Album: Sonic the Hedgehog: The Sound of Speed

Liontamer;804041 wrote: Because naming everything with the most "practical," literal-minded descriptive convention you can think of is STUPID. :lol: I can't even fathom how someone could practically address this "issue." What new names could y'all come up with that would be so much more perfect and descriptive so as to ideally preview every album we've made as to not to scare away these legions of fickle album-title-influenced potential listeners?
Oh, well "Serious Monkey Business," that's so wrong, is the album serious and dour or is it with monkeys? Somehow both? "Hedgehog Heaven?" Not angelic enough.
Coldplay needs to play "The Speed of Sound" three times faster, otherwise the potential imagery of their song title isn't right. Stupidity.
If the debate wasn't truly over after that, I dunno how else to end it.

Maybe I didn't choose my words carefully enough in my original post, I didn't mean that the title has to 100% describe the album or even give you a sense of what the album is about. (Though honestly I think that does help it find its audience. I bet that Chrono Symphonic was a lot better at finding its audience than something like Delta Q Delta.) I'm more saying we have the conversation to see if an arrangement album title is misleading when there's a musical term in the name. If Drew wanted to call this "Sonic the Hedgehog: Jazz Runs" just to be punny, we'd for sure ask him why he had the word "jazz" in the name, given that much of the album isn't jazz. Did you all have that conversation for Voices of the Lifestream? If I had been on staff then, I might have brought it up, especially as someone who doesn't know FF7 and doesn't get the significance. Misleadingness should be weighed against catchiness and artistic significance and all that good stuff.
I should really put this effort into judging huh.

- Palpable on August 23, 2011

Palpable;804021 wrote: The Voices thing is an even better criticism! I mean, forget the people who listen to the album and hate it because it's not what they were expecting. The worst thing that happens is maybe the album gets some negative publicity, but whatever, it got more ears on it. But the people you lose that you could have hooked by giving your album a more accurate description... I dunno why you'd shoot down the idea that we give album titles more thought.

Because naming everything with the most "practical," literal-minded descriptive convention you can think of is STUPID. :lol: I can't even fathom how someone could practically address this "issue." What new names could y'all come up with that would be so much more perfect and descriptive so as to ideally preview every album we've made as to not to scare away these legions of fickle album-title-influenced potential listeners?
Oh, well "Serious Monkey Business," that's so wrong, is the album serious and dour or is it with monkeys? Somehow both? "Hedgehog Heaven?" Not angelic enough.
Coldplay needs to play "The Speed of Sound" three times faster, otherwise the potential imagery of their song title isn't right. Stupidity.

djpretzel;803907 wrote: The Beatles' "White Album" made me think that it was just for Caucasians, but then I saw People of Color were enjoying it as well.
Crap name.

If the debate wasn't truly over after that, I dunno how else to end it.

- Liontamer on August 23, 2011

Less bitching, more reviewing.

- Level 99 on August 23, 2011

Cut me some slack Brandon, I've barely been re-active for a few months so it's taking time to re-adjust :razz:
If there's anything I did that upsetted anyone in that thread, then I'm sorry for it. But honestly, no one on the project should take the blame for what could be seen as a single person's mistake so I still am saying my irritation over this issue is well justified.

- Rexy on August 23, 2011

Liontamer;803903 wrote: Completely disagree. :lol: You're basically saying the title has to appeal to the superficial and stupid. The album is "The Sound of a Hedgehog That Runs Very Fast in His First Game." :-) If people were expecting superfast BPM and can't get over that, especially when the original music wasn't superfast BPM, I couldn't care less. The single dumbest criticism I saw of OA & Scaredsim's Green Hill Zone mix on YouTube was that it was too slow, when it was slightly faster than the tempo of the original. It's an album about a speedy hedgehog not a speedy soundtrack, it's a play on words, and we have more than enough people without a stick up their ass enjoying the album to care about a minority of people hung up on the album title. It's the same people complaining that Voices of the Lifestream implied an all-vocal album; it's just a short-sighted, stupid criticism.

The Voices thing is an even better criticism! I mean, forget the people who listen to the album and hate it because it's not what they were expecting. The worst thing that happens is maybe the album gets some negative publicity, but whatever, it got more ears on it. But the people you lose that you could have hooked by giving your album a more accurate description... I dunno why you'd shoot down the idea that we give album titles more thought.

- Palpable on August 23, 2011

djpretzel;803907 wrote: The Beatles' "White Album" made me think that it was just for Caucasians, but then I saw People of Color were enjoying it as well.
Crap name.

This made me 'lol' as a huge Beatles fan :-P I also enjoy Metallica's Black Album.
When I signed on for Sound of Speed, I was really into Coldplay
I think people will interpret names to mean what they want them to mean, often times contradicting the artistic vision of the artist(s). If people have a problem with the title because of something they personally interpreted from it, then that's their problem. :whatevaa:
And taking the thoughts of haters to heart is one of the first things we learn -not- to do. :-D
(unless your name is Rexy!)

- Brandon Strader on August 23, 2011

I suppose the issue here is that names are subjective in meaning. People here looking for references to the games trademark of speed find that (which is what was intended) and people who are looking for a reference to the general speed/tempo of the album tracks would as well (not intended). That said, I always thought the album title was pretty witty, didn't think there was anything deceiving about it. Does that mean people should be more careful what they call their albums/tracks to avoid confusion? Perhaps... However, say one person finds an album title misleading. There is bound to be a slight disappointment at first, but eventually people should accept the title, man up and enjoy the album for what it is. Anyone who gets hung up over a title probably wouldn't have liked the album in the first place.

- WillRock on August 23, 2011

The Beatles' "White Album" made me think that it was just for Caucasians, but then I saw People of Color were enjoying it as well.
Crap name.

- djpretzel on August 23, 2011

It is, however, setting up ppl's expectations. The name is important, and what it implies should be considered when naming mixes and albums and whatnot. [URL="http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01887/"]Which reminds me of this one[/URL].
I've yet to really listen to this album, but first impressions weren't too exciting. Then again, it took me a while to warm up to the DKC2 album, which I now consider to be one of ocr's best.

- Rozovian on August 23, 2011

Palpable;803899 wrote: There's a lot of defense of the album title going on here, and maybe because this is OCR, it's hard to see what effect a title can have. Personally, I purposely overlook the title when evaluating songs, and I think the site is geared towards overlooking the title and the game and just trying to appreciate the music, man. When the title of this project was announced, I thought it was really clever and thought no more about it. But it is worth considering things like the expectations of a project with that title, and I wish we had done more brainstorming. It's not just a matter of disappointing people who were expecting faster songs, but also that we may have missed hooking the audience we wanted because they thought it was a bunch of fast songs. Basically I kind of agree with JustinShaltout. Particularly with albums, which more than songs are aimed at people outside the community, the title needs to fit the music in order for it to get the audience it deserves and maybe this time there was a better one that could have been used.
Case in point, there's a band I really like called [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco_Inferno_(band)"]Disco Inferno[/URL], who make music as far away from disco as you can imagine. For a long time, though they had been recommended to me, I didn't check them out because disco wasn't what I was looking for. A title matters.

Completely disagree. :lol: You're basically saying the title has to appeal to the superficial and stupid. The album is "The Sound of a Hedgehog That Runs Very Fast in His First Game." :-) If people were expecting superfast BPM and can't get over that, especially when the original music wasn't superfast BPM, I couldn't care less. The single dumbest criticism I saw of OA & Scaredsim's Green Hill Zone mix on YouTube was that it was too slow, when it was slightly faster than the tempo of the original. It's an album about a speedy hedgehog not a speedy soundtrack, it's a play on words, and we have more than enough people without a stick up their ass enjoying the album to care about a minority of people hung up on the album title. It's the same people complaining that Voices of the Lifestream implied an all-vocal album; it's just a short-sighted, stupid criticism.

- Liontamer on August 23, 2011

There's a lot of defense of the album title going on here, and maybe because this is OCR, it's hard to see what effect a title can have. Personally, I purposely overlook the title when evaluating songs, and I think the site is geared towards overlooking the title and the game and just trying to appreciate the music, man. When the title of this project was announced, I thought it was really clever and thought no more about it. But it is worth considering things like the expectations of a project with that title, and I wish we had done more brainstorming. It's not just a matter of disappointing people who were expecting faster songs, but also that we may have missed hooking the audience we wanted because they thought it was a bunch of fast songs. Basically I kind of agree with JustinShaltout. Particularly with albums, which more than songs are aimed at people outside the community, the title needs to fit the music in order for it to get the audience it deserves and maybe this time there was a better one that could have been used.
Case in point, there's a band I really like called [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco_Inferno_(band)"]Disco Inferno[/URL], who make music as far away from disco as you can imagine. For a long time, though they had been recommended to me, I didn't check them out because disco wasn't what I was looking for. A title matters.

- Palpable on August 23, 2011

Guys guys GUYS, this is a SONIC THE HEDGEHOG REMIX ALBUM, how in the name of hell does the album title not fit? :P
Not to mention the Green Hill Zone Remix has the title Sound of Speed... plenty of albums take that approach.

- WillRock on August 22, 2011

To be fair, if we're basing this on content versus name, the title "Lucid Dreaming" doesn't fit for a good part of the music on the NiGHTS album either. It does fit the game though, much like how "The Sound of Speed" also fits the source material for this project.
To be frank, however, who cares what the title is? The musical content is what matters here, and the music of this album, as I have said before, is nothing short of stellar. You're welcome to disagree of course, but to argue that the this album sucks because you don't think the title fits is really stretching for a reason to dislike it.

- KyleJCrb on August 22, 2011

calling it speed just cuz it's witty is not a smart idea. The name needs to reflect the content otherwise you lose ur entire audience. you can't assume that people have to understand YOU. You have to do what u can for people to understand you rather than assume. This assumption caused the wrong people to download the album, hence causing people to be extremely disappointed.

- JustinShaltout on August 21, 2011

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with forming opinions. It's just that I'm reaching breaking point with all the amount of unjustified disliking just because of the album name alone, and to see people compare with other albums as well only just makes matters worse.
We are fine to take criticism when criticism is due, definitely - just not on what can be strictly seen as artistic direction, which is giving me the impression that everyone involved on this thing didn't do their job.
And yes, "I didn't enjoy the album, I enjoyed another album more" is definitely written as "album A is better than project B" in a person's point of view. Comments like that to me feel really unsettling, and can similarly be unsettling for when others compare projects beforehand. Remember a few posts before the history thread was closed when someone brought up "Threshold of a Dream" for that same reason - didn't like the artistic direction but thought this one would be more cohesive? How did you and the rest of the project staff feel to see that comparison being brought up?

- Rexy on August 21, 2011