Worst Music in Video Games

[Classic Speedy]

We've discussed video game music we love many times before, but are there any games where you don't like the music? (NOTE: Please include reasons with your choices. Just listing or saying "____, nuff said" isn't allowed) I'll list just a few examples to get things rolling.

Addams Family Values: Every tune in the game is this sinister sounding ambience music. It's a TV sitcom, not a horror movie! Worst of all, none of the melodies are memorable, as they're essentially one note or a simple chord held for five or six seconds in a row (sometimes more). http://youtube.com/watch?v=OuFvurCnrHQ

Bubsy 2: The melodies themselves aren't so bad- in fact, I like some of the tunes in this game, but the problem is, they keep changing as you maneuver through the levels. What was so hard about keeping one melody per level? It just results in an auditory mess.

Doom (32x port): Yech. These barely sound anything like the PC game, or the vastly superior SNES port.

San Francisco Rush (Midway Arcade Treasures port): I don't know why, but Midway gutted nearly all of the tunes from the actual arcade game and made new, bland ones for this port. The first track (which plays by default on the Golden Gate track) is OK, and they kept one or two from the arcade, but the rest are pretty unmemorable light techno. They're certainly not hummable.

The Wizard of Oz: Way to make those memorable melodies sound dreary. Poor instrument choices, too, especially for "Somewhere Over the Rainbow".

[TKnHappyNess]

X-Play had one of the worst, and why it's being released for the DS is anyone's idea. Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure.

[ChibiGoku]

Big Rigs. It'll drive you nuts before you're winner. :sweat:

[Mittenz]

San Francisco Rush
I liked the soundtrack to Rush 2049. It probably has to do with the fact that I'm an electronica head. I always liked "The Rock" and the music for the night time track.

Anyway, my picks for worst video game soundtrack has to be Sonic R. I may be a fan of electronic music. But if it has to sound like an everyday pop song, that's where I start turning the music off an turning on iTunes and fishing out a track by, let's say, Above & Beyond. Otherwise, I'll have all the windows and doors closed and locked while playing.

[Mynd Hed]

Marvel vs. Capcom 2. The soundtrack was dominated by this weird pseudo-easy-listening-jazz crapola which wasn't terrible in and of itself, but definitely did NOT fit an action-packed fighting game. What was worse, the game didn't have independent volume controls for music and sound effects, meaning you couldn't even turn the music off in order to play something better on the stereo without losing all the other sounds too.
And the character-select menu had the most repetitive, obnoxious song ever. I BLOODY GET IT, YOU'RE GOING TO TAKE ME FOR A RIDE. SHUT UP.

Great game otherwise, but MAN the soundtrack grated.

[Classic Speedy]

Forgot about Bible Adventures. As James Rolfe said, "You'd rather listen to your only infant child puking to death. That is, choking on his own puke chunks."
And the character-select menu had the most repetitive, obnoxious song ever. I BLOODY GET IT, YOU'RE GOING TO TAKE ME FOR A RIDE. SHUT UP. LOL, just listened to it. That's almost as bad as "Hong Kong '97", which repeats the seven second "I Love Beijing Tiananmen" rendition throughout the entire game. :p

[Lord Dalek]

Stanley The Search for Dr. Livingston: The majority of the music in this game is just an annoying looping jungle beat (if you can call it that). Boss theme is pretty good though.

Back to the Future: DAH DUH DAH DUH DUH DAH DAH DUH

Streets of Rage 3: Arguable Koshiro's worst composition. It doesn't even make musical sense.

Super Spacefortress Macross II (arcade): Bad redo of music from the OVA, also "fades out" at bad moments.

1942: Yay for bad synthesized millitary drum marches. Gets worse with every port.

[Burdette25159]

Name That Tune: THe arcade game: Synth covers of 40's music doesn't do justice in my book

Guitar Hero 3: The Devil Went down to Georgia cover stunk, I would rather hear the original version then this stupid metal cover!

Back to the Future: DOE'S NOT SOUND LIKE THE MOVIE'S SCORE

MVSC2: MUSIC SEEMS OUT OF PLACE IN THIS FIGHTING GAME, I HOPE MVSC3 HAS BETTER MUSIC THEN THIS!

[Galaxy 9000]

E.T for the Atari has very horrible music.

[Novapocalypse]

E.T for the Atari has very horrible music.

I never noticed. ;)

[WolfieKiwi]

You want to hear the worst video game music? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snNe7CqCKL8)

Maybe if my brother didn't leave the game on pause in that place for over twenty minutes then I wouldn't be harvesting any hatred. But now, after hearing that...constant noise over and over, I truly hate this song.

[Captain Highwind]

Yes, other than the overworld theme, I really hated everything else about the Dark World. ><

[Master Toon]

The music in The Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. It wasn't that the music was bad but it was bad for the setting of the game, despite his being brutal.


You want to hear the worst video game music? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snNe7CqCKL8)

It's kinda catchy to me. :)

[Blackstar]

Back to the Future for NES. That horrible monotonous continuity music that never stops, ever.

[Wonderwall]

25 to Life had a brutal soundtrack. Bad music for a bad game, so I guess it fits.

[Classic Speedy]

Back to the Future for SNES. That horrible monotonous continuity music that never stops, ever. I'm sure you mean for NES. There was no BTTF for SNES, unless you count BTTF2 (which was only released in Japan), and that actually had the famous Alan Silvestri theme in all its SPC700 glory. :D

Another choice: Taz-Mania (Genesis). It's a strange mix of scat/jazz and scene-specific cues much like theatrical Looney Tunes shorts, but what we end up with is a series of tracks which have no real melody to speak of, and the limited Genesis sound chip doesn't help either. The gameplay itself is all right, but its music could've been a LOT better.

Some examples: http://youtube.com/watch?v=pwZvMM_s4b4
http://youtube.com/watch?v=FSK1Ah1SzyQ (actual gameplay starts about 50 seconds in)

Now compare it with the music from the SNES game: http://youtube.com/watch?v=8XW_yjvqsuc . Not only does it have the Merrie Melodies opening theme, but the in-game melodies are strangely catchy and are all based around one central theme.

[R-Taco]

I'll second Marvel vs. Capcom 2. Great game, but the elevator music in the background just anihilates any excitement that the game creates.

[Silverstar]

Another choice: Taz-Mania (Genesis). It's a strange mix of scat/jazz and scene-specific cues much like theatrical Looney Tunes shorts, but what we end up with is a series of tracks which have no real melody to speak of, and the limited Genesis sound chip doesn't help either. The gameplay itself is all right, but its music could've been a LOT better.

Yeah, the SNES version of Taz-Mania at least had better music. (As I recall, the music for the 'Jungle Night' stage was pretty rockin'.)

[Galaxy 9000]

I second Back to the future, played it once, and will never play it again.

[Captain Highwind]

And the character-select menu had the most repetitive, obnoxious song ever. I BLOODY GET IT, YOU'RE GOING TO TAKE ME FOR A RIDE. SHUT UP.

Great game otherwise, but MAN the soundtrack grated.

I think all character-select music tends to suck. KOF 2000 for example. Same 5 notes over and over like it's about to start a really cool track, but keeps skipping.

I don't know why they do this and also put a timer on you while you're choosing...unless it forces you to settle for the other characters, while hoping that you'll eventually find your favorite one out of all the tiny indistinguishable boxes some day. :p

[Classic Speedy]

After being reminded of it in the Nostalgia Critic thread, I think Bebe's Kids deserves to be mentioned. It was pretty amusing how he contrasted that game's "music" to something like Super Mario Bros. There's no comparison.
I think all character-select music tends to suck. Even the original Street Fighter II? Or Soul Calibur II? Those were pretty good.