OverClocked Remix Hits 5 Years

Videogame music remix website OverClocked Remix has hit five years running. If you've never heard of the site, give it a try. You're sure to find tunes that you'll recognize, now wrapped in shiny new wrappers; plus all the music is free! I've downloaded dozens of great MP3s from OC Remix, ranging from games such as the Legend of Zelda to Street Fighter to Chrono Trigger to Mega Man.

While the site certainly offers more antiquated heavy metal or techno-oriented tracks than I'd prefer -- I simply don't have a stomach for those genres especially when sampled in amateur arrangements -- my hard drive stores a great deal of songs that remain on my Winamp playlist to this day.

As a token to commemorate OC Remix's five-year anniversary, its creator DJ Pretzel was recently interviewed by CNN/MP3.com. Now recognized as one of the founding fathers of the videogame music remix scene that's all the rage now, Pretzel (real name David Lloyd) offers his thoughts on how the hobby and community has grown and where he envisions it will go next.

One of the big future trends that Lloyd highlights is lyric writing for videogame music, which I don't think is anything more than a cheap novelty. But all the kids seem to like it, so hey, what do I know... I guess that at the least I can say that those remixes aren't as pretentious as some of those overdone, sweeping orchestral numbers that pop up now and then. Personally, I'm hoping to hear some more jazz remixes -- the few that have been posted are interesting to say the least.

Perhaps the greatest thing about OverClocked Remix over the years has been its openness to remixes of all kinds. You're bound to find every musical genre represented in some form, as well as base tracks from the biggest landmark titles in videogame history to the most obscure games that hardly a soul remembers. I hope that OC Remix never restrains its submission acceptance in that regard.

With a lack of discrimination against anything but technical quality, and with the ever-increasing popularity of videogames in society, I think that the videogame remixing community will find it easy to turn this hobby into an international music phenomenon.