Original Composition vs. OC Remix! Which song is the superior version?

I’ve been doing “ILTS” for quite a while now. Back when it started on OLR’s site, it was just a side project where we would talk about our favorite songs and what we liked about them. It has evolved somewhat throughout the course of the years and now even has a new home here on VOG. Though only once has a song has driven me to do the opposite and write why I hate a song. That “honor” belongs to Final Fantasy XIII-2’s Chocobo theme, “Crazy Chocobo”. I don’t want to give in too much to where this article is heading, but you get the idea.

First off, it’s the OC “Town” by the great Nobuo Uematsu.

 


If you are a gamer, even if you dislike J-RPGs and such, you must know this man and why he is so popular among the community. This guy is a legend among video game composers, there isn’t that much I can say about him that you might already know. I may only say he truly captures each moment in almost every game he has worked with his music. Whether it is a really great moment or a really sad one, the songs really make every single second of the game truly more enjoyable. The “Town” theme from Final Fantasy is one of many examples. 

The Towns in most Final Fantasy games are there to relax, to refill your inventory and rest to recover your stats. So naturally you expect a song that resembles the simple and happy lives the people on towns have, away from the pressure and excitement of being an adventurer. The “Town” theme pretty much does that pretty well. It is such a lovely song to just sit back and listen after a long day of stressful work and grinding.

Now it’s time for the OC Remix “Onward (The Traveling Song)” by John Whelchel and Ryan C. Connelly.

 

Overclocked Remix (or OC Remix for short) home of so many remixes of video game songs; from classical to metal, from electronic to opera even. These songs are made by fans, for the fans. John Whelchel and Ryan C. Connelly are two of them and they have their fair share of collaborations to the site like their song for the album “Final Fantasy: Random Encounter”. This is an homage to Final Fantasy’s 25th Anniversary and Nobuo Uematsu’s career. It also features the song which is a remix of the “Town” theme from FF1.

The song starts with a conversation between the two collaborators talking about how they should do it and you can notice from there that the song is supposed to be funny. When the singing starts, it is pretty good. Ryan has a really good singing voice, it’s almost soothing. And the lyrics pretty much describes what you do in the towns in the game. So far it was enjoyable, but suddenly…

Gimme F, Gimme F, Gimme F now!

My mind didn’t know how to process that first line but it doesn’t stop there. This rap goes on and pretty much ruins a lovely song.

I go from town to town,
Haters say I'm on the prowl
But who can blame me
These chicks straight NPC ~ Hah!

By that point I’m pretty much tired of it, annoyed even. I do get that it is supposed to be taken as a joke, but the joke gets run to the ground really quickly. The song is good, it has lots of potential, even the conversation parts are kind of funny, but the rapping totally really ruins it for me.

Something I said in the “Crazy Chocobo” article was: “The vocals (and lyrics) totally kill whatever positive feeling I had for it and burns it to the ground.” With this song, it’s the rapping. And like I already said, this song is not really bad, heck even the rapping itself (lyrics aside) is good. What I am mostly trying to say is that the song tries to be good and funny but fails in the execution.

R: Hey, what the hell, man?
J: What?
R: I thought we were doing, like, a nice song thing here...
J: I'm only expressing my feelings, dude!
R: You just took a s*** all over my song!

Yeah, that last line pretty much expresses my opinion on this song.

So which version do I prefer here? It is pretty obvious that my choice here is the original by Nobuo Uematsu, since it does its job really. The ambience to it is just marvelous and it shows how Uematsu can do really simple things and make them grand. Do I hate the OC Remix of it? I don’t hate it exactly, but like I said the rapping is enough to make me think this song is bad, truly annoyingly bad.

And while I may not like this OC Remix, it doesn’t mean the rest of the album is terrible. The site itself is full of hits and misses but there are some really great gems there. Heck, even John W. and Ryan C. have another collaboration song that it is really great. It is called Dies Nox et Omnia, it is a “remix” from the game NiGHTS. Check it out because it truly shows their true potential as composers/singers.

So this is it for the first “OC vs. OC Remix”, hopefully it will not be the last. Also “thanks” to Bobby Blackwolf for the “troll” song suggestion and pretty much inspiring this new series of new ILTS articles. So stayed tuned and don’t forget to check the requests thread on the VOG Forums.

Until next time, keep on GIVIN’ F!
(Yeah, I’m shooting myself in the foot for that one…)