Soundtrack Saturday: Silent Hill

 

In this weekly feature, I recommend game soundtracks. I share a few of my favorite tracks, talk about why everyone should listen to the soundtrack, and a little bit about the composer. This week's choice is Silent Hill by Akira Yamaoka.

THE STATS

Name: Silent Hill
Developer: Team Silent (Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo)
Publisher: Konami
Release Date: February 23, 1999
Genres: Survival horror
Composer: Akira Yamaoka

MY FAVORITE TRACKS

(The titles link to YouTube videos... and I highly recommend some good headphones to best enjoy all of the subtle elements of the music!)

Claw Finger

(Length: 1:32) Nothing terribly special about this one, it just sounded nice and somber.

Tears Of...

(Length: 3:16) Something about this track makes me think of ending credits of an episode of the X-files, where nothing was actually solved and you're left wondering if it was aliens or a government conspiracy, but either way some gnarly stuff happened and life has to go on.

She

(Length: 2:36) I like this one best. It reminds me of a classic rock ballad.

Esperándote

(Length: 6:26) The title translates to "Waiting for You" -- which is quite fitting for the theme of the song. It may be the accordion, but it almost sounds like it should be from a Studio Ghibli movie.

Silent Hill (Otherside)

(Length: 1:46) I've saved you the trouble of listening to silence! The music starts at 4:37 because, like some other 90's CDs I owned, this was a sort of extra you had to discover on your own at the end of the album. Catchy and cheesy at the same time.

You can listen to the full soundtrack on YouTube:

Silent Hill OST

WHY DO I RECOMMEND IT?

This was on a list of popular game soundtracks, so I threw it into my queue. Most of the tracks are pretty much just 'meh' but there's some great stuff in between if you pay attention to composition. There's actually a Silent Hill track from somewhere else in the series that I love dearly. Maybe I'll cover that one in 2021... In any case, I could listen to "She" on repeat.

THE COMPOSER: AKIRA YAMAOKA

Known best for his work on this series, Akira has also done composing work for one of my guilty pleasure games: Killer is Dead. Fun fact: He originally went to school for product & interior design. Aren't we glad he changed his mind about that? He's been working for Grasshopper Manufacture for the last decade, which has appeared here in the blog as the developer for Let It Die (another Soundtrack Saturday entry). In any case, with Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails being his main inspiration, I think we'll continue to enjoy his works.