Yuzo Koshiro's Greatest Hits

Yuzo Koshiro is a god among vgm enthusiasts. He raised the bar for what video game music should aspire towards. Nobuo Uematsu admitted himself that he had to up his game for his SNES soundtracks in order to keep up with this boy wonder. Streets of Rage was a revelation for him as an artist, it laid the groundwork for some of clubbing and hip hop scenes' popular musicians and producers such as BT, Labrinth and Just Blaze. Originally I never would touch genres such as trance or house with a ten-foot pole but SoR opened my eyes (or ears) towards their potential.

For pure vgm nirvana though, I reckon Ys is his crowning achievement. It can be summarised as a heady mix of symphonic, jazz and rock with effortlessly catchy melodic beats that never go stale no matter how times you listen to it. Feena just sounds perfect the way it was originally intended on the PC-88. The red book audio version had none of the ingenious manipulation of tempo and deft utilisation of fermata and ostinatos to imbue it that tragic hue. It's somewhat rough around the edges, but the way it all comes together makes you forget it's a bunch of low quality samples just as a piece of art should.

No doubt his inheritance of his sensei Joe Hisaishi's classical sensibilities plays a part in his success, but it's only through his willingness to forge his own path and look elsewhere was he able to flourish.

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