Over the past year I’ve nearly been bested by the unclimbable mountain that is the RuneScape soundtrack. With well over 1,200 tracks currently existing in the game, it’s sheer folly to try to listen to it all straight through. That, of course, is exactly what I’ve been attempting, yet with new tracks coming out all of the time, I feel that there’s no end in sight.
If I’m to be forever working my way through an MMO soundtrack, RuneScape is a great place to be. As I’ve been discovering, there is such a sheer variety of interesting and catchy tunes on display covering a wide swath of biomes, races, events, and situations. What I perhaps like best is how RuneScape’s score isn’t in the slightest self-conscious with being silly and bizarre. In fact, it seems to revel in it!
So today let’s take an odd musical interlude to listen to six goofy and weird RuneScape tracks before we all get serious again about our video games.
“The Reaper’s House”
Have you ever been welcomed to a house of death? It’s about time you experience then! This theme, created for the game’s Halloween event, is definitely reminiscent of Disney’s Haunted Mansion (and its theme, “Grim Grinning Ghosts”). The singer takes you on a whirlwind tour of the Reaper’s macabre mansion, with echoey female vocals adding to the ghastly proceedings. I love it.
“Glutton for Nourishment”
You have to understand that practically every RuneScape music track is some hideously bad pun, so just roll with it. You also have to roll with this frantic down-home-on-the-farm hoe down starring (sigh) Notorious P.I.G. It’s kind of obvious that the team had a hoot recording the banjo-backed lyrics.
“Diango’s Little Helpers”
Ready for Christmas in summer? This yuletide track does everything but take itself seriously, giving the helper elves their own lighthearted and quirky tune. It’s one of those songs that could become an earworm if you let it, so beware before you click play!
“Chompy Hunt”
I have no idea what a Chompy is or why you would want to hunt it, but I can say with 100% certainty that this is the music that should accompany such a venture. There’s such an eclectic array of instruments banging out this offbeat tune (is that a steel drum?) that the variety alone makes it worth a listen. Helps that the tune is kind of catchy, too.
“Barking Mad”
I’ve always had a penchant for crazy, lunatic tracks in MMOs, and you don’t get much more crazy than this one. If one were to attend a cartoon asylum, this might well be playing in the hall. As a weird aside, this totally sounds like a Super NES track. Not exactly sure why, but it does.
“Eye for an Eye”
This track is best described as “Viking giant cyclopses singing a sea shanty,” because you don’t get enough of that in your diet. Again, you know that the RuneScape team has way too much fun recording tracks like this, which tells of the feats of some daring cyclops on his world tour.
MMOs are meant to be heard as well as seen, and chances are that music ties your memories to these games more than you might realize. Every two weeks Jukebox Heroes listens through a game soundtrack and picks out the highlights to share and discuss. And if you like this column, then don’t miss the author’s MMO music podcast, Battle Bards!
