I am completely under the charm of TWP’s soundtrack. By far one of the best I ever heard, movie soundtracks included. The moment I entered the vista for the first time, the sound of the guitar really blew me away. The music in the city hall is also very well crafted, so eerie, this kind of drop sound, my god that will stay with me for a while. I have been on his website and there are some interesting samples, especially the work he did for Voodoo Vince, which sounds like a mixture of the soundtracks of TWP and Monkey Island.
I am a big fan of jazz fusion and especially those edited in the seventies by the ECM record label and I think this soundtrack would have been right at its place in the ECM catalogue. Some artists from this label are the closest I could compare to his work for the game, albeit more experimental in nature. The lenghty and ethereal guitar parts remind me a lot of the work of Terje Rypdal, a Norwegian jazz guitarist. See this link for an example. Musicians like Eberhard Weber and John Abercrombie (listen to his Timeless and tell me if that would not fit well with an extra scene in TWP!) are also not so far. If I had only one question to ask Steve Kirk it would be: is he aware of these artists and did he find any inspiration in their work?
Go ahead and post some music you think feels like Steve’s work for TWP, or what you think of it, or other works of his that you could find somewhere, or even a love letter to him. Steve, if you read me, you are awesome and I am definitely buying the LP of TWP’s soundtrack.
Me too, I especially love his slide playing. Also the acoustic guitar arpeggios he plays that are in the end section are great. I feel like the soundtrack added so much to the ambiance of the game, and set the moods in a really cool way.
I found a podcast a while back called Sound of Play where Steve Kirk was the special guest for an episode. You might want to check that out. If you can’t find it just let me know and I’ll dig up the link.
I liked that guitar part as well, but overall the soundtrack is my least favorite part of TWP. It’s not bad, just not very memorable and personally I’d love to have something more resembling 80’s horror / thriller music, like from John Carpenter’s movies.
Ransom doesn’t strike me as a Strat kinda guy, it’s a guitar for a nice guy. I could see him with a Flying V though. On the other hand, I think he would be better as a drummer.
I have mixed feelings about the soundtrack. TL;DR version: the TWP soundtrack is not something I’d have liked if separated from the context, but inside the game it’s just perfect.
It is not very memorable indeed, especially when compared to MI, MI2 or Sam&Max. I always felt it had too few “catchy tunes”, things I might sing for years like the Woodtick Theme. I expected something like that, where every room had a distinct sound which I could remember for a long time.
But instead, it sets the tone perfectly for the game. It’s a more “cinematic” soundtrack than the others I cited. And in retrospect I love it. The feeling, the “colors” of every piece are the same over the whole game (to clarify: I think it’s a positive point, since it is consistent with the whole atmosphere) except for three parts: the Quickie Pal, the Elevator, and Tuna Head. Those are the only parts where the soundtrack switches from “tone setting” to “room songs”. And they’re imho the most memorable tracks of the set.
That being said, the guitar piece in the last act was extremely moving.
I´ll always feel like humming the themes of MM, Zak and several themes from MI. I know people got attached to the first bars of the TwP theme, but that never worked for me and I always hoped for a real catchy intro song. I listened to the soundtrack on bandcamp but the only reason I´d ever buy the vinyl would be for the toiletpaper labels not really the music. It suceeded in being Twin Peaks like but it doesn´t have anything particular 1980s about it either.
Yes, I agree with you. But there are some catchy tunes, like you said, and they are the Quickie Pal theme, and No Quarter (Tuna Head) mostly in my opinion.
But all the game has a more mature, dramatic tone. If there is a thing the devs have not fulfilled is the early premise to recreate “charm, simplicity and innocence” of the early LucasFilm games. TWP isn’t that simple and innocent, and in the end it has a different charm, but I liked it, even if it is a major twist from that premise (and it starts way before the ending). Thus I think that the OST fits the game well.
You know, I’m not the best in getting second meanings or slang meanings… there’s something I’m not getting? I always thought it was a reference to the coin you need for the phone. A coin to play your silly games, eheheh with a double meaning, one regarding a love relationship, another one regarding the relation between the gamer and the developer who design puzzles… (why P’n’C games died and they got a stigma and so on…)
I don’t remember this particular line, but I found the sketch between Dave and Sandy cleverly annoying. I mean… after Dave has done all that to save the love of his life… he ended up in making disgusting hamburgers while his wife continously breaks his balls and he seems completely suppressed by this relationship… which makes you think about long term relations and individual freedom. Women usually have this tendency to coerce men, expecially when they, fueled by sex drive, forget to drive forward goals for their lives. Nothing against women, I mean that something in the natural contrast between the opposing forces of a relationship has broken and it’s played out in that sketch.
Maybe you would have beeping liked it more if he used Ransome The Clown™ official instruments exclusively.
