The Bumpy Road to Kerouac

I haven’t been talking about books for a while now, mainly because I’ve spent an entire month trying to finish Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. It’s merely 300 pages long; that it has taken me so long to finish may lead some to believe that I didn’t like it. Truth is, my sentiments for it are not that simple.

Before anything, though. I’m not going to assume that everyone knows who Jack Kerouac is and what On the Road is about, so now is time for some introduction. Jack Kerouac is one of the most iconic writers of America, and the way he wrote and the subject matters he chose defined the Beat Generation. On the Road is his autobiographical novel about his road-trips across America, in which he is accompanied by his friends - most notably Neal Cassady. He didn’t have many intended destinations when he traveled; he was more of understanding Neal as they wandered together aimlessly.

I really dig Jack Kerouac’s writing style, because there’s just a certain lyrical quality to the words that he uses. Some of his proses about madness are among the best quotable quotes I’ve seen from any writer, ranking up there with Truman Capote (we’ll hear about this guy again later). Even on the first few pages of On the Road, I was already bowled over, and it’s by this line, “…the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time…” And that was it, I said to myself, I just have to read this book.

To be sure, there were no shortages of those kinds of delicious proses within the book, and those were my motivation to keep reading it. Unfortunately, I just did not like the story. Now, I’m not going to pretend that I completely understand what happened behind the novel’s creation, nor know who the characters (all based on real persons) involved in it are, because I don’t - I wasn’t born in the Beat days after all. From what I can gather, On the Road is a celebration of the lost “carpe diem” ages of America when unrestrained drinking, partying, and philandering were orders of the day. And honestly, I’m not a fan of those ages; it’s really bizarre for me to read Jack cavorting around with his love for those activities when F Scott Fitzgerald and Aldous Huxley, both alive in the times Jack was nostalgic about, were very disdainful of them. I know this is all based on personal beliefs, maybe values, but I for one am indifferent to Jack’s pleas.

A bigger problem, however, is his fascination with Neal Cassady. I don’t know what kind of people both are in real life, but I couldn’t sympathize with either of them as I was reading. Jack came across to me as a social-climber who squanders his money so as to belong with his band of hipsters. And I just don’t see any lovable qualities with Neal Cassady at all, because he’s little more than a con man with a boundless energy to me. These types of people are very common where I live, and they’re not really that great, if you ask me. Yet Jack wouldn’t stop waxing epiphanies in ultra-hyperbolic proportions about Neal’s “madness”, as though Neal were Jesus. It eventually became embarrassing to read. Truman Capote once made this scathing comment on Jack, “That’s not writing; that’s typing.” This book felt like that, because it dawdled and rambled on and on and on and on and…

Well, this quote from On the Road sums up what I’ve felt about the whole ordeal:

“In God’s name and under the stars, what for?”

PS2 Euphonies

In the earlier 3 posts of my videogame music euphonies series(NES, SNES, and PS), I gave a background of how videogame music have developed over the years. Anyone playing videogames for as long as I have – from the NES era to now – will have noticed the progression of the sound quality: from 8-bit to 16-bit and finally, during the PlayStation generation, culminating to the CD-like WAV.

Videogame music composers, however, were not quick to adapt to the new freedom offered by PlayStation’s audio. Early PS games sounded conservative, in that they still clung to that bleepy MIDI sound. Take Final Fantasy VII: though it has great compositions, its music sound like they were done on cheap Casio keyboards. Only during the later stage of PS’s life cycle have it become the norms for videogame music to sound like they’re coming an audio CD, which includes higher sampling rates and the use of live instruments.

So I don’t think I need to tell you that when PlayStation 2 was released, I was very excited to hear what kind of music its games would bring. After all, even during the chrysalis stage of videogame industry, the music already sounded very creative. Since the composers were no longer constrained by hardware limitations, I believed that they would explore other genres of music, because all I’d heard so far were rock, new age and orchestra - not that they’re bad, but there’s always this thing about variety being the spice of life. I expected to be further ensorcelled by what’s to come with videogame music.

Sadly, it didn’t happen that much. Sure, there are tracks that are just as good as - probably better than - anything else I have heard from videogames so far, but those are very few. I’m not lying if I tell you that I had much difficulty narrowing down my SNES and PS euphonies lists to just 10 tracks, but for PS2 I could hardly name 10, and most of them are from games that have only 1 or 2 good tunes. It doesn’t look like it’s going to improve with this generation of videogame consoles either; sans Eternal Sonata I’ve not found any X360 soundtrack (that is comprised of compositions made for the game) memorable.

What really gets me is how lazy videogames have become with their choices of music. Since the industry has become very profitable, the game developers either acquire the rights to play licensed music, or hire popular musicians (e.g. popular rock bands) to perform for them. The quality varies for licensed music – Grand Theft Auto certainly surpasses most others – but I don’t find that very effective in giving videogames much identity. As for popular musicians, they are chosen based on how they make the supplemented videogame more mainstream, and it’s because of this that some games takes a turn for the garish: just listen to the atrocities Godsmack have wrought to Prince of Persia: The Warrior Within. The mainstream from this 21^st century hasn’t been known as the golden age for any genre of music, and I think most will agree with me on how they just don’t make rock, rap, hiphop, rnb, or jazz like they used to. It’s sad that videogame music also has to suffer from the dreck the music industry tortures us with, but what can we do: commercial appeal is the gospel truth for everything, right? Don’t be surprised if the next Splinter Cell has songs by Linkin Park.

There still are cases when videogame-exclusive composers write game’s music, but this has become infrequent. Moreover, with the growing focus of using the “moody atmospheric ambient sound” to give players “a better immersion to the game” (really?), they just seem less and less intent on making memorable listens. So, all things considered, I think videogame music has gone downhill.

Anyway, this is my top 10 PS2 music list, which I compiled with a heavy heart.

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