Good lord, when it was announced i was looking forward to play it, but when compared to the original, i couldn't help notice how much more direct and playable the original felt. so i looked at my gameboy sitting in the bookshelf and thought i don't need anything else.
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I just don't understand. It's not like having a greater palette of possible sounds makes it impossible to write melodies.
Enter
Wall of Sound. According to that article, phil spector said he"(...) was looking for a sound, a sound so strong that if the material was not the greatest, the sound would carry the record."
Basically - drown it (a mediocre melody/lack of motif) in ensemble instrumentation, textured layering, and overdubs. Or rather today, drown it in preset soft synths and samplers and fx plugins. This can sometimes lift a mediocre song. But it's not a guarantee. That depends on your skill.
Someone like phil spector would work with a song writer or artist who introduced some melodic input or other. But when you're left to your own devices and have learned audio engineering/studio production but not necessarily music theory or have practiced an instrument, you're worse off. You can handle the tools but you don't necessarily know how you should handle them.
I love producing sound. I had a creative block and was not able to produce music all together for several years, but i was happy singing in a choir and producing distinct bell sounds using various synth techniques. So it's not like i look down on sound production. It's a craft in itself. But it's not enough in itself for something like a soundtrack.
Ultimately, i don't think it's just the soundtrack producers/composers' fault. It's more likely the fault of creative directors and trend sensitive advisors.
Metroid 2 isn't really atonal, but it's incoherent from a traditional melody perspective. It doesn't play anything close to cultural expectations. It's a bit hard to melt, predict and relax to. They went dead hard for something alien feeling, and they succeeded, for better or worse...
