Game music has evolved from the simple bleeps and bloops of the 70's and early 80's and the later chiptunes of the 80's and 90's to become truly cinematic and unique. Increasingly the computer game soundtracks are being taken as seriously as film music and even some classical pieces. Game music’s growing popularity, global reach and cultural influence is difficult to deny- yet over the past few years it has been growing in stature and respectability. This is reflected time and time again in soundtrack sales, sell-out concerts and the many game music pieces placed into the Classic FM list of the year. I am pleased to say that Classic FM even has a whole site dedicated to computer game music, even providing you with 15 essential computer game scores that stand apart from the gaming experience as just simply wonderfully composed musical pieces.
This year in the Classic FM Hall of Fame chart, there was a good showing from computer game music with Gustavo Santalallo's score for survival action-horror The Last of Us landing at #193; Glen Stafford's StarCraft II music; The Legend of Zelda series, by Koji Kondo, was at #84; World of Warcraft was at #53; Yoko Shimomura's music for Disney/Final Fantasy mash-up RPG Kingdom Hearts was at #30; and Jeremy Soule's score for the Elder Scrolls series finished highest for computer game music representation at a very respectable #11. All in all a great year for game music, next year it may be even better!