Everyone experiences nostalgia, whether it comes from music, objects or places, it is a very common phenomenon. For many people in high school or college, this is experienced in the music of the game “Minecraft”. The music made by creator C418 from 2009-2018 with 2 albums and various singles has reminded many people of better times in their lives, and of when they were younger.
The music created for “Minecraft” compliments the game perfectly, while also retaining the ability to be listened to casually, such as for studying. While the music has continued to change over the years through the different albums/singles, they still retain the same feelings across the board, with the ability to invoke bittersweet feelings in people.
“Minecraft” is a 3-D sandbox/survival game, with different objectives. Surviving nights from monsters is one, and the other more central objective: being creative. This game encourages people to bring out their creativity and critical thinking to build complicated structures and design various things in their world. An educational version of the game has even been released, and was added to the school chromebooks.
Going back to the songs for the game though, they invoke various feelings and vibes throughout the tracks. The various albums create unique feelings for players, as well as for people who have never even played before. These vibes can range from serene, to mysterious and even adventurous.
Beginning with the first album, “Volume Alpha” released in 2011, the majority of the tracks are soothing, with a quiet relaxing ambiance. Tracks like “Sweden” and “Subwoofer Lullaby” embody this feeling. The creator describes the feeling of these songs best, saying, “Minecraft’ is by far the most minimalist song and also the first song I created for the game. It’s purely pentatonic in scale, builds up very slowly, and then slowly fades away. This is kind of what I built the entire soundtrack around on.” The songs in this album complement the game by being slow compared to the sometimes fast paced moments of the game. These soundtracks are a vital part of what the game is remembered for, and have a distinct feel from the other albums and singles for the game.
The second album, “Volume Beta” released in 2013, and it separates itself from the prior album by being on a larger scale, it is longer and has more parts to the music such as percussion. This is greatly shown in the song “Aria Math” which has lots of drums and new sounds compared to the first album. The creator describes his vision for the song and of the game itself, saying, “I wrote it with the beauty of the more extreme creations in Minecraft. Gigantic statues, entire cities, paintings, people, all recreated in this game. It’s awe inspiring, and that’s what I wanted to kind of symbolise.”
Other songs like “Dreiton” and “Biome Fest” embody the creative game mode of “Minecraft”, where you face no challenges to your survival, and the only thing to do is explore or create. They slowly build up to an extraordinary finale, and then fade away out of nowhere. This is meant to represent the feeling of creativity and of building this in the game, by illustrating that you don’t need a reason to build and create.
The issue with some of these songs is that they can take a while to finally get going, as the beginning of most of them is quiet and calming, before finally evolving into the final vibe of the song. This can work well with the game itself, but for listening outside of that, it may not always be enjoyable. This is especially the case for those with short attention spans, as this music is designed to work up to a great finale, which depends on patience.
These songs bring out nostalgia in people, representing and reminding them of their better or easier years of life of being kids, without worries. Although the game has moved on from C418 who created the original songs, his work continues to be of great influence upon the game, and for the players.
