PA + orchestral music = honey + herring = crap

American games have too much classical music in them. I think classical music is OK but it doesn't fit in all games and it especially doesn't fit in Supreme Commander (SupCom), SupCom: Forged Alliance (FA) and Planetary Annihilation!!! Why??? Because it doesn't fit. Planetary Annihilation is not about 19th or 18th century Earth!!! It is about technology -about hi-tech warfare, maybe some time in future or maybe in the past. It is definitively about hi-tech warfare that takes advantage of cybernetics and quantum mechanical shits and giggles!!! What kind of music fits such environment? Well, answer is simple: electronic music (maybe like techno, electro, house or trance). I know this is not going to be changed but developers shoud keep this in minde for next games set in technologic environment.

Imagine playing Planetary Annihilation with this music instead of classical! Wouldn't it be excellent? Wouldn't it play better with this sort of music?

Below i show general direction of soundtracks for games set in hi-tech or sci-fi environment (forget about vocals -this is just an example or general direction where game music should go for games set in hi-tech or sci-fi world):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex2VsexvKWo&feature=related
Good track to listen when you build base and produce big army:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72Qa5T6RXVc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nescAGEfrY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQiLTDkH8ZQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2nOZxItlxM&feature=related"&fmt=18
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_zrYTxfI6Y&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL787911D5529C7714
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNz01ty-kTQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UBVxEUYTPA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB7kKgT9cCg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO4y3nkJXDA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbCr5rXBv24

Or, if classical it should be like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYFKYMZ3fsU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k390U9kqigU&feature=related

Classical is classic though.

Orchestral soundtrack != classical music

There's been some ridiculous posts, but this one might be at the top of my ridiculous list.

Full orchestral is without doubt more epic (hence, the 60ish people playing the music for it) than a single guy with a synthesizer.

I'm for orchestral music, so long as it's like how it was in TA. Having calm music during massive battles is just too weird.

They should hire Skrillex.

@Sokolek:
If the game would have music like your examples, it would instantly mute it.
Many people dont like techno (including me). But are there really people who absolutely dont like orchestral arangements?

Classical music is awesome, because it is timeless. Ironically, science-fiction tend to remind me more of classical music than techno. I think I need cyberpunk for that.

Dear Sokolek,

You are dumb.

With Love,

Bravetriforcer

I'm with Neutrino on this one. TA, Supcom and FA all had classical-type soundtracks and it sounds much more epic. Do for something too modern-sounding and in just a few years you'll have something very dated-sounding.

Not that Kraftwerk sound modern, but you get my drift.

I like epic music, and I can get that from classical, but you can get it from the right electronic.

I'd like to point at what happened with the sound track for Tron Legacy, I think Daft Punk did an awesome job.

But Uber is already experimenting with some crazy things.

P.S. Crazy battle music when a single unit is getting shot, kinda disappointing, I almost hope I got jumped, but no. It's one of my fighters playing stupid inside the enemy base.

Honey and herring actually sounds quite nice.

Also on topic, I like electronic music among other sorts of music, but I am going to be traditional and root for a classical soundtrack for PA. If I want electronic music all of a sudden, I can mute the sound and play some electronic music on winamp.

This whole argument and whole topic is invalidated with these words. Star Wars

You're mixing overblown dramatic music overused in wrong places (CoD is a prime example on how not to mix ambience to what's really happening) and proper usage.

Orchestra booming for a single dude casually shooting everything in a corridor = stupid.
Orchestra booming for an entire war machine spread across several planets/star systems = more than appropriate

But the classical music in PA is not enough to make PA timeless. People will forget about PA in 10 years. Command and Conquer did not have classical music and was more popular than TA.

Yeah, it was the music that made Command and Conquer beat Total Annihilation in sales numbers. Oy vey.

Dumb statement, purely dumb.

No but really, quoted from Jeremy Soule interview:

Not only did the full orchestral score decision that Jeremy planned and executed come out great, it also set Total Annihilation apart from the other 100s of RTSs at the time. You ask anyone here for a list of reasons why total annihilation was different (and better) than the rest, and they will without doubt list the music as one of them. A full orchestra is just a Total Annihilation thing, dude. It's part of the definition. Just deal with it.

That sort of techno music isn't really suited to larger scale wars, its something you'd expect on a micro heavy game with lot's of small pieces of action. But when you're about to land an army or smash an asteroid into a planet nothing beats a big brassy orchestra

Since the game will have mod support I don't think there's anything stopping you from replacing the music yourself.

I think for epic battles, an orchestral is the best you can take.