This post has not been edited by the GamesBeat staff. Opinions by GamesBeat community writers do not necessarily reflect those of the staff.
Editor’s note: Music has been a passion of mine since I was very young; I nearly pursued a career in music instead of journalism. The Bitmob Community Jukebox is one of my favorite community features — I edit and plan while listening to the selections. If you haven’t heard your favorite gaming songs yet in the Community Jukebox, post them here! -Jason
In this least seamless of the Bitmob Community Jukeboxes, it was impossible to pick out a common thread in the songs. Your selections, my selections — they’re all over the place!
That doesn’t it stop it from being a pretty awesome playlist.
Hit the jump to enjoy sweeping piano pieces, a well-known 8-bit tune (as well a couple of lesser known ditties), a funky boogie, and a classic punk song.
As always, newcomers should make sure to check out the latter portion of the post for submission instructions.
I’ve got two ways to make your ears happy:
Method 1: Pick and Choose
My Selections
1) Final Fantasy 10 — Besaid Island
2) Blueberry Garden — Valse by Daduk
3) Half Minute Hero — Casablanca
4) Micro Machines — Title Screen*
5) Final Fantasy — Mana Palace*
6) Chip ‘N Dale: Rescue Rangers — Stage J*
Community Selections
9) P.O.W.: Prisoners of War — Power-up Gauntlet* suggested by Jasmine Maleficent Rea
10) Earthbound — Giygas’ Theme (Pokey Means Business) suggested by Mark T. Whitney
11) Street Fighter Alpha 3 — Brave or Grave suggested by Daniel Feit
12) Courier Crisis — Keep Your Hands on the Boogie (by Hot Chicken Stew) suggested by Travis McReynolds
13) Streets of Rage — Slow Moon suggested by Ryan Conway
14) Super Mario 3 — Stage 2* suggested by Jason Wilson
15. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 — You (by Bad Religion) suggested by Alex R. Cronk-Young (++good)
Method 2: Let It Ride
(Click here to listen in a separate window.)
For all you newcomers, here’s how it works. Even though I wrote a Meet the Mob post, you should know something important about me. For some reason, over the years my mind has acted as a sort of a Roledex for great videogame ditties. (For all you younger Bitmobbers, a Rolodex is an archaic device that people used to keep important contact information. I guess it’s sort of like an abacus at this point.)
Because of this, every Monday I post 15 well-known and not-so-well-known video game songs for the Bitmob community.
It’s got a catch, however — I don’t provide all of the songs. If the community doesn’t fill out the roster of 15, I fill it out. Most of the songs come from you — hopefully, they’re pieces that I have never heard — and only a few spring from my mental Rolodex.
Ultimately, I’d like enough suggestions that only five — ideally, just one — come from me, thus truly making this the Bitmob Community Jukebox.
It’s important to note that community members receive credit for providing submissions.
The only guidelines are that any submission must be from a nonmusic game or from a music game with original content. Licensed songs are also OK, but they must be from something other than a music game.
This means that Fallout and Grand Theft Auto songs are fair game, but Guitar Hero and Rock Band songs are not. If licensed songs become too prolific, however, I may stop taking them as submissions.
Also, I will try my hardest to find the original names of every submission, but if I can’t, I will give it a name and mark it with an asterisk. In addition, all songs are set to open in a new tab, so feel free to click away and have them play in the background as you surf Bitmob or get some work done.
Songs appear in no particular order whatsoever, but I do list community submissions at the end.
Each week, I choose my favorite submission, The Double-Plus Good Pick of the Week. The winner receives exactly nothing, other than his submission is the last song and gets the “++good” notation next to their entry.
As a small guideline, if you’d like to win the The Double-Plus Good Pick of the Week, try to pick something obscure or, at the very least, recent. We all know titles like Mega Man and Final Fantasy had great music in the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, and I feature songs like these every week (that’s my bread and butter).
But in the interest of keeping the Jukebox new and surprising, if you can come up with a great song that I’ve forgotten or, better yet, have never heard, you’ll have a leg up on the competition. Just keep in mind what I said at the top, and if you’ve read my Meet the Mob, the size of my game case.
Either way, feel free to submit whatever you like. Please. I can’t reinforce this enough: All submissions are welcome.
As an added bonus, I also try to add an immediate comment about the awesomeness of the winner commenter’s song and why everyone else should pay special attention to it. This will be an in-joke for those who keep up.
Most importantly, since I hope to keep doing this for awhile, only one submission per person per each edition of the Bitmob Community Jukebox. That way I’ll have less to parse, and you will be able to submit for an extended period of time. If you submit multiple requests, I will not listen to any of them.
Again, only one submission response per person per post.
James D., read at The Sophist and heard at Sophist Radio