented Musical Genres in the RPG/OSR Community

Folk for Rural Hexcrawling, because this is the sound of the countryside:








Dylan for Character Generation, because every Dylan protagonist kind of sounds like a PC from OD&D:





Which is true of Tom Waits too, by the way:




Jazz fusion, because you can just totally picture dungeoncrawling to this:



More jazz fusion, because you can just totally picture this being the BGM in a mad archmage's tower (and it's not quite as unlistenable as you might think until 50 seconds in, trust me):



Reggae and dancehall, because of the romanticized vision of rogueishness it routinely delivers:





Scott Walker for Call of Cthulhu, because, well, just listen to it:



Experimental ambient post-pop for SF goodness:







Lebanese jazz fusion for those Al-Qadim moments:





Traditional jazz for dungeoncrawling - tell me you can't picture a group of PCs creeping down tunnels, peering round corners, and searching for traps to these:




Big band, for when a Big Bad Evil Guy appears on the scene:




Russian orthodox choral music, for just about anything really:




Post your own recommendations in the comments!

19 comments:

  1. Ha! I've actually used Walker's Tilt and The Drift for Unknown Armies background music before!

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    1. Yeah, the only time I would probably actually listen to either of those albums is as BGM for horror game. Bit too bleak to listen to for pleasure...

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  2. Sound list ! - Rural Brit-folk was the soundtrack to our Pits & Perils game a few years back, and I used Reynardine as a monster:

    http://pitsperilous.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-visual-side-of-pits-perils.html


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    1. Never occurred to me before but that's where werefoxes come from, isn't it? Just with the sex reversed for a very male-heavy player base.

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  3. For SF-horror, I use the Disintegration Loops: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjnAE5go9dI

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  4. Just heard Dylan's Tangled up in Blue, and, yep - a PC if there ever was one...

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  5. Rachmaninov's Isle of the Dead makes the best forebodings.

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    1. Ages and ages ago I am sure I wrote a blog entry about that but blogger's search function is terrible and I can't now find it.

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  6. I've always associated Metamorphosis Alpha/generation ship stuff with experimental music library tracks:
    https://youtu.be/obMWwz1M5NE

    Boards of Canada gives me visions of eerie, post-apocalyptic landscapes, worlds overtaken by strange flora, etc.
    https://youtu.be/wgbyID-Plqo

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    1. Yeah, Boards of Canada is a great shout.

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  7. I have a big stack of german folk that I use for town and "inside the kingdom" music. (I tried Jethro Tull once, but everyone just laughed, the philistines).

    Sonne Hagal - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfF8kBKVizg
    Jannerwein - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u73cnzbAfK4


    In the wilderness, I often just throw on some nature sounds, rain, stuff like that to get the atmosphere without being too distracting.

    I like all kinds of metal but the fast stuff usually doesn't work at the game table. Some memorable near-TPK dungeon fun has been had while listening to funeral doom though. Try these:

    Catacombs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BM-ohw4RuMs
    Aldebaran - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHMjwsu743k

    etc. These days I mainly stick to film and video game soundtracks I suppose, but I'll give some of these a try.

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    1. The Revenant is a good soundtrack from recent years.

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  8. Obviously, one could prattle for days, but here's one essential:

    For the terrible woods, dungeons, faerie and CoC: Cyclobe, The Woods Are Alive With The Smell Of His Coming

    https://youtu.be/0WIFvarLFi4


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    1. Will have to listen to more of them - not heard of them before.

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  9. Absolutely nobody ever has thought to pair folk or religious choir music with fantasy. Mr. Noisms how are you so original and brilliant?

    Pls write more giant invertebrates

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    1. If this is supposed to be an attempt at sarcasm it's a pretty poor one. The title is "underrepresented", not "never paired together".

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  10. Well, I've never known anyone else to know about Yellowman. So shout out for that.

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