I gave the entire album a listen because the opening didn't grab me. After finishing it off I can confidently say that this album does a great job of replicating that weird and wonderful nature of Marathon that I felt when first playing it all those years ago. Fantastic work, this one is going in my favorites.
For the record, if you see any ads on this, I didn’t put them there, don’t want them there, and don’t make a cent from the damn things. I’m half-tempted to just delete this video because I’m that infuriated by RUclips profiting off my work. (I’m pretty sure I spent at least a hundred hours arranging, mixing, and mastering this album.) But instead, I’ll just pin this post strongly encouraging you to use an adblocker for any and all videos on my channel. (uBlock Origin seems to work well.) To be clear, I don’t and will never run ads on this channel. Even if I didn’t feel ambivalent about advertising at the best of times and possess a fundamental distaste for it at the worst, I still wouldn’t run ads on this channel because too much of what I post is other people’s gameplay, and I have absolutely no desire to profit off that. However, RUclips just decided to run ads on this video without my consent. Because they’re leeches. The only videos on my channel where I’d tolerate RUclips running ads without protest are videos of other people’s music, like the metal remasters and vinyl rips I posted several years ago - and that’s only assuming that most of the ad revenue went to the musicians (e.g., Krallice, Deathspell Omega, The Chasm, or Fen). Likewise, if this were just a case of “most of the ad money goes to Alexander Seropian,” I could tolerate that - he is the original composer, after all, and if he wants royalties from his music, he’s entitled to them. But as far as I can tell, that’s not what’s happening here - there’s no copyright claim on the video. This is just RUclips being opportunistic. And because of this, I can no longer trust that ads on any other music videos I’ve posted are going to _their_ respective creators. So, again, I strongly encourage use of an adblocker on my videos.
I'm loving the reimagined 'Aliens Again!' The piano strokes give it such a chaotic energy, but also gifts an ethereal undertone beneath the guitar riffs. Its like the wonder of science fantasy embodied in musical form!
New Pacific (reprise) was especially good. It really hits hard. I was recently exposed to the Marathon trilogy and I have become addicted to the game. Marathon 1's OST is one of the best most atmospheric OSTs I have ever heard for a boomer shooter. Thank you so much for keeping this OST alive with your fantastic remixes.
Thanks! Ambient (Brian Eno in particular, as I’ve already mentioned elsewhere) and choral music (especially Bach - Western music as we know it wouldn’t exist without Bach) were definitely influences on some of these tracks; of course, there are tracks influenced by genres like black metal as well. The Pfhor ship tracks are influenced by both. I enjoy the contrast. (And if you enjoy the vocals, maybe you’d appreciate the Eternal 1.3 soundtrack: 1drv.ms/u/s!AuD0MykSsmaRnUJawmCYx8my2zSS?e=ECcjQf Tracks 36 and 51 have four-part harmonies! Though 51 is a huge spoiler for the game if you speak Latin well enough to understand the lyrics. Then again, I can barely understand them, and I wrote them!)
Great stuff, at times almost completely unrecognizable (in a good way), and quite ambitious! Great listen for those wanting a fresh take on the motifs and melodies of this old obscure game soundtrack.
This is fantastic! I've been listening through while doing my work. I love Marathon, and progressive rock of the 70's is my favorite musical genre, so this really is a perfect fit for me. I appreciate your work!
I wasn't sold at first, but after listening a couple times Fat Man is absolutely divine. I've mind to loop it for my own uses. Thanks for this great work, the other songs are also reimagined wonderfully.
Another gem is revealed to me by the shifting binary flows of the algorithm. Thank you, oh vidmasters, for my ears shall savior this electronic rapture and follow it deep into the dark paths.
this isn’t even the half of it rē Flippant. see track 39 here: 1drv.ms/u/s!AuD0MykSsmaRnUJawmCYx8my2zSS?e=ECcjQf (a collaboration with Talashar and wowbobwow, but I had at least some input into every movement) (this hasn’t been uploaded to RUclips yet because it’s still very much a work in progress) anyway, glad you’ve enjoyed it!
glad you enjoy it! from what i recall, i think that’s what i was going for - perhaps the operative phrase could be “organized chaos”. it’s paradoxical, but so is the track in an odd way. it also contains two arrangements of the song spliced together, one of which i refer to as the metal version and the other of which i refer to as the “Future Disco” version for probably obvious reasons. i’m actually quite fond of dissonance, though i don’t think it really came out much in this collection. two of my favourite artists of all time are Deathspell Omega and Gorguts, two _very_ intense metal bands who are known for pioneering dissonant songwriting in (respectively) black metal and death metal (though i think their use of dissonance is sometimes overstated - even _Fas - ite, maledicti, in ignem aeternum_ has plenty of melodic leads, especially in its second half). that said, i think their influence on this collection is probably quite oblique. the most obvious example is the Pfhor ship songs, where i was combining choral music and black metal - i’m pretty sure Deathspell Omega’s “Carnal Malefactor” subconsciously inspired this approach. it’s one of those songs that lives rent-free in my head, along with Genesis’ “Supper’s Ready”, Rush’s “YYZ”, and literally all of the Beastie Boys’ _Paul’s Boutique._ most of the metal here is more influenced by traditional heavy metal songwriting, though, as much of it is based in blues scales, which are central to traditional heavy metal and less often found in subgenres like black metal, whose songwriting often tends to be closer to Romantic or Classical harmony (e.g., Sacramentum), or just throws the rulebook out the window entirely. though there _are_ death and black metal bands that use blues scales (e.g., Opeth and Dissection). there are a lot of layers in many of these tracks. i leaned pretty heavily on arpeggiation (which I think was due in part to another black metal band, Windir, and in part to Brian Eno, whose Oblique Strategies are based around the idea of incorporating randomness and accidents into one’s work). i don’t think there’s a single track on this album that doesn’t have at least some uses of the arpeggiator. (i wasn’t planning to use it for “Swirls”, but i tried it anyway and liked the results.) i’ve been thinking about releasing stems for some of these tracks if people are curious to hear all the layers. there are a lot of them. i do not know why i wrote such a long comment here, other than that i like talking about music. but hopefully some of it was enlightening.
I haven’t yet, but if you go to the OneDrive link in the description: 1drv.ms/u/s!AuD0MykSsmaRph-QWQl1PmXFYmsh?e=qrMk9B page 3 of Info.pdf has installation instructions. It still works the same way for the Steam version, as it’s literally just Aleph One - just find your Marathon 1* folder in Steam and follow the instructions in the liner notes. i might figure out Steam Workshop releases this weekend, though. *i will never adopt the name “Classic Marathon”, just as i will never adopt Elon’s new name for that microblogging website. now get off my lawn
@@PormithipicusProductions don’t worry about it - i’m not sure there’s a widespread stigma. i’m mostly just annoyed that it doesn’t sort under M in my Steam library, as Yrro intended. i would also have accepted “Marathon (1994)” or something along those lines (it worked for Doom, right?)
i’m not entirely sure what you mean. if you mean “as downloads”, they were available as individual FLAC files weeks before this video even existed. see the video description for a link. if you want some other format, FLAC is lossless, so you can convert them to literally any format you like, with whatever bitrate and other settings suit your purpose, for your own personal use. (however, note that the license I distribute them under [Creative Commons - Attribution - Non-Commercial - No Derivatives] explicitly forbids _redistributing_ modified or incomplete versions without my consent.) if you mean “release them _as separate videos”,_ there are several reasons i’d prefer not to. if there’s sufficient demand for them, i may relent and do so anyway, but it wouldn’t be for quite some time.
this.. sounds more like Spore 2 than Modernized Marathon. I know Modernized wasn't your intention, I read the description. But man, I'm feeling like my headspace is multitasking shooting pfhor and using Create-A-Creature.
I haven’t heard the _Spore_ soundtrack and have no idea what it sounds like, but seeing that Brian Eno worked on it makes me want to fix that; Eno is a huge influence on not just my musical style but my entire way of thinking about the process of artistic creation, and I rather doubt the resemblance is coincidental, especially since generative music bears some resemblance to the arpeggiation I made a central part of my composition process. But yes, ‘modernised’ is nearly the opposite of what I intended here. If it sounds like it’s: a. from an alternate timeline where ’70s rock music was recorded with ’80s production, then became an even stronger basis for ’90s game music than it was in ours, or b. the ’90s JRPG arranged album _Marathon_ never got due to the unfortunate detail of _technically_ not being a JRPG, then I pulled off what I intended.
I’ll just quote the album liner notes ( 1drv.ms/b/s!AuD0MykSsmaRqHp4u_8cmb4OF72b?e=u0LPx5 ): “This song’s main drum machine pattern is very blatantly stolen from the song that taught everyone what gated reverb was in the first place (‘In the Air Tonight’, of course). Then again, the pattern was apparently taken from a Roland CR-78 demo, but nonetheless, I give Phil Collins an acknowledgement since I very definitely did steal that drum fill from him. I doubt I even need to tell you what drum fill it was - you’ve already guessed.”
I gave the entire album a listen because the opening didn't grab me. After finishing it off I can confidently say that this album does a great job of replicating that weird and wonderful nature of Marathon that I felt when first playing it all those years ago. Fantastic work, this one is going in my favorites.
For the record, if you see any ads on this, I didn’t put them there, don’t want them there, and don’t make a cent from the damn things. I’m half-tempted to just delete this video because I’m that infuriated by RUclips profiting off my work. (I’m pretty sure I spent at least a hundred hours arranging, mixing, and mastering this album.) But instead, I’ll just pin this post strongly encouraging you to use an adblocker for any and all videos on my channel. (uBlock Origin seems to work well.)
To be clear, I don’t and will never run ads on this channel. Even if I didn’t feel ambivalent about advertising at the best of times and possess a fundamental distaste for it at the worst, I still wouldn’t run ads on this channel because too much of what I post is other people’s gameplay, and I have absolutely no desire to profit off that. However, RUclips just decided to run ads on this video without my consent. Because they’re leeches.
The only videos on my channel where I’d tolerate RUclips running ads without protest are videos of other people’s music, like the metal remasters and vinyl rips I posted several years ago - and that’s only assuming that most of the ad revenue went to the musicians (e.g., Krallice, Deathspell Omega, The Chasm, or Fen). Likewise, if this were just a case of “most of the ad money goes to Alexander Seropian,” I could tolerate that - he is the original composer, after all, and if he wants royalties from his music, he’s entitled to them. But as far as I can tell, that’s not what’s happening here - there’s no copyright claim on the video. This is just RUclips being opportunistic. And because of this, I can no longer trust that ads on any other music videos I’ve posted are going to _their_ respective creators. So, again, I strongly encourage use of an adblocker on my videos.
Adds are nauseating. It’s not just you my friend. Thank you for this awesome upload. I will favorite this. You friggin rock!
@@DeathWithinTenSteps I second that statement!
The RUclips algorithm is in a stage of rampancy with it's ad-bombing.
@@sphtpfhorbrains3592 I hope it achieves Meta-Stability someday...
why did they even put ads on that vid
you're not using any copyrighted stuff or anything like that
Just seeing that someone continues to put effort in to interpreting stuff from my absolute no. 1 favorite game makes this hard day a little easier.
I'm loving the reimagined 'Aliens Again!' The piano strokes give it such a chaotic energy, but also gifts an ethereal undertone beneath the guitar riffs. Its like the wonder of science fantasy embodied in musical form!
New Pacific (reprise) was especially good. It really hits hard.
I was recently exposed to the Marathon trilogy and I have become addicted to the game. Marathon 1's OST is one of the best most atmospheric OSTs I have ever heard for a boomer shooter.
Thank you so much for keeping this OST alive with your fantastic remixes.
As fan of the original music, I don't have a problem with it, in fact I really like your take on them.
31:09 B3. Landing: great jorb!
Some of these sound way ambiental and oddly holy or evangelical with the beautiful vocals, I really dig it.
Thanks! Ambient (Brian Eno in particular, as I’ve already mentioned elsewhere) and choral music (especially Bach - Western music as we know it wouldn’t exist without Bach) were definitely influences on some of these tracks; of course, there are tracks influenced by genres like black metal as well. The Pfhor ship tracks are influenced by both. I enjoy the contrast.
(And if you enjoy the vocals, maybe you’d appreciate the Eternal 1.3 soundtrack: 1drv.ms/u/s!AuD0MykSsmaRnUJawmCYx8my2zSS?e=ECcjQf Tracks 36 and 51 have four-part harmonies! Though 51 is a huge spoiler for the game if you speak Latin well enough to understand the lyrics. Then again, I can barely understand them, and I wrote them!)
Thanks for the work you do. Makes me happy people still show a lot of love for this game
Great stuff, at times almost completely unrecognizable (in a good way), and quite ambitious!
Great listen for those wanting a fresh take on the motifs and melodies of this old obscure game soundtrack.
This is fantastic! I've been listening through while doing my work. I love Marathon, and progressive rock of the 70's is my favorite musical genre, so this really is a perfect fit for me. I appreciate your work!
I wasn't sold at first, but after listening a couple times Fat Man is absolutely divine. I've mind to loop it for my own uses. Thanks for this great work, the other songs are also reimagined wonderfully.
Yea. Thanks for the work you do. Glad to be able experience this.
You've really outdone yourself! Thank-you for all of the work that you have put in!
That’s an amazing render of a S’pht Compiler!
the alien themes are great, my best memories are about those levels and the music
my mans really got THE Phil Collins for a Marathon album
Another gem is revealed to me by the shifting binary flows of the algorithm. Thank you, oh vidmasters, for my ears shall savior this electronic rapture and follow it deep into the dark paths.
You have no business making Flippant go this hard.
Leela is also incredibly majestic, and sound mystical even.
this isn’t even the half of it rē Flippant. see track 39 here: 1drv.ms/u/s!AuD0MykSsmaRnUJawmCYx8my2zSS?e=ECcjQf (a collaboration with Talashar and wowbobwow, but I had at least some input into every movement)
(this hasn’t been uploaded to RUclips yet because it’s still very much a work in progress)
anyway, glad you’ve enjoyed it!
I do not understand what is going on with Rushing - a part of me wants to say it is a cacophony but I like it a lot!
glad you enjoy it! from what i recall, i think that’s what i was going for - perhaps the operative phrase could be “organized chaos”. it’s paradoxical, but so is the track in an odd way. it also contains two arrangements of the song spliced together, one of which i refer to as the metal version and the other of which i refer to as the “Future Disco” version for probably obvious reasons.
i’m actually quite fond of dissonance, though i don’t think it really came out much in this collection. two of my favourite artists of all time are Deathspell Omega and Gorguts, two _very_ intense metal bands who are known for pioneering dissonant songwriting in (respectively) black metal and death metal (though i think their use of dissonance is sometimes overstated - even _Fas - ite, maledicti, in ignem aeternum_ has plenty of melodic leads, especially in its second half).
that said, i think their influence on this collection is probably quite oblique. the most obvious example is the Pfhor ship songs, where i was combining choral music and black metal - i’m pretty sure Deathspell Omega’s “Carnal Malefactor” subconsciously inspired this approach. it’s one of those songs that lives rent-free in my head, along with Genesis’ “Supper’s Ready”, Rush’s “YYZ”, and literally all of the Beastie Boys’ _Paul’s Boutique._
most of the metal here is more influenced by traditional heavy metal songwriting, though, as much of it is based in blues scales, which are central to traditional heavy metal and less often found in subgenres like black metal, whose songwriting often tends to be closer to Romantic or Classical harmony (e.g., Sacramentum), or just throws the rulebook out the window entirely. though there _are_ death and black metal bands that use blues scales (e.g., Opeth and Dissection).
there are a lot of layers in many of these tracks. i leaned pretty heavily on arpeggiation (which I think was due in part to another black metal band, Windir, and in part to Brian Eno, whose Oblique Strategies are based around the idea of incorporating randomness and accidents into one’s work). i don’t think there’s a single track on this album that doesn’t have at least some uses of the arpeggiator. (i wasn’t planning to use it for “Swirls”, but i tried it anyway and liked the results.)
i’ve been thinking about releasing stems for some of these tracks if people are curious to hear all the layers. there are a lot of them.
i do not know why i wrote such a long comment here, other than that i like talking about music. but hopefully some of it was enlightening.
Nailed Swirls
Can I download this, buy it or stream it from another service than RUclips?
Yes. See the album description for a link.
Nice soundtrack but why AI on cover?
Jaw-dropping. My eternal respect for keeping my precious game and its spirit alive.🥹
Has anyone made this a mod for the marathon 1* on steam??
I haven’t yet, but if you go to the OneDrive link in the description: 1drv.ms/u/s!AuD0MykSsmaRph-QWQl1PmXFYmsh?e=qrMk9B page 3 of Info.pdf has installation instructions. It still works the same way for the Steam version, as it’s literally just Aleph One - just find your Marathon 1* folder in Steam and follow the instructions in the liner notes.
i might figure out Steam Workshop releases this weekend, though.
*i will never adopt the name “Classic Marathon”, just as i will never adopt Elon’s new name for that microblogging website. now get off my lawn
@@MarathonVidmaster sorry, im new and wasn’t aware of the stigma. marathon 1 I’ll call it instead
@@PormithipicusProductions don’t worry about it - i’m not sure there’s a widespread stigma. i’m mostly just annoyed that it doesn’t sort under M in my Steam library, as Yrro intended. i would also have accepted “Marathon (1994)” or something along those lines (it worked for Doom, right?)
@@MarathonVidmaster ah fair and True
are you ever going to release them separately
i’m not entirely sure what you mean. if you mean “as downloads”, they were available as individual FLAC files weeks before this video even existed. see the video description for a link. if you want some other format, FLAC is lossless, so you can convert them to literally any format you like, with whatever bitrate and other settings suit your purpose, for your own personal use. (however, note that the license I distribute them under [Creative Commons - Attribution - Non-Commercial - No Derivatives] explicitly forbids _redistributing_ modified or incomplete versions without my consent.)
if you mean “release them _as separate videos”,_ there are several reasons i’d prefer not to. if there’s sufficient demand for them, i may relent and do so anyway, but it wouldn’t be for quite some time.
@@MarathonVidmaster i meant the video format
this.. sounds more like Spore 2 than Modernized Marathon.
I know Modernized wasn't your intention, I read the description. But man, I'm feeling like my headspace is multitasking shooting pfhor and using Create-A-Creature.
I haven’t heard the _Spore_ soundtrack and have no idea what it sounds like, but seeing that Brian Eno worked on it makes me want to fix that; Eno is a huge influence on not just my musical style but my entire way of thinking about the process of artistic creation, and I rather doubt the resemblance is coincidental, especially since generative music bears some resemblance to the arpeggiation I made a central part of my composition process.
But yes, ‘modernised’ is nearly the opposite of what I intended here. If it sounds like it’s:
a. from an alternate timeline where ’70s rock music was recorded with ’80s production, then became an even stronger basis for ’90s game music than it was in ours, or
b. the ’90s JRPG arranged album _Marathon_ never got due to the unfortunate detail of _technically_ not being a JRPG,
then I pulled off what I intended.
"A5: Phil Collins"
...excuse me?
I’ll just quote the album liner notes ( 1drv.ms/b/s!AuD0MykSsmaRqHp4u_8cmb4OF72b?e=u0LPx5 ):
“This song’s main drum machine pattern is very blatantly stolen from the song that taught everyone what gated reverb was in the first place (‘In the Air Tonight’, of course). Then again, the pattern was apparently taken from a Roland CR-78 demo, but nonetheless, I give Phil Collins an acknowledgement since I very definitely did steal that drum fill from him. I doubt I even need to tell you what drum fill it was - you’ve already guessed.”
@@MarathonVidmaster Ah, that makes sense! Well done!
Aliens again is too different for my liking.