The Advantage of Appreciation

I’m probably one of many people who got a Nintendo Entertainment System when I was little. That was big. Being able to play Super Mario Brothers whenever I wanted was like some divine dream. Many other games came after that. Some were great and some were not so great. I remember enjoying the hell out of most of them for reasons I didn’t think about. It was just fun. I saw each game as a whole package. It’s like when you’re little and you listen to music and hear it as a whole, then later on you start to differentiate each instrument and appreciate them more.

So then new systems came and went, and I think I always took the same kind of enjoyment out of everything (probably) until games started to have real bands doing the music and there being cut sequences and such. I even had the occasional nostalgia trip with an old console or emulator (still do sometimes). But it wasn’t really until I heard a band called “The Advantage” that I really became impressed with the music of 8 bit video games.

I don’t remember how I first heard The Advantage, but I remember being instantly shocked at their musicianship. The Advantage is a band that only performs video game cover music (NES covers specifically). Somehow I got wind of their first album (self-titled) and was amazed. I had never realized how potent the music was. When it finally dawned on me, I realized that the music for these 8 bit games has to be looped (for one thing). It also has to be catchy and never, ever get old. Didn’t A.D.D. rise to prominence around the same time as video games? Somehow, those Japanese composers created lots of music like this, and it was flying over the heads of kids like me in the late 80’s and early 90’s.

So the change from composer to cover artist was through instrumentation. The Advantage seem to have painstakingly worked to recreate these old songs with guitars and drums rather than 8 bit waves and blips. The music becomes even more potent because of the fullness of the instruments (not to mention the faithful recreation of the original songs). And this is all from guys who really did notice how good the music was. From this, they created their band (which is a side project for each member) to play those songs they loved as kids and to give game fans an awesome nostalgia trip.

I know that I enjoyed the music when I was little. I just didn’t think about it. It was in with everything else. One big ball of silly putty. It just took a few musicians (who did differentiate those things) to create something nostalgic and jarring that would snap me into realizing it. The musicians and instruments changed, but the music (by skills of the band) is as good as it ever was.

**The Advantage have released two official albums and a promo cd that was only available at shows (and online in some places). I’ve heard that they are all involved in new bands at the moment. Their myspace account hasn’t had any updates in quite some time and their official website, sadly, is long gone.**