THE 8-BIT CASH-IN, AND THE DILUTION OF AN ARTFORM.
For the past 3 years Ive been heavily involved in the chiptune music scene. We make songs with old sound chips from gaming consoles (or emulating them), and its a vibrant scene of people writing their own music software, designing their own instruments, and taking minimalistic sounds to their maximum potential.
Its pretty awesome.
Theres a ton of diversity in style, mixed media crossover, and it sounds cool! Its still a little underground, but new fans are becoming enamored with it every day. I would say, for the most part, the scene is healthy and growing.
Theres an urge to label this kind of music with something simple and relatable. Most often, the word 8-bit seems to crop up. Its not really an accurate term, most music made in the chiptune is actually 4-bit, which is even more impressive! But it works for the general masses. Anything resembling pixel art, square waves, and a picture of Mario is considered 8-bit, and it works good enough.
At some point in the early Aughts, anything with cheap pixel art and a Mario or Zelda reference started flying off the shelves of Hot Topic. While there were hundreds of examples of amazing derivative art from these icons, it seemed that the lowest common denominator of these seemed to appear on shirts. This was the 8-bit cash-in.
(what does that even mean?!)
We remembered our roots! while donning a shirt with an NES controller on it. And thats totally fine, it made a subculture of retro gaming, which has a lot of crossover with the chiptune music scene.
So how does this affect me as a musician, in my little scene? A few years ago, people realized that covers of songs in some niche musical styles get a lot of traffic, especially on YouTube. For example: You might find a song by Metallica in an 8-bit style, and a song from Super Mario in a metal style. So for some reason, the quality of these covers didnt actually have to be remotely good.
90% of the 8-bit covers of popular music were TERRIBLE. Enough so, that if they had been presented in the chiptune scene, they would be lumped in with the worst beginners. Lazy techniques (GSXCC), MIDI rips (theft), and wrong notes everywhere. Now, this is not something exclusive to chiptune. Most metal covers on YouTube have awful programmed drums, a distorted guitar, and a superfluous 3rds harmony and call it a day. Ive seen dozens of songs labeled and promoted as dubstep or trap that are just dance tracks that dont even remotely resemble the genre.
This proved that its more important to label your track with some hot genre than to actually pay tribute to the song youre covering. Im not against covers, I cover songs all the time. But these cash-in songs are at best lazy, and at worst intellectual theft.
There is a distinct difference between 8-bit covers and metal or dubstep covers though. Metal, and to a lesser extent dubstep, have some representation in the mainstream music world. The collective public will recognize a shitty metal track when they hear one, but they are barely aware of the chiptune scene. This is my music scenes primary representation in the music world.
On April 19th, Daft Punk released Get Lucky from their highly anticipated new album. The hype was huge, I couldnt get through 20 posts on my social media screens without seeing something about Daft Punk.
Highly anticipated track coming out? Surely some asshole is going to rush in to cover it as soon as possible, just to cash-in on the traffic. And sure enough, on April 20th, one day later, we have Daft Punk - Get Lucky 8 Bit. This is the musical equivalent to a FIRST POST on a popular thread. Its shitbag behavior. But you know what? Holy shit, its got a ton of traffic. Its not even a bad cover compared to all the shit out there! But the intentions are slimier than a used car salesman, and essentially this again is the primary mode of exposure for our artform. 8-bit is reduced to nothing more than a traffic driving tag.
Youtube link
(why dont we see General MIDI covers?)
So this brings me to my main point. Because this is so effective, because its so prevalent, it severely dilutes the quality of the music scene in general. Why should I focus on developing the greatest chiptune techniques and laboring over composition, when I can just throw together a lazy cover of something topical and be far more successful? Its gotten so bad that I can literally count on a metal/dubstep/8bit cover of anything trending within at least a week. A real artist doesnt need to label his shit 8-bit in the title, because then youre putting the aesthetic before the actual music, and in my humble opinion, that is making music for the wrong reasons.
This is exactly the reason a lot of chip musicians in the scene dont even use 8-bit to describe their music. Its just chiptune or chipmusic because its not about getting you to pay attention because you loved Super Mario and Dragon Warrior. Its about getting you to pay attention because its a really fucking awesome sonic palette full of weird yet awesome musical techniques.
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