Gamewave

Gamewave is primarily classified as an electronic music genre that was born in the early 1990s with the idea of creating original songs influenced by video game music.

Though the movement had existed for some time, the actual term "Gamewave" was coined in a 2005 article by Matt Martinez who was the keyboardist of the short lived gamewave band called The Rocket Knight Society, which existed sometime between 2003-2004. Martinez used the term to refer to bands from a personal level within the article itself. This was the first article documenting the history of the genre and from which the term was apparently propagated online.cite web | author=Matt Martinez | title=History of Gamewave Music | publisher=The Rocket Knight Society | 2003 | url=http://www.geocities.com/rksparxster/history.html] The term is derived similarly as New Wave.

, a new-wave band from Germany, are considered pioneers of the genre. Aside from Welle:Erdball, there were very few commercial or retail Gamewave artists until the late 90's, particularly in 1998 with the appearance of the Japanese group Metronome, their debut release (circa 2000) was titled "Yapuu ga Shoukansareta Machi". During the same year, Swedish group Machinae Supremacy were founded. Machinae Supremacy did not draw influences from Metronome and played in a considerably different vein, but both bands paralleled each other by combining chiptune music with the rock and orchestra genres.

By 2004-05, Metronome had already released dozens of singles, 5 albums, and 1 DVD. Machinae Supremacy had been allowing their fans to download a line of free MP3s which eventually encouraged the band to release "Deus Ex Machinae", their first album. During this period several similar bands sprung up in Japan including MOSAIC.WAV and YMCK. The Western (mostly North American) scene did not possess many retail gamewave artists, aside from some groups like Colorado's Mr. Pacman. Game-music cover bands like The Advantage, The NESkimos, and The Minibosses were abundant (as were such bands in Japan). groups like the 14 Year Old Girls and HORSE the band were considered game-related artists but not gamewave bands.

Gamewave music and lyrics have strong links with the video game community. Many gamewave bands have somehow been involved with games or game music - Machinae Supremacy composed the OST for Jets N Guns, a PC shooting game, while MOSAIC.WAV were well known for performing eroge theme songs.

Essentially, the genre loosely combines rock, orchestral, and most importantly chiptune elements. Although gamewave always drew from many other genres as well, the 3 mentioned are almost always present. At the same time, each band plays their own niche of music. Machinae Supremacy have a strong emphasis on SID/Metal, YMCK uses classical/jazz melodies, MOSAIC.WAV uses Akihabara Pop culture references (also known as Akiba-Pop) as their primary basis.

Examples of Gamewave albums

* Nyntändo-Schock by - 1993
* Yapuu ga Shoukansareta Machi by Metronome - 2000
* 1Metronome by Metronome - 2003
* We Love Akiba-Pop! by MOSAIC.WAV - 2004
* Family Music by YMCK - 2004
* Vaporware Soundtracks by 8 Bit Weapon - 2005/2006
* Sine Wave Orchestra by FLOPPY - 2006

References