Let's Talk About Minecraft's MUSIC!

Introduction - NEW MUSIC!?!

The snapshot which dropped yesterday, 21w42a, took us by surprise. It added more MUSIC to Minecraft's normal, Overworld, survival, gameplay. For the first time in over TWELVE YEARS. Certainly, this took me by surprise. Hearing a new track ("Comforting Memories", for the record) while dancing around a mountain with my one reader last night was surely an experience, to say the least. It was actually very unsettling, hearing a song that sounded Minecraft-esque, in Minecraft, but wasn't one of the 12 traditional songs I am oh so familiar with. It was a bit of a case of the uncanny valley. It's Minecraft. It's a Minecraft-sounding song. But it's not one of THE 12 minecraft songs. It was weird, it was unsettling.

It was also the first time in 8 years I played with the music on. As I mentioned in an entire rant before, I stopped playing with the music on after one of Minecraft's most game-breaking bugs materialised in the snapshit* 13w42b. But even so, I am extremely familiar with the traditional tracks, as I played the game with the music on for over a year before I was forced to turn it off, and I still listened to them on YouTube regularly after 13w42b took the music away from me. And of course, that year was my first year in Minecraft - my formative year. I was in love with the music.

*a snapshit is a snapshot that actually makes the game a lot worse. And 13w42b was the worst example ever.

In world-class irony, a w42 snapshot is what took the music away, and a w42 snapshot years later is what has returned it.

So, in light of Minecraft seeing its first music since creepers were pigs, I thought I would talk about the traditional ambient music tracks. I will go through each track one-by-one and give my strong thoughts on each. I have never actually spoken about the music of Minecraft, so here goes! Here are my thoughts on each of the 12 traditional tracks!

1. "Minecraft" (calm1)

Well, this song is literally the title song of the game. And it is as simplistic as simplistic gets. The whole song is a repeating four-note motif with only minor variations throughout. This song is the very definition of basic, and it does the job excellently. The word I would use to describe this tune is "melancholy". And that is perfect because that is how I would describe the world of Minecraft. It is beautiful, whimsical, somewhat surreal.... but there is also this air of darkness. You are the last living thing, everything else has died. You are alone in this world... but hey it's beautiful. For now. Darkness will fall soon. This song is almost like what you would expect to hear when the first flower blooms after the apocalypse. If any song is going to be called "Minecraft", it's this. 

Really, my only complaint here is that it DOES go on a bit too long. It lasts for nearly four and a half minutes. Some may say the time is necessary for the very slow fade in and the very slow fade out, but I do feel it could've been shortened by 30 seconds or so. Its fade out is a little TOO slow for my liking. But that does not really take away from how much I like this track all that much.

It's not my favourite track, but it's still very good.

2. "Clark" (calm2)

If any song reminds me of a sky base, or some adventure floating in the clouds weightless, it's this song. It's one of the lesser-known songs, but it is also extremely simplistic. Musically, it's essentially a repeated chord motif with very little melody. My favourite part of this song has actually always been the outro. When the song shifts to that softer, duller, synth as the song slowly fades out.

I don't really have all that much to say about this song, it's very pleasant and feels like I'm floating away.

3. "Sweden" (calm3)

This is arguably the most famous track in all of Minecraft. When people think Minecraft music, they probably think of this one. It is very repetitive, essentially the whole track based on a repeating motif of simple chords and melody carried by the piano. But again, the simplicity is what makes this song so good. The melody is one that most people would memorise, as it sort of stands out from the rest in a way. Interestingly, this song goes almost silent halfway through. If you turn your speakers or headphones WAY up, you actually hear that the main melody of the song is still playing, but extremely quietly and using synths instead of the piano. But then shortly after, the piano kicks back in with a vengeance, which carries us into the outro.

CONTROVERSIAL OPINION ALERT!!!

I have to be perfectly honest with my one reader. This song is actually far from my favourite. I know right. In fact, if I have to rank these, this one is actually fairly low down. I have actually never really cared for this track all that much! I don't think it's BAD, it's certainly NOT bad, but I don't know.... it's just never really been one of my favourites. I can't say why exactly. It's calming, sure, it's relaxing yeah, and it's pretty, but... it just goes on a bit and I get bored of the melody after not long. It just doesn't captivate me. But this is considered the best so I don't know what I'm missing here.

4. "Dry Hands" (piano1)

This is perhaps the only song of the 12 that I actually don't like. It's extremely short, only 1 minute long. The first 10 seconds of this song, I can only describe as... shrill. Also, for some reason, this song sounds like it was recorded with a webcam. Maybe it WAS recorded with a webcam. Whereas low quality recordings can sometimes add charm, here it just... doesn't. The fuzziness of the recording detracts quite a lot from this song, and probably is what results in the opening sounding off and not in a good way. Once the actual melody starts, it's decent, but again, the fuzziness takes away from it immensely. It just seems like such a big step down in quality compared to the other tracks.

5. "Wet Hands" (piano2)

This is another very short song, and it's decent. I really have almost nothing to say about this song. It's decent. It's slightly brighter than the first four, which have all been fairly melancholic, which is a nice change in pace, but overall, it's nice.

6. "Mice on Venus" (piano3)

THIS. THIS SONG. This is the longest of the 12 tracks, stretching nearly 5 minutes! And yet it does not overstay its welcome. Because this song has three distinct sections. The introduction is extremely quiet and floaty, and almost sounds like it's going to be one of the two nuance tracks. But it develops into quite possibly the nicest piano melody of all of them. This piano solo is amazing. It is sad, sombre, peaceful, whimsical, mysterious... Imagine you were walking along a wooded path, then turned a corner and found yourself in the most amazing garden, full of wildlife, flowers of all colours, and a lake. The piano solo of this track is so good in fact, that when I was new and used to play with the music on, when this track played, I used to stop and just listen. Take it all in. Love every second of it. The piano section of this track is actually one of the things that made me fall in love with Minecraft in the first place.

But it doesn't end there. There is a third section. And it is TOTALLY different to the first two, a TOTAL change in pace. It's darker, more wintry, and still absolutely rocks. I always imagine the second half of the song as that scene depicted in the first half of the song, but it's now winter instead of summer. It also has a slightly enchanted feel to it, like the piano melody.

All in all, this is an incredible song that has two very different and opposite halves to it, and is one of the reasons I fell in love with this game.

7. "Subwoofer Lullaby" (hal1)

This tune also consists of three very different parts. The first part an odd synth melody consisting of four repeating notes (a bit of a common theme here!) It's simple yet effective, and leads perfectly into the second part, which is a very subtle, quiet, synth tune. It has the sense of blurriness to it, but also floating, flying half-asleep even. And then, for the outro section, we are greeted with a calming piano melody that almost rivals Mice on Venus' in how god-damned amazing it is. I could just listen to the outro of this track all day, and could use it to fall asleep. When those first three notes of the piano come in... MAN, it's like the sun rising after a really dark, cold night!

All three parts of this track are amazing. It's basically the perfect track, and my tied favourite with Mice on Venus.

8. "Living Mice" (hal2)

What's interesting about this song is that it starts out almost entirely inaudible. In fact, by the time you hear it, it's probably been playing for 20 or 30 seconds. It is THAT slow-building. The main melody starts (45 seconds in!) and it's... alright. I like this song, but it's not one of my favourites for the most part. But obviously, the highlight of this tune is at around the 2-minute mark. I don't even need to say why that's the best part of the song. Another "flower blooming" or "sunrise" moment. After that, the song fades out as slowly as it faded in. All in all, it's a neat little song.

9. "Haggstrom" (hal3)

Can someone please explain to me what Haggstrom is? To me, this song very much stands out from the rest. It's not dark, it's not sad or melancholic, it's not even whimsical or peaceful or giving a sense of floating or surreal..... it's HAPPY! It's just... HAPPY! This is perhaps the only song of the bunch I would say conveys JOY, in its first half. It's less a sense of trying to be whimsical and more "HELL YES I'M IN THIS WORLD, IT'S MINE, IT'S BEAUTIFUL, AND I'M GOING TO CONQUER IT!" I REALLY love the first half of this song.

Second half, meh. Never cared for it. It just doesn't have the summer-winter dichotomy Mice on Venus had. It feels like it's TRYING to, but it just doesn't do it nearly as well. For me, the really good part of this song is the first half. That's the banger I could listen to on repeat all day.

Also, this song is in 7/4 time. I can't believe how long it took me to realise this.

10. "Danny" (hal4)

This is another interesting three-section song. The first minute sounds like it's going to be another gentle, melancholic piano/synth tune. But after a minute, the piano tune ends abruptly, and it really feels like it's left hanging. Like there was meant to be more but the composer died halfway through. Dark analogy? Well, that's what the rest of this song is. DARK. Whereas the previous song is bright, the final three minutes of Danny's run-time is DARK. I love how we have a really dark song in here.

The second act legitimately sent chills down my spine when I was new. It's super ethereal and mysterious, evoking questions like "where do we go when we die?" I won't lie, this section really gave me the willies as a kid. Something about the dark, low, barely audible, somewhat distorted synths, man... The lengthy outro section sees the return of the piano, but it's very low notes in a very sombre melody. It's all very quiet, like if you're focusing on something else, you forget it's there until it temporarily gets louder again. It's a really great and under-appreciated song.

11 & 12. "Key" and "Oxygen" (nuance1 & nuance2)

I'm putting these two songs together because they are very similar in that they are... well... nuances. They are barely audible, a minute long, extremely simple synth tracks. Of the two of them, "Key" is my favourite, but that may be because "Oxygen" is just... TOO simple. Key has more of a melody, whereas Oxygen literally consists of about three notes in its entire short runtime.

I was never crazy about these two, as they are... well... NUANCES. I always felt a bit disappointed when music played and it was one of these two, especially Oxygen. "Oxygen" is a very descriptive title though, as this song is almost like if breathing was a song. It's THAT subtle. In what little it DOES achieve in its short lifetime, it conveys the sense of air and clouds and floating. Key, on the other hand, is darker and more mysterious, and I actually quite like it.

FINAL WORD

WHEW that was a long one! Thank you for reading my ted talk on how I view each of these songs. Like many others, the music of Minecraft was one of my favourite elements of the entire game, and I was absolutely gutted to lose this when 13w42b stole the music from me. The game actually felt a LOT emptier, and I missed the music sorely. That is a testament to how good it is. 

I may do another rant where I talk about the Nether, Creative, and Menu tracks, but I probably won't because I just don't know them all that well. They came around the time I stopped playing with the music on, so I really haven't heard them all that often and I am nowhere NEAR as familiar with them as I am with these 12.

C418, you did a freaking AMAZING job.