While he has recently taken a step back from making full game OSTs and is happily working on his own passion-projects, legendary Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu is still paying close attention to what’s happening in the game industry. In a recent interview with Real Sound, Uematsu spoke about the current state of game music, which is, according to him, “getting less weird.” He also shared advice for up-and-coming composers on how to overcome this slump.
In the past couple of years, Uematsu has made numerous statements about how game music is growing “boring,” but when asked whether this “sense of crisis” comes from the stagnation of the game industry as a whole – he says that’s not quite the case. Instead, he suggests game musicians are losing their creative freedom under the rising pressure of game directors and producers.
“I won’t go as far as to call it stagnation, but I believe directors and producers hold too much power in their hands even when it comes to the music. Even now, game composers aren’t in a position to speak their opinion freely, and no matter how much musical knowledge or technical skills they possess, they’re still in a position where it’s difficult to speak their mind. There are almost no game producers who are well versed in worldwide entertainment and are familiar with a wide variety of musical genres, so anything goes for them as long as you make it sound like a John Williams movie soundtrack.”
While a soundtrack is usually made to fit the image of a game, with the composer being required to completely conform to the game’s existing creative framework, Uematsu says that shouldn’t be the case. He brings up one of his favorite artists, Elton John, who “despite having to be mindful of commercial success, still continued making good music even after releasing his masterpieces in the 70s. In that sense, I think there’s still many things we can do.” Despite the overwhelming circumstances, Uematsu suggests musicians should always be seeking new forms of expression, as that is precisely what keeps music interesting and engaging. “If you make the same stuff as John Williams and grow complacent with that, you’ll get nothing more from it. Now, what if someone put a bit of techno in there – what kind of sound would it become then? I believe that would be a good way to approach music.”
Uematsu notes that this reluctancy to go a step further is also reflected in modern sounds themselves. “The mainstream approach is to use soothing digital synth sounds with a sequencer, without ever letting it break that mold,” he said. “Frankly speaking, there’s less ‘weird things’ now.”
On a related note, Uematsu’s pursuit of unique sounds had him completely reinvent the way he composed when he was tasked with creating Final Fantasy VII’s iconic final battle theme. Apparently, his colleagues weren’t that impressed with the final result, which was made over three challenging weeks of rearranging and combining separate musical segments into a full piece. However, Uematsu did not want to change his artistic vision, and luckily, he managed to convince his team members to keep the battle theme as-is.
