[SotW] Song of the Week - Original Piece Time Restriction

PLEASE ONLY VOTE IF YOU PARTICIPATE IN SONG OF THE WEEK

This is a poll on official policy, so I'd appreciate it if only people who vote and/or nominate vote on this matter. If I don't recognize your name, I won't count your vote with the final tally. Thanks in advance.

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This is the easy one!

Should we allow original tracks made at any point in time by a professional VGM composer?

Current SotW rules have no time restriction, so if a professional VGM composer's first game was this year, then a track from his 1954 original album would be eligible. Is this okay? Options:

• Yes
  Keep things the way they are.
• Restrict to after first VGM credit
  Only allow original pieces written after a composer's first VGM credit.
• Other
  <insert alternate plan>
• Abstain/Don't care
  (X ' ___ ' )

Feel free to justify your decisions (especially with an Other vote) and talk amongst yourselves in this thread. I'm going to give this a week for now, but I might end up having a mod extend it by another week if the BSC distracts too many people.

Restricting nominations based upon career is the most sensible option.

If a composer cuts an original album in 1995, then he/she is simply a composer. There is no connection between the work and the VGM industry.

If that composer is later credited on VGM albums, that material and any subsequent original works would be fair game because, by that time, the composer has added the title of "VGM Composer" to his/her resume.

I don't really see any more practical perspective here.

I think I said during SOTW's start-up it should only be VGM tracks, regardless of composer's status. I haven't pressed that (mostly because it's not the end of the world if a small trickle of non-VGM finds its' way into SOTW), but I haven't changed my mind either. If we go by the middle option, nearly all of Yoko Kanno's anime work becomes eligible. If, god forbid, Jeremy Soule goes onto scoring movies full-time, all of that would be available.

So I guess I would vote "no" or "VGM only", but I don't see those up there, so my vote is filed under "other".

Originally Posted by GoldfishX

If we go by the middle option, nearly all of Yoko Kanno's anime work becomes eligible. If, god forbid, Jeremy Soule goes onto scoring movies full-time, all of that would be available.

Licensed work is still ineligible. This matter solves itself.

Originally Posted by GoldfishX

If we go by the middle option, nearly all of Yoko Kanno's anime work becomes eligible. If, god forbid, Jeremy Soule goes onto scoring movies full-time, all of that would be available.

Also, we expressly forbid music written for films, anime, and TV, even by VGM composers. Trying to keep it just to VGM, arrangements, and standalone pieces not tied to anything else.

Well, I can't think of anything off the top of my head where the "standalone" clause could be abused, but I'm sure they're out there. So my opinion remains the same...I still think it should just be VGM/arrangements, but I'm not saying that with an iron fist.

I was thinking of the "Song to Fly" track from awhile ago...I forgot that was VGM and not from Kanno's anime side.

I also think that career choice works, but, if we want to strike a balance somehow, I think the following may work.

I think putting an ineligible list for composers on their work outside of games would work, sort of like the albums that win the competition cannot participate for a while.

So if Yoko Kanno's song that is not a VGM wins a contest, then we can put all her non-VGM songs under a few weeks of ineligibility, so her VGMs can still be appreciated while non-VGM songs can be acknowledged for their excellence.

Your idea, aviness, is interesting but it's really secondary to the particular issue being asked here. We're just trying to establish whether an artist's status as a VGM composer is acceptably retroactive.

Your proposal has more to do with how often their independent work may be nominated. We're talking about backwards eligibility here, not frequency thereof.

I responded to your idea in the other poll thread.

I say we should only allow works composed after their first vgm credit. Ideally, I'd prefer if someone had more than just one vgm score under their belt before their non-vgm became eligible...but wait, that's for the other thread.

It's really hard for me to choose. I think both sides have their points. On one hand, making VGM composer status retroactive can be a cheap way to shoehorn non-VGM music in for musicians who don't even compose much VGM. However, if restrictions were applied to someone who is by and large a VGM composer, it would be a bit sad for any possible pre-VGM work to be dismissed. There are several other factors as well, but I'm not going to dwell on them.

I'm abstaining for now.

Originally Posted by GoldfishX

Well, I can't think of anything off the top of my head where the "standalone" clause could be abused...

Well, technically any kind of pop song or single or album is "original work." Therefore, if someone is considered a VGM composer, any songs/singles/albums they have previously done would technically be elligible. I can think of a few off the top of my head:

Paul Haslinger and Chris Franke have both written VGM, so the songs they co-wrote and performed with Tangerine Dream in the 1980's could technically be elligible.

Danny Elfman wrote the theme for "Fable," so his original classical compositions and Oingo Boingo music could technically be elligible.

I would personally prefer to restrict nominations to VGM only (including rips, unused tracks, alternates, etc.) but I'm not sure that's a good ironclad rule to lay down. I think that limiting "original works" to those after the first VGM credit (and, of course, subjecting them to community approval) is more practical, since most of the examples that I've cited would therefore be excluded.

Technically, Elfman's "Serenada Schizophrana" would be elligible still, but I'm guessing that the community would react negatively to the nomination of a classical work written by someone with only a single VGM track to their credit (or so I would hope ).

I like two plans:

1. Just VGM. Make it simple.

2. Case-by-case basis and discussion currently. I think if there are some who are clearly vgm composers (Uematsu, Brandon, whoever), any of their original stuff not in other mediums is fair game. Elfman, on the other hand, would be ludicrous. The gray area in between can be hashed out.

As long as the composer in question is established to be a professional VGM composer, I don't see why we can't allow his/her past works for the sake of rediscovering their origins/roots or whatever. My reasoning is, if they are currently considered professional, wouldn't their older, standalone projects be pretty much in the same vein, and was a factor of them becoming professionals?

With the current rules, recent works for www.ssh.ne.jp has been allowed, even though they weren't technically VGM. This should work in retrospect, too. Just my 2 cents.

As long as the word "licensed" handles all of the Kanno tracks from her anime compositions, then a restriction for compositions after the first game OST would work, in my opinion.

I vote yes, leave things the way they are, because, you know what, if someone can dig up something off the wall like that, kudos to them. And not everyone is going to abuse this system, the every once and awhile a track gets nominated that barely relates to vgm yet falls within the rules would be nice.

I'm not really in favor of original tracks period. I'd rather keep things just to concept albums if anything.

But if you're gonna allow original/non-VGM noms, then do all tracks, no matter the creation date. Let it ride.

Removing Gechmir's vote of "Restrict to after first VGM credit" (play Cave Story instead of stuffing the ballot box ), there is a seven vote plurality for yes, so the rules will remain the same regarding this issue.

Wait, why is Gechmir's vote no good?