Nostalgia has always been a driving force in pretty much any form of media. Movies get rebooted or adapted, music gets new renditions, fashion goes in cycles with modernized twists but retain the aesthetic of yesteryear. Some of it works out great, others, not so much. Sure, there’s also the rose tinted glasses phenomenon of “back in my day” music was better, movies were better, yada yada. The difference, however, is that generational music, TV, & film has been digitized and made relatively easily accessible. I literally just pulled up a 1920’s swing playlist, and it sounds great. Remastering old media has worked out great for those looking to go back in time.

I don’t think video games always need to tell a compelling story to its audience (the players). A great story isn’t a prerequisite to make a good or successful video game. In fact, you can have both a good, successful game with practically no story at all beyond gameplay objectives. Look at Minecraft, Fortnite, League of Legends, Call of Duty, just to list a few. Hell, there are even great games where you can skip the majority of it’s story and still have a good experience (Breath of the Wild, no Divine Beasts, anyone?)

Yet, video games present an entirely unique mechanism to story telling not accessible to its media counter parts (movies, books, music, art). It all starts with the players hands.

I’m not enough of a music nerd to tell you why certain music is good, not good, just ok, at least not from the deep origins perspective. I mean, I know what I like, and I do have opinions, sometimes strong ones (that might go against the grain but, not contrarian). Sometimes that might get me some flack, but music is inherently subjective. That said, I’m not ignorant either, I’m self proclaimed not the biggest Beatles fan but that doesn’t mean I don’t recognize or understand the impact that they’ve had in the development of pretty much all mainstream music. However, I do subscribe to the notion that nothing is really “new” and just different takes on a familiar flavor we’ve seen before.

That said, I’ve decided to try my hand at a monthly curated new music playlist and rundown of songs and albums that caught my attention in the previous month. This playlist will be rotating, so I’ll include the song titles at the end because this Spotify playlist will be re-used.