Nobuo Uematsu creating Dancing Mad using the SNES soundchip is akin to Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel using crayons.

Floating Continent - 2:42 Catastrophe - 8:08 Battle to the Death - 14:06 Rest in Peace - 18:51 Dark World - 19:30 From That Day On - 25:38 Searching For Friends - 28:41 Gogo's Theme - 34:52 Epitaph - 40:57 The Magic House - 46:27 Umaro's Theme - 51:57 The Fanatics - 55:00 Kefka's Tower - 59:12 Dancing Mad - 1:04:10 Balance is Restored - 1:24:05

I dont understand how musicians and conductors can get through some pieces without just breaking down at the sheer emotion.

Chat was KILLING it with references and trivia. I have a whole queue of modern music that sampled Nobuo now

Playing FF games as a child, now i am 32 years old and wonder why i like progressive metal so much.

Lol that actually does sound like trap drums a good decade before Lex Luger popularized it

It blows my mind that Floating Continent is in a major key. It sounds so savage and minor I'd also forgotten how unbelievably sick the bass is in Searching for Friends

😅 Nobuo invented Reggaetton (The Veldt) and Trap (Dancing Mad)

Nice to see you getting to FF6 and Dancing Mad! I remember scouring the internet 15 years ago looking for every version of it I could find to listen

Dancing Mad and Balance Is Restored are both masterpieces. I’m always amazed at how Uematsu was able to create such in-depth music, given the limited storage space SNES games had.

Funny how the beginning of Kefka's Tower sounds like the opening to Searching for Friends, but evil.

I love how you can gage how much he likes something by how easily you could toss a ping pong ball into his mouth.

I know you are kind of half kidding about the trap hi hat on dancing mad, but I have heard examples that predate that. Listen to Ageispolis off of Aphex Twin’s debut album, Selected Ambient Works 85-92 (they come in about halfway through the song). That came out 2 years before FF VI.

1:23:05 I've heard that style of drumming even earlier than this. Frank Klepacki used it in several tracks in the Dune II soundtrack two years before FFVI.

I love Balance is Restored so much. It was my dream for YEARS to hear an orchestrated version of the full piece (the character theme medley and the final cutscene music- there had been versions of the latter, but I could never find one of the former). Then a few months before the Pixel Remaster released, I finally found a cover of it on KZfaq. And then of course the Pixel Remaster itself gave me one

Saw it mentioned from someone else in a different comment section ages ago, but the prog rock part of Dancing Mad is most likely inspired by ELP's Tarkus. Once I heard them compared I can't unhear it. Uematsu is an amazing dude.

gotta admire that one dude in the chat who was determined to hate on dancing mad for the entire duration of the song.

Already commented once lol but I love your facial expressions during Dark World. I knew it was coming. Yes those chord progressions are wild lol classic Uematsu.

There it is, we're all Dancing Mad now!

If someone reads this, I recommend listening to the album "Dancing Dad" composed by Nobuo Uematsu and his band Earthbound Papas.

Give this man some jet set radio: the old took the new, the new took the old

Wish u could've heard the black mages version of dancing mad as a bonus..maybe another time

The guitar in Epitaph sounds similar to the guitar sample used in certain FF7 tracks, likely also in an isolated sounding fashion. There's a hack for FF6 where someone composed the FF7 Battle Theme using FF6's sound chip, and it sounds nearly identical.

I just realized that the track Floating Continent sounds both magical (the harp arpeggios) and technological (the bleep blorps). Magitek!

Gogo's Theme isn't my favorite in the game, but it might be the catchiest. This isn't just an earworm, this is like a carnivorous earworm that burrows into your brain and lays eggs. I will find myself humming this one out of nowhere far more than any other piece in the game.

Dang it, I ended up getting distracted picking up dinner and missing your live reaction to Dancing Mad! Still, such an impressive piece, four phases for a four-part final boss, it's suitably epic. I'd be a bad idea to debate whether or not it's better than One-Winged Angel, but I will say that while OWA is more iconic, Dancing Mad is more... "epic". Heck, at 17 minutes, it's hard to describe it as anything but "epic"! Also, fun fact, one of my close friends used to be able to play Battle to the Death 14:08 on the piano, or at least the beginning part of it, but his arm is messed up and can't really do it anymore. Still, that intro is iconic, I think it might be one of my favorite boss themes ever!

This game, Final Fantasy 7 and 15 have some of my favorite soundtracks in the entire franchise. So epic but personal at the same time!

According to wikipedia, Trap has been a thing since the early 1990s. But yes, it was an underground thing for two decades, so possibly Uematsu invented it independently.

Haven't been able to catch a stream yet but I hope to one day see you cover the Plok soundtrack

From 43:45 on, I can kind of hear the beginning of Kryptonite by 3 Doors Down

It's a holiday miracle !!

Is there a term for when the cadence in Dancing Mad pt 5 flips into the opposite time signature?

The thing missed about Dancing Mad, listening to it 25 years later? It's one of the earliest pieces of progressive video game music. When you listen to the OST, the tracks sound a bit repetitive (because the OST includes the loop bridges). But in-game, they're smoothly transitioning from one to the next in the middle of the pieces, and it's composed to WORK that way.

Funny you mentioned A Link to the Past (Dark Death Mountain theme I imagine) during Kefka's Tower. I made a mashup using the two: [there would be a link here, but I can't find it. I barely even remember making it, so maybe it wasn't saved anywhere]

I don't know what version of Shadow's segment in the ending is sadder. The one where you wait for him is a tearjerker, but the one they use if you didn't, its like: "Just one last reminder that Shadow's _dead_ and not to assign blame, but I clearly recall an option to WAIT!" Good thing they didn't give Cid a spot in the sequence, just one reminder of another character that was dead because of you. And only a few minutes after killing Shadow, too. Back to back, how did we live with ourselves? 😊

This is probably the 1st time I have literally sat through and listen to the music without playing the game and I wish I would have taken then time beforehand to just sit and appreciate it. Now you have to go and play ff6 and I can guarantee it'll help you appreciate it even more

Huh, never noticed those chord changes in Catastrophe before. Just another motif to show up later on.

Does he know that each movement is a phase in the final boss fight? They do 2 full loops of each phase here but it switches in game as you defeat each form and ascend further. The difficulty is matched to where it times out right unless you storm into the fight already experienced and overleveled. It was one of the early examples of dynamic soundtracks in games and the SNES was uniquely situated technologically where it could do more than chiptunes and CD quality audio was still limited by access speeds and filesize. And surely you're aware of MOD or "demoscene" music from this period of time. Computer music, commonly the Amiga Module type, but basically a variety of software mixed formats various programmers created for tech demos, like Midi but contained in each file unique digital samples for each instrument, like a soundfont but custom to each track. The SNES did this in hardware, just with limited amount of memory and a dedicated chip that mixed 8 channels. Let's just say that some hip-hop producers, but not just limited to any specific genre or group, may have acquisitioned samples and styles from the demoscene.

I wish that he do Black Mage and other concert version as well.

Uematsu was a trap artist before it was cool.

do you have some favorites from this ost? id love to know!

I don't remember exact specs of SNES sound chip, but I honestly believe more often than not it was not about deliberately positioning certain voice left/right/center, but just playing it at the channel which was left free for it (after positioning the more prominent sounds deliberately). So I wouldn't be shocked if that bass off the center is more like finding best fit matching the technical limits, than composing it like that just on musical level. I still believe this is proper composing, just having more limits on regular instruments and considering the technical limits themselves as part of composition.

It is unfortunate that you didn't get to listen to the impresario. I highly recommend taking some time and listening to it It is phenomenal

I always hear how the game was intended to end at the floating continent, and with you stopping Kefka there, but the game's development was progressing so well they added the World of Ruin half. I'm not sure I buy that, at least not exactly as they present it. I can believe they didn't intend for there to be a World of Ruin originally and I don't think they'd just lie about that, but I think it had to have happened _much_ sooner in the development than they're letting on. None of the characters have closed out their story arcs yet, you're only at about level 25, you're only about 10 or so hours in, you haven't learned any of the series most iconic late-game spells or gotten any of the late-game gear. Hell, you only _just_ got two characters in your party. And the floating continent isn't nearly big enough to be a final dungeon. If it was gonna end at the floating continent, they must have had _a lot_ more planned for the World of Balance originally.

"Dancing Mad": You have to imagine that this Boss sitting on a giant living flesh Tower with one Pixel Art cruder then the next one. The Boss is floating like an Angel with 6 Wings on his back, playing God all day long and, wait in all his hattress and insanity for someone he can play a game with... absolutly favorite Boss in all of Final Fantasys History PS: Listen to Tokyo Philamony Orchestra "Final Symphony" last track "Boss Battle Medley"

I know this is 2 months late but with what The Magic House was reminding you of was maybe Mozart? The song reminds me of Rondo Alla Turka, and the flute part might be from the Magic Flute.

1:12:33 I love how similar it is to Toccata and Fugue in D minor.

Thank goodness he finally hit "Hopping Mad". 😂

I'd love to see Dan reacting to the Distant Worlds version of Dancing Mad.

I'm genuinely kinda disappointed the Black Mages version of Dancing Mad wasnt in here D:

it's a mistake to loop phases 1, 2 and 3 of dancing mad twice imo. One is plenty and I think you can find such a version on youtube somewhere.

God I hope they remake this game and it shines the way it did in 1994

I always viewed the latter half of the final phase of Dancing Mad is a representation of the tragedy and consequences of Kefka's existence. He was a science experiment corrupted by power hungry sociopaths. His existence is torture.

I learned to play search for friends on the guitar, but i'm just an amateur

This is the game they should remake.

You should listen to bloodborne, my favorite game of all time

1:03:12 I want to send this to someone without any context.

1:16:25

He had to mosey…

Dancing Mad is really the only great track here.

The fact Zozo isn't in here is a crime to his discovery!

I don't think I've listened to the credits all the way through since finishing the game myself all those years ago and it had me damn near tearing up at work.

Thanks Dan. Most people don’t. I will put my superchat toward the freshly minted Wizard With a Gun OST! We’ve all got to mosey eventually…🫡