"Hibernation" from Shattered Memories In New Movie Trailer

[Droo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPMpgWqETbY

A snippet of "Hibernation" is unmistakably used early on in this trailer.

Compare to the actual track, about 50 seconds in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPJm9I9AerU

Kind of neat to hear a SH track make it into a movie trailer, even if the film it's used in looks sort of stupid.

[simeonalo]

I saw this in the movie theater, but I never noticed that. Has the Music Producer run out of ideas? It seems that a lot of commercials and movies borrow from genius Yamaoka's work.

[Badass Cyborg]

A snippet of "Hibernation" is unmistakably used early on in this trailer...

...kind of neat to hear a SH track make it into a movie trailer, even if the film it's used in looks sort of stupid.

The "snippet" of music featured in the trailer is not Yamaoka's 'Hibernation'.

Well...it is and it isn't: the piece in the trailer is taken from a royalty-free sample library -- the same library that Yamaoka used to craft 'Hibernation'.

In other words: yes, that piece of music can be found in 'Hibernation', but Yamaoka didn't create it; he simply sampled it.

It seems that a lot of commercials and movies borrow from genius Yamaoka's work.

That would be because a large percentage of it isn't, strictly speaking, Yamaoka's work. A lot of his tracks are comprised of sampled material, meaning that a lot of what you hear was actually created by other people, and simply "utilised" by Yamaoka.

Unfortunately, Yamaoka isn't quite the "genius" everyone assumes he is.

[simeonalo]

Now you've convinced me to hate Yamaoka for being such a leecher.

UPDATE: This was actually a joke

[Badass Cyborg]

Well, it wasn't my intention to convince anyone to hate Yamaoka -- he is still good at what he does, but people tend to give him a lot more credit than he deserves.

VIVIsect summarised it best:

I've said it before and I'll say it again; The Silent Hill soundtracks are kind of like hotdogs. They sort of lose their appeal once you find out how they're made. For the longest time, I considered the Silent Hill 2 soundtrack to be an absolute masterpiece from beginning to end. It had a certain sound and feel that I've never "experienced" before. Much of that sound and feel comes from those warm, ambient synth pads. It was perfect... For years, I had envisioned Yamaoka in a studio somewhere, slaving over an old school, vintage Roland synth, coming up with those incredible sounds. But, as it turns out, he didn't. It's all just... samples. Not even edited. He just threw them into a sampler and hit a couple notes. Eric Persing (the man responsible for the Spectrasonic sample libraries) should have been credited on almost every Silent Hill OST, as he created most of the damn music!

I still have a little respect for Yamaoka, but he is not near the genius that I once thought he was. I still love the Silent Hill 2 OST, but I consider it an Eric Persing album, with arrangements by Akira Yamaoka, because that's exactly what it is.

[Droo]

Where is this sample? I know of VIVIsect's dissection of certain SH2 samples, but I find it odd to suppose that this entire progression is sampled. That would just be incredibly lazy.

Finding a preprogrammed "sound" and then playing the keyboard on that setting is one thing. Taking a pre-existing progression and just cutting and pasting it in is another.

[VIVIsect]

I don't have this particular loop, but I'd be willing to bet that it is, in fact, a loop. The guitar line in Meltdown is a loop taken straight off of a Spectrasonics sample library, after all.

[Droo]

Well, that's sickeningly disillusioning.

*deletes SH soundtracks off his iTunes*

[VIVIsect]

Well, like Badass Cyborg said, he's definitely good at what he does, but with the Silent Hill soundtracks, most of what he did was simply arrange a few samples/loops and throw a piano line on top of it.

Given how using samples and loops is so common in electronic music, sometimes I can look past it. But I can also give examples of pure laziness on Yamaoka's part. One example is the music that fades in on the track "Sun". The entire thing is ONE loop from Spectrasonics, not even edited. It's even in the exact same key as the original.

One main thing that gets to me is how incredibly egotistical Yamaoka was in all those old interviews. Stating that he has no respect for other composers of video game music and things like that. At the time, I actually believed that he deserved to have a bit of an ego. But looking back, I can't help but to think "what a dick". I distinctly remember an interview in which he stated that he was confident that no one could match his ability to create beats. This is funny considering the fact that, for the Silent Hill OSTs, he didn't even make his own damn beats! It's all loops made by other people!

[DistantJ]

Having made a lot of music myself, I have a remix on OC ReMix even, I've done a lot of this stuff and there's really no harm in using samples, particularly for 'dirty' sounding music like some of the more rhythmic themes in Silent Hill. The style is called turntablism, because it was originally done entirely by playing bits of different records together live and was incredibly difficult to do. Now that it's easier to do, it's more like creating a good collage. Sure, anybody can cut pictures out and put them together, but it takes taste and experience to do it just right to create something awesome.

Also, Akira still composes all of the tunes - there are a few guitar riffs which are samples (you would be STUNNED at how many songs and soundtracks use sampled riffs anyway) but Akira still has beautiful melodies which are entirely his. Promise, Laura's Theme etc. are all composed by him note for note even if some of the sounds are pre-made samples rather than the result of his own knob-turning on a minimoog all day.

In complaining about tracks like "Sun", we're neglecting to honour tracks like Promise, Witchcraft, Cold Blood, all the wonderful compositions. Who cares what kind of piano he used to play them?

[VIVIsect]

I have a remix on OC ReMix even

I'm not sure what relevance this has to anything. I'm a bit of a musician myself. So what?

there's really no harm in using samples

Sure. Occasionally using samples is no biggie. But, there is a problem when the majority of your music consists entirely of samples and people foolishly praise you for being a "genius". There IS something to be said for actual synthesis and programming your own beats, you know.

The style is called turntablism

No. It's not. It's just called "sampling".

(you would be STUNNED at how many songs and soundtracks use sampled riffs anyway)

No. I wouldn't.

but Akira still has beautiful melodies which are entirely his.

THIS is the problem. It's not entirely true in A LOT of cases. Let's take "Day of Night" from the Silent Hill 2 OST, for example. Beautiful track, yes? Beautiful melody. Here's the thing, the entire track is made up of TWO samples being played for a total of THREE notes. I'm sorry, but it doesn't take a genius to do that. I just so happen to have both of the original samples. I could perfectly recreate the entire track in about 5 minutes. Literally.

I could go on dissecting various other tracks, if you'd like...

Who cares what kind of piano he used to play them?

Who mentioned anything about his piano?

[FrozenR]

This is so new to me. I didn't know all this and I certainly thought that most of SH2 songs were actually made by him from scratch and that's what always impressed me about Akira.

It's weird to know that any other random person with the Spectrasonic samples could've made what Akira did in the SH soundtracks now. But I'm sure that if it wasn't because of Silent Hill and he being involved on the music, I wouldn't have discovered the kind of music that it's possible to make with those samples.

[Droo]

On the other hand, though, outside of electronic music, who can claim to "create" the sounds a guitar, piano, trumpet, cello etc. make? It's about the combination of notes to create what we know as music. Music is, quite simply, sound organized in time. It's constrained to 7 notes (with semitones in between) and limited chord progression possibilities. There is, in natural music, also something akin to sampling an entire riff: the 12 bar blues. Same chord progression, by definition.

It's about the use of skill and creativity in compiling these that makes a musician. I'm still unwilling to write off Akira entirely. His compilation of sounds for the soundtracks created a definite mood, and one that helped define the SH experience. Even if Hibernation, for example, is ENTIRELY sampled sounds put together, the putting together is creative in its own way to result in the final product.

[Kenji]

By that logic, you could make a similar case for books. After all, books are made up mostly of prefabricated words that existed long before the author put pen to paper... well, at least until Decision Points is released, anyway. So any book is a combination of previously-created assets to create something new.

On the other hand, copy-pasting whole paragraphs from other people's works has another name, "plagiarism." Bragging about how original you are, afterward, just makes it worse. Even if it isn't strictly illegal on the musical front, given that these are samples, I don't see how it's any less deserving of criticism, especially when the composer takes such credit for his originality.

[Droo]

Except that the very nature of electronic music, as has been shown, is based mostly on sampling. It is inherently a form of music that is less original than others.

I like the collage analogy. He has layered several pre-existing elements on top of each other to make a compelling whole.

Books are about plot. Taking entire paragraphs of written word is less excusable because of the much larger pool of words to draw from, and the larger number of plot permutations that can exist. Music is capable of nearly infinite expression, too, but the individual elements are far more restricted and constrained.

[Kenji]

Except that the very nature of electronic music, as has been shown, is based mostly on sampling. It is inherently a form of music that is less original than others.

I honestly don't see how that makes the slightest bit of difference. If anything, it casts the entire genre as that much lazier and unworthy of artistic merit.

Books are about plot. Taking entire paragraphs of written word is less excusable because of the much larger pool of words to draw from, and the larger number of plot permutations that can exist. Music is capable of nearly infinite expression, too, but the individual elements are far more restricted and constrained.

Books are most certainly not "about plot."

Plot is merely the framework upon which the book expands, like the frame of a car or building. It's a necessary foundation, but it can't stand up on its own and to have a book that is "just" plot is a failed product. Execution is what counts, in books, movies, music, or anything else. It's the difference between a good story and an amusing anecdote you tell to your friends over a drink.

Being creative is difficult, and the odds are likely higher in music that what you produce will probably sound like something somebody else did, back in the 18th century. That said, I really don't consider this an acceptable excuse for being so purposefully or cynically uncreative, and then taking credit for your supposed creativity.

[Droo]

Can't it be argued that the execution of the Silent Hill soundtracks, then, is what counts? The execution of them is pretty spectacular.

Take Andy Warhol, for example. He did an art deco picture of a Campbell's soup can and it's hailed as a brilliant piece of art. Akira's compilation of these Spectrasonics samples are still, once compiled, new works that didn't exist in that form before.

I never said electronic music is less worthy of artistic merit. It's the same as the 12 bar blues. It's very uncreative musically but variations in execution make each one different. I do find electronic music to fall largely more on the "lazy" side of the spectrum, but not entirely without merit if skillfully compiled.

Few people are programming their own brand new sounds. They take what is available on their synths and manipulate them into new works.

It's not even a totally egregious offence to take an existing riff and build a song around it if the rest of the elements are compelling in combination with them. Take Madonna's "Hung Up", the main hook of which is the recorder part from Abba's "Gimme Gimme Gimme". It's the exact same musical part, but it's integrated into an undeniably catchy little piece of dance music.

[Badass Cyborg]

The whole "sampling" aspect of Yamaoka's work is not the issue here.

There are hundreds of artists out there who use samples -- hell, I use samples in some of my own creations. I have no problem with that.

What I do have a problem with is an artist constructing, say, 75% of his work from samples and then taking credit for the entire thing. A lot of people, myself included, have been led to believe through interviews and archival material that Yamaoka was responsible for pretty much every sound on an SH OST -- hence, his "genius" label. To now find out, after being a faithful listener and follower of his work for a decade, that he has (for the most part) simply strung together a bunch of complex-sounding pre-recorded samples feels like an act of betrayal.

This guy was my musical inspiration for many years because I believed that these pieces of pure magic were his doing and his doing alone. Now I find that, with the exception of several catchy piano lines and guitar riffs, I have been listening to the beautifully ethereal sounds of someone else.

The SH soundtracks still sound as beautiful as they always did, but my respect for Yamaoka as an "artist" has plummeted. A true musician does not take credit for the work of another. As Kenji rightfully pointed out, that is what is known as "plagiarism".

[The Adversary]

Thus why I've been contesting Akira Yamaoka's "genius" label for years. He's not. He's a sound engineer. He's good at playing Cut & Paste. That's his shtick. When DJMonster! was recording, we composed every note and assembled every beat. Every little noise in those songs is our own work—from me screaming into a microphone, to recording a weight machine being clanked around. The songs may not sound perfect, but they're all DJM!'s own. A.Y. is just a vehicle for other peoples' recordings.

And that's pretty toolish.

[Droo]

The SH soundtracks have been a big influence on me, as well. However, if his work can inspire others to create more musically honest and creative works, then it's not entirely without value.

I do agree Yamaoka is far from a genius. I just am tempering my original response to delete the soundtracks and never enjoy them again.

Then again, some of his full "songs" to me are still great, such as Silent Hill Theme, Theme Of Laura, Promise, Room of Angel, Tender Sugar, Dance With Night Wind, You're Not Here, and his reinterpretation of Always On My Mind.