Protoculture: Chiptunes

Chiptunes occupy a strange space in the music world. Using circuit-bent electronics and computers to create bleeps and bloops in real time to create a song, the process was pioneered in the interest of creating music for early video games, but since then has evolved into a different animal altogether. While some chiptunes artists like to stay within the confines of creating and recreating video game music, many have used it to create original works that should impress even 'non-gamers,' at least in the technicality of composition.

But, non-gamers are obviously not really the main demographic for this genre of music. Even though chiptunes don't make any conscious effort to exclude the less nerdy, the sounds produced by the Sega Genesis and Nintendo are inherently off-putting to anyone that doesn't know the Konami Code or how to skip between worlds in Mario Bros. 3. And, quite frankly, this is a tragic state of existence for such a creative and interesting part of the musical universe.

To be honest, I was not particularly thrilled about the idea of chiptunes when I first heard about it despite being an avid video game player ever since I could understand that the object in Tetris was not, as I used to believe, to build a robot. But, after a bit of exploration, I figured out that I was making the critical error of being prejudiced against an all-too-general genre that I incorrectly guessed the conventions of. The problem was that I thought chiptunes were just video game music and/or what is known as nerdcore when, in fact, chiptunes are only partially game music and have little to do with the nerdcore scene.




It took me until winter break of this year to realize that chiptunes were not purely game nostalgia. This epiphany struck me when I attended MAGfest, a four day event dedicated to music and games (that's where the MAG comes from), at which I found myself having one of the most fun nights in recent memory at a late night chiptunes concert. The way it worked was simple: chiptunes artists would come on stage and play a sort of DJ set of their tunes and the crowd would go nuts and dance the night away. While it sounds kind of absurd dancing to something that sounds like it should come out of a Gameboy (and, in some cases, actually is), there didn't seem to be a more unifying experience at the whole event. I believe that this was partially due to the fact that I was at an event full of video game aficionados and we were listening to music that was reminiscent of all of our collective childhoods. But, I also think it was because the music holds up on its own as a unique and fun genre of music.

My friend, who is a current intern over at the KEXP blog out of Seattle sent me a link of some particularly impressive chiptunes for you all to check out too. So, whether or not you already know that Megaman's name in Japan is Rockman, you should check out this free compilation from Chrunchy Records, and enjoy it in its 8-bit glory.