Subjects: Music 音楽

Xenosaga or Xenogears?

23 Mar 2001, 3:10-3:30 PM

The Xenosaga album by Yasunori Mitsuda has been getting quite a bit of flak from fans expecting a followup to Xenogears. The following was a reply I made to a post in the Gamingforce.com forums titled “What is better Xenosaga OST or Xenogears OST?”.

Well in my opinon, I’ve been listening to the Xenosaga soundtrack for the past few days. And as an album, I prefer Xenosaga to Xenogears because the tracks in Xenosaga have more flow than Xenogears. I can say that this is partly due to the fact that Xenosaga was composed for the PS2 which allows for more performed instrumentation rather than sequenced music.

The Xenogears OST had some really fantastic tunes, the opening track, for instance, surpasses the opening track in Xenosaga. The bulk of the standout tunes were in the end of second album in the Id and final boss themes. But the soundtrack on the overall was uneven. In terms of game background music, some of the tracks are perfect, but when it comes down to the purpose of cd music, they are merely filler. However, the reason why I think people love the Xenogears OST (which I do btw) is because the music at the end covers up the deficiencies scattered in the rest of the album. I’m sure a lot of Xenogears fans put the last tracks (“Alpha and Omega”, “One Who Bares Fangs at God” et al.) on repeat mode far more often than the earlier songs in the CD. There could be exceptions I guess, but that’s what I think anyway.

Subjects: Music 音楽

Mood: Raves and Rants

Tags: Creid, game music, Led Zeppelin, Mitsuda Yasunori 光田康典, Presence, soundtrack, Xenogears, Xenosaga

Hamburg 1973

This picture I made for the CD cover of one of my Led Zeppelin concert bootlegs. I used a picture of the Graf Zeppelin (if I recall correctly) and merged it with a photograph of the sky. I altered the colours, and used some difference effects to get the result shown in the right.

Hamburg 1973

Subjects: Music 音楽

Tags: bootleg, CD, Led Zeppelin

Ayers Rock (No Label)

This Sydney concert was treed in the Led Zeppelin community. I made this insert primarily because there wasn’t any official artwork for it. There were of course, artwork for the bootleg releases which utilised the same tapes for the sources, but they just weren’t the same.

The picture is actually a composite of 5 separate images. I’m not going to name them, though some are quite obvious. I just thought it was a nice idea to put The Object (that’s 1 out of 5) of Led Zeppelin’s album ‘Presence’ into the foreground. The ‘microlith’ vs. the Australian monolith. I was told that the whole thing looked surreal, but that, quite obviously, was my intention.

Front Cover

Ayers Rock (No Label) - Front Cover

Subjects: Music 音楽

Tags: bootleg, CD, Led Zeppelin, photoshop, Presence

Achilles Last Stand

Just today, I was feeling bored while taking a long trip to town in a public bus. So I plugged into my Discman, and played one of my all-time favourite cds: Led Zeppelin’s Presence. As the introductions to the first song Achilles Last Stand delivered through the miniature earpieces, several thoughts came into my mind. Although this was not the first time I felt this way, for some reason or another, this time, I felt the need to put down my thoughts into words:

Achilles Last Stand, is in my opinion, the archetypical rock song. It combines layers of magnificent guitar-playing, evocative lyrics, together with hard-hitting vocals and a rock-solid rhythm track. From the incandescent siren-like guitar solo, filled with Spanish-styled arpeggios, accompanied by subtle (yet brutal) harmonics and octaves… to the extraordinary paramilitary drumming - enhanced by the pounding bass line… to the haunting echo-filled vocals… It was the first real hard rock song I heard, the first song that really got me into the music of Led Zeppelin, and the first song that truly blew my mind.

Subjects: Music 音楽

Mood: Raves and Rants

Tags: Achilles Last Stand, CD, guitar, hard rock, Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin, Presence

Complete Finland (1970)

Front Cover

I made this bootleg CD insert because the ‘official’ artwork wasn’t quite to my liking. So I made this picture using a photograph of a Zeppelin plane against a digitally altered photo of the Aurora Borealis (The Northern Lights). I went to Finland in 1999 and it was the first time I got to see the awesome display of this natural phenomena. Although the artwork isn’t great, I think it brings back memories of surreal 3D-rendered artwork in the early 90s.

Complete Finland (1970) - Front Cover

Subjects: Music 音楽

Tags: 3D, aurora borealis, bootleg, CD, Finland, Led Zeppelin, photoshop