Best Gundam Soundtrack

[Amuro]

I know this is a topic that has come up countless times, but I've been reacquainting myself with the various soundtracks and, since the forum has been unnaturally quiet for the past week or two, I was hoping we could chat on this subject again.

Personally, I think the Gundam franchise as a whole consistently has some of the highest quality soundtracks among all of anime.
When Wing was an untouchable series in my eyes, I naturally considered its soundtrack to be the best. However, I think it stays within a couple of niches of style and doesn't have the breath that some may desire. There's very little "symphonic" music to be found in it, and, although I felt that most of its songs managed to convey a given mood very well, they also migh seem a bit simplistic upon repeated listenings.
G Gundam makes up for the symphonic part, but.. that's about all it does, and only a few themes really stand out in my mind, so while it's not bad, it's somewhat niche as well.

Zeta is a noteworthy soundtrack simply because it was the first Gundam soundtrack to have a full-bodied orchestral score. However, I feel that it also carves too much of a niche for itself, with most of its music being relatively somber in mood and not really showing the range of emotions that something like the Macross soundtrack (which I hold in high regard) does. Plus, upon spending the majority of last year watching-and-rewatching Zeta and playing the PS2 game, the sountrack has really started to wear on me.

MSGs soundtrack has always been consistently pleasant to my ears.. I just never get tired of hearing it, and it always brightens my mood. However, that's mostly only when I'm hearing it in concert with the series or a game. On its own, its collection of clicks, whirrs, and precussion seem like a strange choice of music.

I think, in the end, the competition comes down to MSG, Wing, and G for me. All 3 are very different in style and thus I can't linearly choose between them. Since MSG's score is somewhat inconventional, I'm tempted to eliminate that one first, but the enjoyment factor of it is still high for me.

What do you think?

[NGT]

I like seed's music the best.

[Westlo]

Kanno's score for TAG even though it's not among her finest work.

[Sushikins]

I agree, Turn A Gundam has by far my favorite sound track. OP/ED Themes aside, one of my favorites is Boys about 16.

[Levon]

The Zeta & Double Zeta soundtracks are my favorite.

[Vaikyuko]

MSG, SEED, SEED-D, and X.

[GUNDAMPILOT]

I could never pick just one gundam soundtrack as a great one. I believe each of the gundam soundtracks have alot of great stuff to offer. The SEED and Destiny soundtracks have a great mix of good driving beats along with some really good slowed down melodies. 0079 has some cool old school japanese cheesiness of songs like Fly, Gundam and Char Go Rairu. Wing has Two-Mix all over it and you cant go wrong with some T-M. Zeta has some good all around soundtracks and frankly I love Moon and Sprouting of Wings from Turn-A.

Maybe if I had only been exposed to a handful of soundtracks this would be easier but I have everything from soundtracks from 0079 all the way to some cuts from the gundam evolve dvds. Way to much stuff to even begin to scratch what is the best.

[Amuro]

I've been listening to the Zeta soundtrack and enjoying it a fair bit. I admit that one strength it does have over, say, the Macross soundtrack, is that it does a better job of accentuating particular scenes and emotions. Macross' soundtrack, while a splendid on its own, always seemed to me like "Alright, let's just play some nice music in the background" without paying all that much attention to how it actually related to what was happening onscreen.
However, I'm surprised that there seem to be a lot of tracks on the Zeta OST that I don't recognize from the series.. and a lot of them are quite good. Maybe they were just underused or cut altogether?
In the end though, the Zeta soundtrack just gets a bit annoying to my ears with its repeated "*tension* Great events are underfoot!"-style.

[Levon]

There is a lot of tracks in Zeta, maybe you just diddn't notice when watching. The Zeta music really adds to the intense fast paced action & story. Its a real kick on my 5.1 speakers. In fact I think the music has more kick than the new Macross release with the 5.1 track. Great use of drums & violin durring action scenes in the Zeta, Double Zeta & Char's Counterattack soundtracks(all done by the same composer).

[Amuro]

Great use of drums & violin durring action scenes in the Zeta
See, that's what sort-of gets to me. There are a lot of tracks used during action scenes, but they all leave me with a "monster-battle of the day" taste and seem to be aiming to promote tension and stress rather than the opposite. Thanks, but I'll go brush up on my String Theory if I want some of that.. :P
The opposite, to a degree, is Macross, where the music doesn't necessarily have that much to do with the event currently onscreen but is rather soothing.

[GUNDAMPILOT]

With all the soundtrack music I have to zeta I as well didnt remember alot of it being used in the show so I did some rewatching a while back and you would be surprised how many of the songs on the ost are used in the show but the scenes they used them in kinda over shadow the music. I found myself paying more attention to the scenes themselves rather then the music that went along with them.

Cant really say much for the macross ost's but I mean come on....two words "macross plus" nuff' said.

[Levon]

See, that's what sort-of gets to me. There are a lot of tracks used during action scenes, but they all leave me with a "monster-battle of the day" taste and seem to be aiming to promote tension and stress rather than the opposite. Thanks, but I'll go brush up on my String Theory if I want some of that.. :P
The opposite, to a degree, is Macross, where the music doesn't necessarily have that much to do with the event currently onscreen but is rather soothing.

The music of Zeta really blends great with whats going on screen. Which is what I love.

I'm not much of a fan of SDF Macross music because it sounds like something I'd hear in an American Saturday morning cartoon. And Robotech pushed it much further into that cheesy kids cartoon feel. Zeta's music had a lot of mood & enhanced the show with emotion of conflict. While in Macross durring action scenes it sounds all happy sounding or as you put it soothing, I don't want soothing music durring action scenes especially serious war battles, I was intense music that makes my heart pound. Thats where Zeta, ZZ & CCA music succeeds with me.



Cant really say much for the macross ost's but I mean come on....two words "macross plus" nuff' said.

Yeah Macross Plus has one of the best soundtracks I'v ever heard. All thanks to Yoko Kanno.

[Amuro]

I'm not much of a fan of SDF Macross music because it sounds like something I'd hear in an American Saturday morning cartoon.
Hmm.. I'm not completely sure where you're coming from with this. Personally, Zeta felt like the slightly-simpler soundtrack out of the two, and I generally associate simplicity with saturday morning cartoons.
I think that Macross, whether it blended well with what was onscreen or not, had a remarkable amount of care put into its soundtrack and seemed to be quite an amazing and respectable achievement.

I see why Robotech's soundtrack is saturday morning cartoon-like, but, as a result, I felt the music actually matched with what was happening on screen more.

Complex music is often abstract, it seems to me, and thus might not be the most suitable for a soundtrack depending on your taste. Simple music might accentuate a scene better because it touches on a specific emotion rather than going off on its own tangent, and that's the sort of music that I feel is more common to the typical saturday morning cartoon.

As for Macross Plus.. I don't really recall the BGMs at all.. but I was quite fond of "Voices" when I first heard it. But, it might be again be getting to close to "drowning in itself" for my tastes. :P

[GUNDAMPILOT]

Yeah, I totally have to admit that in just about every case when it comes to anime soundtracks if Yoko Kanno is connected to it its going to be a winner in my book. Not too fond of some of the Bebop stuff though.

[Westlo]

The scores are pretty even imo for Zeta & Macross but what sets Macross ahead of the pack from that era is Minmei's songs. They helped makes the music of macross be one of the few to have such a massive impact on fandom in japan.

"Ai oboetemasuka" from DYRL is the perfect example of how such songs enchanced the sountrack and anime.

Anyone enough about the superior score of Macross this is a gundam thread!

[Amuro]

Anyone enough about the superior score of Macross this is a gundam thread!
Well, it's definitely arguable that Macross was as great, if not a greater, an influence on later Gundam works than the original series itself was.

[germanturkey]

TAG and SEED and SEED-D, i mean, look at the composers...

[Soaker87]

Turn A and Seed.

[Amuro]

I'll be honest.. perhaps I'm affected by my dislike of the series itself, but I don't think much at all of Seed's music. It just seems to full of itself and like its trying too hard rather than sounding genuine or original in any way. It's just stereotypical sci-fi instrumental fare that's supposed to be all dramatic and whatnot but comes across as predictable and forced to my ears.. but maybe that's just me talking about the series itself again..

[Westlo]

SEED has some great tracks but the first ost really sucked because they reused that theme over and over (Athrun & Kira flashback to childhood) throughout the first ost. He improved a lot for the second ost (one of the zaft tracks is awesome) and towards the end really killed it.

Seigi to Jiyuu is just a ****ing awesome battle theme and I really love Frei no Shi. Damn going through OST 3 right now, easily one of my fav osts in the last few years.

Ost 1 is like 4/10, 3 is 10/10.

[Levon]

I liked SEED's music, but yeah the second half is when it REALLY improved.

[Westlo]

Heck the show improved period in the second half after the double recap. Fuduka will never top SEED's second half again, Destiny proves it.

Better music, no recaps, he stopped following MSG exactly.

[Amuro]

Heck the show improved period in the second half after the double recap. Fuduka will never top SEED's second half again, Destiny proves it.

Better music, no recaps, he stopped following MSG exactly.
Actually.. I didn't like Seed much at all until the dessert arc, which was when I really started enjoying it, and then my enjoyment slowed once again when the main cast returned to space.

In every Gundam series besides Wing (and possibly X), I like the earth arcs way more than the space arcs. MSG space arc=monotonous. Zeta space arc=meh..won't something happen already?. Seed space arc=hey, this reminds me of Transformers Armada, except there's no Optimus Prime... 0083 space arc=*snore*. Seed Destiny space arc=..damn, just when this series was getting good, they just had to launch into space.

:P

[Levon]

The "space arcs" are my favorite of MSG, Zeta & SEED by a long shot.

[Techrobo]

I'm a big fan of Gundam's BGM, but not so much the theme music. I enjoyed Zeta, 0083, and Char's Counterattack's BGM the most. 0080 and W get honourable mentions.

[Rahxephon91]

I like Seed the most.

[Suiko Eiji]

I'm a big fan of Gundam's BGM, but not so much the theme music.

Aside from Char's Counterattack, I'm the opposite. I'm not saying that the BGM is bad - in fact, I think most of it fits the various series so well that it blends in to being almost unnoticable. To me, what are really defining moments of the series to me, musically, are the OP/EDs. In that case, I would say my favorites are Zeta Gundam, V Gundam, and the Gundam Trilogy OSTs. Though, the Gundam soundtrack I listen to the most is my Char's Counterattack OST.

Honorable mentions from me go out to Gundam Wing and Gundam SEED. I've always said SEED's strong suit was in its musical scoring. I noticed Wing had a similar strength when just randomly listening to parts of it on a friend's CD player one night. If there was anything about these series that I truly enjoyed, it was the soundtracks backing them up.

[Amuro]

If there was anything about these series that I truly enjoyed, it was the soundtracks backing them up.
This may seem quite obvious, but I think that we often don't realize just how little distinction we make between the quality of the music and the quality of the series, and I know that my admiration of various series has definitely been influenced by the music in the past.
And, whenever I've experimented with a little filmmaking myself, I always envisioned the film as a series of music tracks I wanted to use, with the scenes being developed in whatever way fit the music.
So yeah, I'm torn between a love for music because of the emotions it can make one feel and a hate for music because of how it seems to manipulate your opinion of whatever it's associated w/ and, once again, makes you feel emotions that are perhaps not genuine.
(Thus, again, my aversion to songs that "drown in themselves" or "songs that you drown in")

:P

What do you guys think?

..Would the Zentradi have been better off without music? :P :P :P

[Suiko Eiji]

:P

What do you guys think?

..Would the Zentradi have been better off without music? :P :P :P

I think the whole thing could have been averted if they figured out how to get some of that hot Malentraedi action. :P

[Techrobo]

To me, what are really defining moments of the series to me, musically, are the OP/EDs.
In my reasoning OP/EDs are not part of the narrative, and unless I like the music style I will not even bother listening to them. I know its blasphemy to all the J-Popers out there, but honestly most anime theme music - especially the recent stuff - is unappealing to me. Of course there are exceptions, but by and large I prefere a good orchestral score, or innovative use of rock, jazz, traditional Japanese, or techno music for BGM than cliche vocal pop songs. Of course, as in all other things, I have decidedly odd taste.

[mooseegg1982]

gundam seed's music is great.
i love the song that lacus sings in the 7th episode of seed desinty though. the fields of hope song.

[FayeValentine]

Gundam Seed = the best. <3

[BrendantheJedi]

Seed has some pretty good music, but don't count some of the other series. The original had some great incident music (and the classic, yet corny theme of Tobe! Gundam). Also Zeta has some fairly good music too.

[Rahxephon91]

Gundam Seed-So many great tunes.

[shin_gyokakuran]

My fave:

Stand up to the victory - GundamV :thumbsup:

[ben93085]

The Gundam Singles Collections are my favorite, closely followed by the ZZ Soundtrack. I have all the Zeta Soundtracks, but havn't had the time to REALLY listen to them all, but from first impressions it seems good.

[Sora N]

Gundam SEED & Gundam SEED Destiny, Gundam Wing (although the show was crap), :P Turn-A (even though I’ve never seen the anime.) -_-;

[Shin Asuka]

Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny are my fav. :P