But, I just watched this video on ign about Final Fantasy XIII, and I was surprised when I thought I heard them say that the main theme song was going to be by Leona Lewis, so I rewound the video and listened again... and yeah, that's what they said, Leona Lewis. I was immediately frightened with the idea of an overly dramatic love song like Bleeding Love or Better In Time being the main theme song for a Final Fantasy game. I mean, come on, that's just not Final Fantasy!
And then I realized... "Oh wait, yeah it is..." plus I have Better In Time thumbed up on one of my Pandora Stations. So naturally the first thing I did was do a Google search to hear the song, so enjoy... or not, your choice:
But the purpose of this blog is of course never just to keep you informed. It's to inform you about how I feel on a subject! After listening to the song, I looked down at all the comments (2,644 at the time I'm writing this) and was somewhat shocked to find all the negative feedback it's received:
"...her singing in the song makes it out of place in FFXIII." ~hasseo543
"Lyrics don't fit for the game. Good song, but not right." ~LastDanceUp
And my personal favorite:
"i dont like how this song start its freaking retard n it dont make scene how the **** would anyone think this song would match final fantasy game if they do its their bigest mistk" ~4199232
Feeling (as most people on the internet do) that these people needed to be educated about the facts of Final Fantasy life, I attempted to add my own comment, only to find that I first was required to sign up for a YouTube account. Fair enough, I sign up for accounts that I plan on only using once all the time. Unfortunately, there must be some feud that I thought I remember hearing about in passing, between YouTube and Google as the first thing YouTube did before asking me what snazzy nickname I would be referring to myself as (I was thinking the best choice to show everybody how clever I was would be a bunch of random numbers) was to log out of my Google account. And that's when I realized what a Google fanboy I am... because I thought "That's not worth it to me. I use Chrome, I'm constantly logged into my iGoogle and my Wave. If I logged out, what would happen the next time I started my browser! I would have to re-sync all my bookmarks, log back into my iGoogle!" Internet chaos would ensue, and the collateral damage seemed to great a cost.*
But, if I had signed up for a YouTube account, and I did share my opinion with them, I would have pointed out to them that if the first time they had heard Final Fantasy VIII's Eyes On Me, Kingdom Hearts' Simple and Clean or Legend of Dragoon's If You Still Beleive** (all three main theme songs for an RPG and all three with English lyrics) hadn't been at some pivotal moment of an epic romance, or used as the final word and reminder of an epic adventure, love story or battle that you personally experienced enjoyed and learned from, would you still like those songs as much as you do now? As human we're very good at coupling sounds, images, and smells with experiences. When you hear a song from one of you're favorite video games, more than likely (at first) you're not actually appreciating the melodies and harmonies of the song as much as you're remembering all of your epic struggles, either alone or with virtual loved ones.
So what's my opinion on the song? As a song, I think it's ok, but I don't think I'll have a real opinion of it until I see and feel what experiences are coupled with it. I do however find it an interesting (and exciting) move for Square-Enix to get such a mainstream and popular American entertainer to write and perform their main theme song.
then I would have told them that if their nickname was in fact referring to a US Patent then they should have a better understanding of how important their public internet appearance is than what they portrayed in their YouTube comment.
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*That won't seem as funny when it's not 1:30 in the morning and I'm struggling to even think straight at work for the rest of this week... >_<
**feel free to replace these songs with any of your favorite video game songs that you would not have liked if you had heard somewhere else first
How the crap did you figure out that his screen name related to a patent.....But I tend to agree with you. Some songs are just good songs but other songs are good because they are associated with a certain memory.
ReplyDeleteYou know that I have Simple and Clean on my playlist (twice!) and every time I hear it I get the urge to go play Kingdom Hearts :P
ReplyDeleteBTW Eyes on Me was actually written by Nobuo Uematsu, but performed by Faye Wong. I doubt it would have the same effect if he sung it himself - lol
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