A three years later when youtube was newly taking off in the public consciousness. I was searching for accordion covers, sitar covers, and any covers of my favorite video game music I could find. I remember still, the coolest thing I ever found was a _classic one man band street performance_, complete with big ol drum, a couple woodwinds, and tambourines on his feet, playing the title screen to Paper Mario 1. It gave me goosebumps of course. I haven't found it in 20 years.
To this day nothing hits me emotionally like an epic acoustic video game cover that is thoughtfully arranged. I'm not talking about the obscene amount of metal and rock covers. No offense to anyone who enjoys it but I am very tired of that stuff. I had the minibosses and whatnot on my ipod back in the day, sure. I'm an old man who likes acoustic jazz and first wave doo-wap ska.. There's just so many video game songs that are weird genres like doo wop and reggae that I wanna hear the way they were intended. Even if a song is super overplayed already, hearing a better arrangement of it can feel fresh. We know what songs are overplayed though, and I'm mainly talking about the deep cuts, the songs that are HARD to play so only the most talented folks play them.
I'm overjoyed by how much good stuff is out there now compared to before. I like weird genres. I'm gonna share a lot of my favorites, all of which have made me cry before. **Warning:** you might cry too I'm only posting the good shit.
That's a good lonely rolling star cover. Heres one I like a lot.
https://youtu.be/ows3l-Kpysg
The 5 year anniversary undertale concert has a full orchestra do some great stuff
https://youtu.be/2vHERvHx26A
Though not really "acoustic" I like this medley. Like the lonely rolling star example above I like when people use chiptune sounding instruments to do stuff that feels more like improvisational jazz than a pre-programmed track.
Oh yeah I forgot to post the Undertale live concert. It was extra touching because I‘ve known toby since middle school and I was learning how to make music with him on AIM back in the day. Hearing those silly samples played on an orchestra was something I tell you what.
Aivi & Surasshu rock I think I remember this cover from soundcloud.
and yeah I’m always surprised when anyone else mentions Tower of Heaven. I played that all the way through back before there were thousands of indie games trying to do something like that. The main theme was what made it so good. I remember when that was added as a track on either melee 20XX hack pack or Project M+, again it was really surprising.
i finally got through all the ones in the original post. many good ones. birabuto kingdom hit hardest i think, or maybe the LRS cover as i mentioned above. i really liked the accordion stuff too!
@hellomrkearns man i saw this in a display case in a store in Joplin, MO that sold used books and trading cards and the like in maybe 2001. somehow they imported it i don't understand. first time seeing the artwork since then
There's also this cool behind the scenes video of creating some of the Splatoon 2 Music. I would love to see an extended version of this.
https://youtu.be/sD_31GJmhUc
This one also isn't exactly a cover but one of my favourite vg songs.
https://youtu.be/zacUcCCOoRw
This song is probably the one I have listened to the most. I used to have at the end of my sleep playlist in high school. I love the harp, especially at the end.
https://youtu.be/SO-FTl5fM18
The Runaway Five (aka The University of Toronto 10 O‘Clock Big Band) was a jazz band out of Canada that did video game covers. They used to have a website at therunawayfive.com and a YouTube, but looks like they’re all gone. Here's a snapshot of their old site from 2019. Really hard to find them because of their name.
They're also on OCRemix
https://ocremix.org/artist/5042/the-runaway-five
https://youtu.be/bCq9XDNuRF8?list=TLGG9HNu4NBkviUwNTAyMjAyMQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwMjnsJ0HMo
