Board 8 > FL81 Ranks 140 Songs (Ranking Phase)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Well, yeah, I already said you were the initial nominator! Er, at least that's what I meant to say. A'ight, looks like an affirmative on my nominating Over-Nove, then. Don't feel like you have to support it, though... (I don't like placing those kinds on demands on people)

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Spoiler: In this topic full of "real" songs, the top 5 are all VGM.

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At least one isn't!

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3/5 top 5 are VGM!!

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I was about to say I don't have any sense of what would be left and was going to ask if a songs left list was posted, but then I looked at post #1 and how this topic started in 2019 and still is barely half full. Wow.

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azuarc posted...

I was about to say I don't have any sense of what would be left and was going to ask if a songs left list was posted, but then I looked at post #1 and how this topic started in 2019 and still is barely half full. Wow.

The top 40 was posted uhhhh all the way back here
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78182756/944931027

posting top 3 right now would kinda ruin the SUSPENSE

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#3 Diablo Swing Orchestra - A Tap Dancer's Dilemma
Rating: 10/10
Have I heard this before?: Yes
Nominator: @NBIceman (1/5)
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8Ivkda8UUY

YOOOOO DSO! So the funniest thing about this being nominated is that this song is one of my staple go-tos for nominating in others' music ranking topics! I don't know if that was intentional on your part (I think it's actually been a couple years since I nominated this for a ranking), but usually I'll drop this song in or my other favorite DSO song Black Box Messiah.

Okay so this song is absolutely crazy. This is sort of a thing common to all three of the top 3 songs nominated (all "FL81's weird taste" selections rather than the obvious power metal picks). I totally love when songs mix together way different genres that have absolutely no place being anywhere near one another (Kobaryo - The Lightning Sword earlier in the ranking did something like this too). A Tap Dancer's Dilemma is Swing Metal, to this day the absolute craziest fusion of any two genres I have ever heard, and while this should not work, it totally does and I love it!!

There's one thing I feel never gets enough appreciation in this song, and that's the vocalists' work in this. The first dude sounds like some old timey preacher singing about fire and brimstone, then the falsetto vocals in the middle of the song are crazy. The sheer variety of instruments used in this provides a unique experience, that guitar at 2:06 probably being my favorite part but this whole song is perfect.

I am very, very surprised that two songs were nominated that actually placed above this. Normally this would've been a totally safe #1 pick!

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I got The Butcher's Ballrom back in the day, really enjoyed it, then proceeded to never get another album by them again. I have no idea why.

This is a good reminder that I should change that.

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Damn! Thought I may have been going all the way.

No, I had no idea that was one of your go-tos when I threw it in; it just happens to be one of mine as well! DSO took a while to grow on me and they can still be somewhat hit or miss for me at times, but when they land, they really land, and Tap Dancer still feels like their magnum opus even if Karma Bonfire and Exit Strategy of a Wrecking Ball occasionally spend brief periods as my favorite.

TheArkOfTurus posted...

I got The Butcher's Ballrom back in the day, really enjoyed it, then proceeded to never get another album by them again. I have no idea why.

This is a good reminder that I should change that.

Sing Along Songs for the Damned and Delirious is a must-listen, I think. I personally say they've gotten a little better with every release, but that second album is still a lot of folks' favorites.

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Wow, that'd probably be like my favorite song back in 2015. I need to listen to more of them
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It actually may have been my favorite song in 2015!

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#2 The Ninja Warriors - Daddy Mulk
Rating: 10/10
Have I heard this before?: Yes
Nominator: @Haste_2 (1/5)
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tTtfMyrYW0

Whoah Haste you must have really good taste in VGM to nominate this. Thank you @sergiocornaga for the cleaner upload of this song, it's a lot better than the video put up by Tazzy that we've been using for years! >_> Also @azuarc the lyrics are clearly DADDY DA-DA-DA-DADDY

Okay so Daddy Mulk is literally my 2nd favorite VGM ever (and by extension my 2nd favorite VGMC retiree ever oh no I spoiled a potential retiree ranking). This was one of my "pet noms" that I first discovered very shortly after joining the B8 VGM community (in 2009 or 2010? it's been a while), and is a song that I was literally going to nominate for VGMC every year until it retired! I actually can't even remember how it was that I first heard this song, it kinda just materialized into my knowledge one day (maybe it was from the original RtVGM project, but I think I actually discovered it shortly before that maybe I was even the original nominator I cannot remember).

I keep getting the Sega CD version and Arcade versions of this song mixed up. Usually it's because for early '90s stuff like this, it's the Arcade soundtrack that's the most high-def. In either case, early '90s Arcade and CD music are both pretty cool in that they fit that small niche of being "retro VGM" while at the same time not being constrained by the hardware limitations of SNES or Genesis soundchips.

Taito has always had a crazy sound team and I love all the work they have done. Hisayoshi Ogura in particular is a top 10/maybe top 5 composer ever in my view, and always throws in the weirdest sounds that end up having a really solid groove coaster. Here's a song with one of the catchiest melodies ever, bizarre vocal samples, cool instruments, and my favorite part a shamisen solo!!!! Seriously, how many songs even do this??? (This version of Daddy Mulk is my favorite as far as VGMC-legal goes, but my all-time favorite is the live performance by Zuntata themselves)

Daddy Mulk is one of those really impactful songs and got me to check out a bunch of other classic '90s VGM (thank you YouTube algorithm for recommending me other cool stuff too like Last Armageddon - Battle Music and Night Striker - Burning Road which I'm pretty sure I got linked too off of this originally). I could actually very easily throw this in as #1 BUT THE #1 SONG IS BRAND NEW and it's more fun that way, really though they're tied

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#1 Thank You Scientist - Life of Vermin
Rating: 10/10
Have I heard this before?: No
Nominator: @TheArkOfTurus (1/5)
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gWYIZ9HNKs

Whoah, Hoenn's prog rock scene is totally poppin'

Really though the very first thing I thought when I heard this song is how much it reminds me of Gen 3 Pokmon music >_>

Anyone else? Is it just me?? <_<

The very trumpet-forward rock song reminds me a lot of that Pokmon R/S/E medley by Dr. Pez more specifically. okay really someone needs to remake this with an R/S/E soundfont like they did the Dvorak piece I can totally see this as a champion battle theme Y'know for how much I complain about trumpets it is pretty ironic that ALL OF MY TOP THREE SONGS all prominently feature the instrument! After listening to this many, many times (the most relistened to song of mine in this whole set of nominations), the more I think about it, the more I ponder "wait, what genre even is this??" On the surface it's prog rock, but at the same time you could literally also call this jazz, like straight up jazz! It's a very cool fusion of two genres just like the rank #3 song, but it's blended so smoothly and seemlessly together that it very much sounds like its own unique thing. I have never heard anything else like this!! I'll say it again, but I love it when two genres of music I love are mixed together, but this song is special in how it feels completely natural. This is the peak of "FL81 weird tastes".

That bossa nova guitar at 4:06 works so well AAAAHHHHHHH with trumpets giving a caf vibe but also ELECTRIC GUITAR and DRUMS reminding us that yes this is in fact a rock song too! The singer is totally into this too, another song with a cool vocal style. COWARD IT'S TiME YOU TASTED.... DEFEAT

When this song first popped up into nominations and I listened to it I was like "Yep, this is already the strongest contender for #1". why surrender battles I have won After listening to it again and again and again, I never got sick of it. Even relistening to it now, this still feels very fresh and exciting, and I feel like there's always something new to discover and unpack with each time I listen to this again. This never gets boring!!

Thank You Scientist, more like Thank You TheArkOfTurus for nominating this kick ass song!!

Thank you all for sticking along for this project of mine. It ended up taking a lot more time than I had initially planned with everything in my personal life going on (will wait for things to stabilize before I undertake something like this again), but I appreciate all of your patience in all of this! I was able to get it all done before VGMC at least!

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FL81 posted...

Also @azuarc the lyrics are clearly DADDY DA-DA-DA-DADDY

I stand by this.



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When I saw "You have been mentioned in 1 message board post" my first thought was "aw man, another song eliminated in rwlh's topic already" so this was a pleasant surprise. And what an exciting conclusion! Congratulations on reaching the end. There are so many different versions of Daddy Mulk out there that sometimes I think it needs a ranking topic all to itself.

Pretty good choice for #1 imho.

I had a pretty hard time figuring out which song from that album to nominate. Can't say I see the R/S/E comparison, but I need to listen to more of Dr. Pez's stuff after randomly being recommended their Ocarina of Time as a prog rock concept album video a week ago.

Thanks for doing this ranking!

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Congratulations on completing the topic! It was fun.
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Aw, man, so close to getting a #1. Life of Vermin is really awesome, though.

Not sure you know, but Daddy Mulk hasn't been my least favorite retiree for a while! It was moved up to 194th place out of 196! Actually, it probably should have been higher than that because my latest placements were a compromise between past ratings and the newer ratings...

I believe PabloSmith also rated Daddy Mulk a perfect 10.

The quality of sergio's link is much better indeed... looks like I'll have to revise my score up for it again.

I still don't get the huge appeal of Daddy Mulk tbh. I need to go through and listen to these top ten tomorrow
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oh wow thank you scientist.. awesome and something maybne i should have considered for this topic

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Certainly don't mind losing to TYS! Those guys can hardly seem to ever put out a bad track.

Fun topic, thanks for doing it!

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Here's a Google Doc if anyone wants it. It's uhhh, very rudimentary, since it was just a file I had saved locally for personal use. Maybe if I do another project I could make it more in-depth and update it as I go along (like everyone else is doing nowadays)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YTIYT4iuJSJ05dYuEVi4X48lJnaQyl126DrJyjngFCk/edit?usp=sharing

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