So true...

Whatever composer (personally, I'd like for them to have multiple composers to create different feelings throughout the various areas and locales of the game) they use, I'd like for the music to be created by an orchestra. Blizzard has been doing it for years now, and the difference is night and day. Starcraft 2's soundtrack is just beautiful (especially the Terran themes). Got to love that epic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAS8KivZX5s#t=1m58s

I'm sure its expensive to have the music be performed by an orchestra, but I think its well worth it. Hell, even if you can't do that, you can record different bits of the song at once (like just the violin) and splice it together with the other music. You need multiple artists of course, but not exactly an orchestra.

Jeremy Soule did the soundtrack for the 2 last games, that alone should be enough to include him in the poll. It is so obvious that you hate the guy and want someone new and this is probably also the reason you didn't add him to the poll. You knew he would be popular. I've never seen someone dis Jeremy Soule so i don't really believe that part either.

I love the base Jeremy Soule has created for the Elder Scrolls. The Morrowind and Oblivion soundtracks are fantastic, but I feel like someone could do better. While I know Bethesda would never shell out the bucks to get Howard Shore to compose a soundtrack for their music, he would be my number one hypothetical pick. Something high-budget and beautiful I believe would complement the Elder Scrolls nicely, and Howard Shore is the kind of composer who can do that sort of thing.

Nothing against Jeremy Soule, I just feel that he is something of a sub-par composer for many of the games he has done.

Do some of the composers you listed even work on video games? Plus a couple of years ago Heberling said he would be glad to do another game if he was asked to.

Soule has done other games that I've heard him praised of before. He does what he does pretty good I think.

Jeremy Soule. I don't think I could imagine anyone else doing a better job than him. He's done a great job defining the music of the last two installments.

Russell Brower

Put aside your hatred or distaste for World of Warcraft and appreciate this man's music.

I chose these specifically because they remind me of Nords and Skyrim and all that jazz.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHLajwNFoy8&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i2ZvzdWfFA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXcVKjC84OY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMR9KEtVKGg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tTIKSY8CNU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IdtSCP2uYo&feature=related

I certainly enjoy Grizzly Hills, however, I still stand-by Jeremy Soule. I'm curious to see what he might create for another ES installment.

I can't agree with that, I think he hasn't made an effort to make a soundtrack for Tamriel. He's made an orchestra job for generic fantasies, but what can this man's music tell us about Tamriel at all? Name the characters in Oblivion who play his music in bars or campsites preparing for war. What has he added to the series if not that? Battle music? Why the [censored] does battle music exist in this series? This is the Elder Scrolls! Or does that not mean anything to Jeremy Soule? Forget this composer. Forgetting him is the kindest reaction to his influence on the series.

Well, Soule composed four of my favorite video game themes of all time (Morrowind/Oblivion, Guild Wars: Eye of the North, and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMHo-z3eH8U), so I don't really want anyone but him. :shrug: It isn't just "he did Morrowind/Oblivion" to me, I actually really like his music.

Though this topic is most certainly one based on opinion, I feel the need to debate this.

On that note, I would argue that his past two soundtracks are not generic, and that his music certainly has given us plenty of information regarding Tamriel ( I argue that I prefer the soundtrack to Morrowind over Oblivion, but I am a Morrowind fan nearly all the way). There's http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPJlkw12P1k, that grants a tone mysterious and azure, while delicately laced with the undertone of a subtle sense of importance and grandiose bearing, almost as if to relate a forgotten temple or palace; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPw1nJxMvS0, which I may note sets the perfect pace for a traveling adventurer on the road of discovery, or for the new and overwhelmed foreigner who happened to stumble into an imperial citadel; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba0h4Z21wT8, which, again, lends itself to a sense of mysterious, or a sort of peaceful weariness, a sense which one would expect to find enshrouding an artifact divine origin or relation, or perhaps to the 'age of a soul, or the 'maturity of a soul'; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DORtFo2MAE0, which is the perfect set up for the grand adventure Morrowind leads the player on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZjnnEApRTE, and a number of other fabulous pieces.

Now I find your issue relating to the lack of life regarding musical performances irrelevant. I would not see a lack of minstrels as the fault of the composer, but rather something overlooked or ignored by the creative director. Perhaps if said director made a greater attempt to increase the immersion, such issues may be rendered void.

In summation, I find it rather a cruel statement to trash this composer. He has offered plenty of compositions that lend various tones and rhythms that certainly lend to the game. Do you argue that the music isn't bold enough? Fine, I can accept that. Surely the music should certainly hit a better cord with the player, raising the tempo and the level of sound. Other than that, leave the composer to his own musings (or that of the director's), and let him compose the next soundtrack.

This has nothing to do with Jeremy Soule. Bethesda provided no mechanism for playing special music in these areas. Soule had no say in the matter. If your favorite composer had written the score you would still not hear bar or campsite music.




Ask Bethesda. Bethesda created the Battle Music/Exploring Music system, not Jeremy Soule. Whoever writes the music for ES 5 will be writing battle music too...because Bethesda will be paying them to do so.