Perspectives: Byte I
Best Vol. 1
Artwork:
The Music:
This album covers the following stories:
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Liner Notes:
In my youth,
I was quite the anime soundtrack collector.
Conventions, in particular, were a highlight of my year because they
would give me the chance to add four or five or twelve more CD's in my
collection. When Matt approached me with
his idea for a quote-unquote "official" series of soundtracks for The
Boy Scouts 1/2 Universe, I was obviously interested.
Now reader(s) of the Perspectives reboot (i.e. 2.0) will know that as part of the author's notes, I've been including a listing of the songs that helped inspire or served as background accompaniment for scenes. I had no plans to stop doing that for those stories, so instead I wanted approach the Perspectives portion of the Soundtrack Project differently. So please forgive me, as I take a few extra moments to give a little background on the types of soundtracks one might find in regards to anime fandom.
The types of soundtracks one might find will really depend on the anime. Is it a Movie, OVA, or full blown TV series? Is it mostly instrumental, or are there vocal selections as well? Some soundtracks will include vocal selections not heard during the actual movie or episode, usually "performed" by the character. These "Character Songs" tend to not only help pad CD length, but can also help break up a long string of instrumental background tracks.
So what type of soundtrack do we have here? Well, in terms of The Boy Scouts ½ Universe, I’ve always thought of the main series being like that of a TV series, with Boy Scouts ½ In Japan being season 2 of that same show. Perspectives, in turn, was an expansion of the universe, but not quite the same thing. I’ve always kinda thought of Perspectives as being The BS½ Universe’s OVA series, a direct to laser disc release with darker subject matter and no censoring of violence or profanity.
Now, it was not unusual for a OVA series to be released one episode at a time over the course of long period. It was also not unusual for those individual episodes to each have it’s own soundtrack release accompanying said episodes (The original Bubblegum Crisis OVA series comes to mind in those regards.) So, seeing as I am already doing individual soundtracks as part of each story’s end notes, I decided to take the other approach when it came to Matt’s proposed Soundtrack Project – That of the compilation CD or ‘Best’ Collection as they were often labeled.
Perspectives Byte I Best Vol. 1 covers what I think of as what would be the most prevalent pieces of music for the series. Those of the Character ‘Themes’. While specific scenes would have distinctive music in their background (and those are noted in the individual story end notes), these tracks here (or variations of them) would be heard the most often. Eventually, when I end up compiling Best Vol. 2 I will probably give more attention to scene specific tracks (especially those for parts 4 & 5), but for now, I felt that as the characters are the most important part of the Perspectives series, their musical presence was the most important thing to address first.
Opening and Ending themes – I noted in the first story that Buy Nothing Day was the closing theme for part 1, while here I am calling it the series opening theme. Both are true. If this were an anime series, Part 1 would have opened with the prologue scene and would not have had a traditional opening sequence (much like the first El-Hazard OVA series had done), and instead would of closed using this song. Parts 2-5 would have then returned to a traditional opening sequence.
For the ending, I chose to pick something with a distinctive 80’s/90’s sound, and REM is one of those groups that so defined the Late 80’s and 90’s for me. The song in question Stand was released in 1988, but it was used as the opening theme for a early 90’s TV show called Get a Life. In any case, I think it works, so no need to spend an inordinate amount of time on the subject.
The themes – honestly, I could write an epically loquacious dissertation on why I chose each piece for each place or character. Ultimately, it came down to the mental images that the music evoked combined how well it fit with character in question. I wanted something happy and bouncy for Fenny, while something more muted and moody for John. Neko-chan’s evokes a playful mood while Seraphim’s evokes heavenly authority.
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the selection of the next episode preview music which is, of course, the same preview music from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Honestly, this is just a bit of fourth-wall breaking meta-fandom which I won’t apologize for. That is all.
Hope you enjoyed the soundtrack and I look forward to coming back when I am prepared to present Byte I Best Vol. 2.
Now reader(s) of the Perspectives reboot (i.e. 2.0) will know that as part of the author's notes, I've been including a listing of the songs that helped inspire or served as background accompaniment for scenes. I had no plans to stop doing that for those stories, so instead I wanted approach the Perspectives portion of the Soundtrack Project differently. So please forgive me, as I take a few extra moments to give a little background on the types of soundtracks one might find in regards to anime fandom.
The types of soundtracks one might find will really depend on the anime. Is it a Movie, OVA, or full blown TV series? Is it mostly instrumental, or are there vocal selections as well? Some soundtracks will include vocal selections not heard during the actual movie or episode, usually "performed" by the character. These "Character Songs" tend to not only help pad CD length, but can also help break up a long string of instrumental background tracks.
So what type of soundtrack do we have here? Well, in terms of The Boy Scouts ½ Universe, I’ve always thought of the main series being like that of a TV series, with Boy Scouts ½ In Japan being season 2 of that same show. Perspectives, in turn, was an expansion of the universe, but not quite the same thing. I’ve always kinda thought of Perspectives as being The BS½ Universe’s OVA series, a direct to laser disc release with darker subject matter and no censoring of violence or profanity.
Now, it was not unusual for a OVA series to be released one episode at a time over the course of long period. It was also not unusual for those individual episodes to each have it’s own soundtrack release accompanying said episodes (The original Bubblegum Crisis OVA series comes to mind in those regards.) So, seeing as I am already doing individual soundtracks as part of each story’s end notes, I decided to take the other approach when it came to Matt’s proposed Soundtrack Project – That of the compilation CD or ‘Best’ Collection as they were often labeled.
Perspectives Byte I Best Vol. 1 covers what I think of as what would be the most prevalent pieces of music for the series. Those of the Character ‘Themes’. While specific scenes would have distinctive music in their background (and those are noted in the individual story end notes), these tracks here (or variations of them) would be heard the most often. Eventually, when I end up compiling Best Vol. 2 I will probably give more attention to scene specific tracks (especially those for parts 4 & 5), but for now, I felt that as the characters are the most important part of the Perspectives series, their musical presence was the most important thing to address first.
Opening and Ending themes – I noted in the first story that Buy Nothing Day was the closing theme for part 1, while here I am calling it the series opening theme. Both are true. If this were an anime series, Part 1 would have opened with the prologue scene and would not have had a traditional opening sequence (much like the first El-Hazard OVA series had done), and instead would of closed using this song. Parts 2-5 would have then returned to a traditional opening sequence.
For the ending, I chose to pick something with a distinctive 80’s/90’s sound, and REM is one of those groups that so defined the Late 80’s and 90’s for me. The song in question Stand was released in 1988, but it was used as the opening theme for a early 90’s TV show called Get a Life. In any case, I think it works, so no need to spend an inordinate amount of time on the subject.
The themes – honestly, I could write an epically loquacious dissertation on why I chose each piece for each place or character. Ultimately, it came down to the mental images that the music evoked combined how well it fit with character in question. I wanted something happy and bouncy for Fenny, while something more muted and moody for John. Neko-chan’s evokes a playful mood while Seraphim’s evokes heavenly authority.
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the selection of the next episode preview music which is, of course, the same preview music from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Honestly, this is just a bit of fourth-wall breaking meta-fandom which I won’t apologize for. That is all.
Hope you enjoyed the soundtrack and I look forward to coming back when I am prepared to present Byte I Best Vol. 2.