We're SO fortunate to have this work from Geoff Follin to look back on and enjoy for years to come. I can't think of a better way to remember him and his incredible work than to geek out over the pure musical insanity that is PLOK! Thank you, Geoff.
Are you going to make a new Studio Ghibli music theory video? I left a comment on about this on another video and you replied saying its a "pretty awesome idea". Just wondering what the status of that is.😃😃
can you take a look at Olivier Deriviere's track for Remember Me that is called Nilin the Memory Hunter?, the track is rather beautiful for being a modern video game piece
How did you find out about this game?!? My dad got it for me on sale when he was in Germany ( snes games where extremely expensive for us Poles at the time ). I absolutely love this game and this insane soundtrack.
FUN FACT: Besides the title music, basically every other song in the soundtrack only uses 5 of the 8 SNES sound channels in order to make room for sound effects to never interrupt the music.
@@Peepimus There was a similar design philosophy used in doom 2016, where they made sure the dominant frequencies of the music and most of the sound effects didn't overlap which would cause player confusion. Here it's to make sure there's no awkward sound drops
The surviving Follin Brothers are participating in the Great Step Forward, a fundraising walk supported by Pancreatic Cancer UK in 2025, whilst Dean Belfield, a former Software Creations coder, is taking part in the Manchester 10K, both to raise funds for the charity and to honour Geoff's memory.
Want to add another level to the insanity? Listen to the interview that he did on the Super Marcato Bros podcast, episode 321. They ask him about his composition process, and he says that it wasn't composed first and then transcribed into the game system. He was pretty much just entering frequency and duration values directly into the code, making it up as he went and keeping it all in his head. Now *that's* brilliance!
@@derp2397 which anyone that understands anything about music theory here is absolutely insane without looking at precise sheet music. to look at the code and understand musically what's going on... this man is an absolute genius when he made plok.
Plok was created by John and Ste Pickford who were games designers in Manchester UK. I drew, produced and animated the promo for Plok old style (2D animation) so that the brothers could take it to States. The games animation had not been created at that time. The promo worked and Plok was commissioned. I didn't hear most of that awesome music until after work on the game had begun. A few months ago I went back to Scotland to visit family and got talking to my two nerdy nephews. While we were discussing my old career, one of them was consulting his phone. Suddenly, he shouted "F*CK! You worked on PLOK???" I didn't know it had become such a cult, it's gained a new life, and this great music is part of that.
Was this a purely internal thing to share to pitch meetings? I can't seem to find any animated advertisements at all, I'm genuinely curious to see what that was like
@@goodguy8457 It was purely to sell the project at a Comicon-type gathering in the States. I believe it ran on a loop for guests/attendees at the convention.
@@soupmiser725 sadly it's long gone (I assume). It was done old school, animated on paper, photocopied to cel, painted and shot under rostrum, then dumped to video for the show in the states. The boys might have it, but I doubt they would it make it available.
I truly need to see his reaction to Spot for the gameboy. Geoff saw that poor reversi clone and was generous enough to grant it that miracle called the game's idle music.
As a jazz drummer that never learned how to read music/music theory, I have no idea what you're saying half the time but I have a profane love of weirdo time signatures and for whatever reason old games love doing crazy stuff with the rhythm. But I also love how excited you get when a soundtrack does something you don't expect. A true love of music is really fun to watch.
I'd reckon the 8-bit sounds limitation would likely play a big part in retro-games' obsessions with weirdo composition, since they can't go crazy with instrumentalisation they have to go crazy with harmonies and rythm for the songs to be distinct and memorables
As a progressive metal drummer I agree with literally everything you said! I absolutely love your time, signatures and complex shifting harmonies, and seeing Charles get stoked listening to game soundtracks makes some of his videos worth watching multiple times!
If you're interested in video game music with insane time signatures, let me just recommend all of the salmon run songs from splatoon 2 and splatoon 3. They are not the easiest songs to listen to, but I think that they are very interesting. The most ridiculous time signature out of those tracks is definitely fishing frenzy.
The Beach theme gets the most attention. The true beauty is Creepy Crag. Unfortunately, he did not cover that one in this video, but it's my favorite song
Love Beach - when the Trumpets kick in, you could swear you were listening to a Stevie Wonder track (it does have some similarity to do I do). On a SNES chip - The Follins were just wizards with hardware of this time
I'm a simple man: I see someone talk about the Plok! soundtrack, I click. I still hold Plok! as the pinnacle of SNES audio engineering and composition. Whenever someone asks me for SNES music recommendations, this is one of my go-tos. Many of the recordings of the soundtrack on UA-cam have a "crunchy", bitcrushed sound to them (which you can hear, for example, at 5:56). I heard this was because it was difficult to record the music at the time the recordings were made. When played on an SNES, the aliasing is smoothed out by the console's audio filter. There are licensed soundtrack releases on vinyl and cassette tape that sound more like the an actual SNES's output.
This soundtrack absolutely takes influence from 70's era Genesis! The 7/8 piece at 8:58 sounds so much like the solo in the second half of The Cinema Show for example. And especially those chords over a single pedal tone at 15:48 are typical for Genesis progressions. Thank you for showing us this incredible OST!
We should be clear: this is the British prog rock band named Genesis, not the SEGA Genesis video game console (which Tim also wrote for). Not many contexts where those would get mixed up but this is one of them!
My father grew up in the 70s, imparted his love for THE PROG (ie genesis crimson ELP). As a classical pianist (and growing up SNESboy) all I hear is genesis amidst this chaos!! Dancing w Moonlit knight, the Knife, even later sans Peter stuff like wind and wuthering. Keep up the lovely stuff man, really tickles my nostalgia and musical bone every am!!
*HE DID IT! CHARLES FINALLY TALKED ABOUT ONE OF THE MOST 🔥 SNES OST OUT THERE! LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOO!!* But fr tho, I'm glad you're finally talking about this amazing game's OST, definitely one of my favorite works from the Follin Brothers. ❤ Also, may Geoff Follin rest in peace. 🙏
@@randman21(disclaimer: only semi-informed opinion, I don’t know all the details!) The answer is, simply put, this is what happens when you have a brilliant musician who is also a brilliant programmer. In short, the Follin brothers knew how to program the music on what’s known as a “bare metal” basis, entering instructions directly into the computer chip(s) involved so they were able to stretch their capabilities. This was actually what happened a lot of the time in the 8/16 bit era, since a lot of music had to be programmed this way. The Follin brothers were just particularly amazing at this, since they’d been doing it for a WHILE on multiple chipsets. Also consider progressive rock, coming into its own in the 8/16 bit era, which was basically ALL about finding new ways to use new tech to enhance and create new sounds for music. Probably not a coincidence, I think!
Not a single person in my County had this game. They all thought I was lying it existed, pretended I made it up, or just straight up thought I was playing the music off a cd or laser disc. It was unbelievable. The incredible soundtrack and unique gameplay was something out of this world. I am still so humbled to this day that I own and can play this on an original system, with a tv that provides the perfect sound for it (my parents kept a lot of stuff). Glad to see the world enjoying everything about Plok and other hidden gems in this day and age. Game preservation is a growing demand and I am here😊 for it.
I never got an SNES as a kid, but that didn't stop me from reading every issue of Nintendo Power at my local library and I LOVED reading about Plok. It was always on my list of games to play and I had no idea the music was so incredible.
Man Tim and Geoff were decades ahead of their time. Glad you got around to covering the Plok OST, I think it’s arguably one of the best game soundtracks of all time
Thanks for all you do! I love your videos. I never grew up playing Plok but I did play the MESS out of Skyshark on Nintendo and the music for that game was written by Tim Follin. The intro is one of the most epic things I've ever heard, the prog rock epicness is strong with that game. I'm 1000% positive its 4 songs would blow your socks off.
What impresses me beyond music theory is the attention to detail that makes samples not merely sound like instruments, but like instruments someone is /playing/. The harmonica notes bend like a harmonica player would bend them, and the harmony notes are present but not constant, like the player is throwing them in here and there. And the electric guitar notes have these little clicky bursts of noise like someone is handling the strings. And the bends and slides feel authentic too. They weren't satisfied to just make music if it was possible to approximate reality.
One of the tricks here is to use a sample of a single note at different pitches to create a chord, then mix that chord down to its own sample. It was done because these systems (particularly the Amiga) could only play a few samples simultaneously, so it was more efficient to mix down to a chord sample. It's easier to do it that way in the music tracker software they would have been using as well. Particularly at 14:45, those major chords would be one sample played at different pitches.
This is why Charles is really having trouble wrapping his head around this - this was a *common* trick in Amiga music. To be fair, Tim & Geoff are doing it *exceptionally* well here, because their major/minor samples are 7th/9th chords, not just 1/3/5.
@@BixenteFabregas Correct. The point to note here is that only Plok's Title Theme uses all 8 channels that the SNES sound chip allows for. The "Gift" song uses 6. Everything else uses 5. You *have* to do these sorts of sample-crunching tricks.
@@Benanov Or have with the game cartridge a sound enhancer chip. There were many. FDS audio, Namco 163 audio, MMC5 audio, Sunsoft 5B audio, INES Mapper 018, INES Mapper 072, INES Mapper 086, INES Mapper 092, Mitsubishi M50805, VRC6 and the most rare, VRC7 used only once in Lagrange's Point. Some enhance audio capacity, others even add new audio channels...
@@BixenteFabregas You're referencing NES/FDS mapper chips which are unavailable on the SNES/SFC. I do not believe the SNES/SFC exposed the audio path to the cartridge as the NES did.
@@Benanov You are absolutely right. My bad. But the point is sometimes game manfacturers add chips to enhance either graphical or audio performances for certain consoles. Was the SNES able to welcome extra chips? I don't know now.
I'm sure other people have posted this, but pretty much every time I see someone say the thing about Miyamoto thinking the console was modified, someone else shows up and says that's a myth. He was certainly impressed, but having been involved in the design of the console, I'm sure he knew the sound chip was _sample-based_ and not "just an 8-bit system" as Charles put it. The reason most SNES music sounds samey is that most composers didn't really know what they were doing with the chip, and passed around the same set of basic samples; the true potential of the chip was limited only by the quality of the samples you could cram onto the cartridge alongside your game.
Works of follins are incredibly intuitive, deeply sophisticated, powerful and inventive. Each time I end up being mindblown after encountering one of the tracks. Liked yours vids about them. And the versatile manner of a way they work with harmony gave me such an impact as Promised Neverland did. So I remembered about one of my fav jazz guitarists Paul Metheny and found his soundtrack works with his group. After discovering the soundtrack to a forgotten film The Falcon and the Snowman I was completely blown away by a painful beauty, soulful nature and moving spirit of the 4th track The Falcon. Metheny and the keybordist Lyle Mays did such a tasteful, subtle, lucid and distinctive work with arrangement and majestic voice of the group's vocalist Pedro Aznar just entirely let you burst into tears. Highly recommend you this unexpectedly breathtaking OST for a new analysis, and their works as well.
Thanks for looking at the Beach theme. It is one of the best tracks of Tim/Geoff. The sevenths/ninths sea is amazing, absolute genius. And of course the rest rest too. I played it during the SNES period, directly recognizing the soundtrack. If I think of the uniqueness of their compositions, it still brings me to tears.
Thanks for this. This is one of the best sound track in SNES. My first comment in this channel I mentioned this master piece. No even a bad music in this game. The music IS PERFECT. THANKS.
13:05 - "Rocket Launcher" sounds like someone took the level 1 theme from Rocket Knight Adventures and told Emerson, Lake, and Palmer to do their own prog rock take on it. It's just wild!
the beach theme is fun, it's doing that parallel harmony thing you'd hear in a lot of house and techno tracks, where the composer had these sampled 7th chords, sometimes theyd even layer these 7th chord samples over each other and just make these huge ethereal sounding jazzy chords, or let the bass recontextualize that voicing too. 80s/ealry 90s house music is a very interesting little window of music where like electronic music, incredible sampling and very jazzy harmonies just sort of coexisted all at one point
This soundtrack is almost CD quality on a SNES. A friend of mine tought this music was from a PS1 or N64 game. It is insane how good the SNES soundchip is.
After studying over the few talks youve had on the backdoor 2-5, i managed to figure out the absolutely harmonically bending ways you can traverse the 12 tempered keys messing with minor thirds and all things diminshed. After decades of studying and breaking thru my old classical training i can finally 'throw colors' onto a canvas with my improv. I was really appreciating what you were highlighting by isolating the dimished scale out of one of the earlier chords. Thanks prof! 💜
Some of these progressions blow me away even though I have no clue what's going on theoretically. It just has such an otherworldly sound and I vibe so hard with it. Truly a musical masterpiece by any metric.
I looked up "Charles Cornell Plok" LAST NIGHT and was disappointed when I got nothing, I was surprised because you hadn't covered it in your other video about Tim Follin, and now see that you uploaded this 2 HOURS AGO. Feel like I literally willed this into existence lmao
I love how you get impressed with the music! I played it when I was a kid, almost when game was released, and it was instantly in love with the soundtrack! When the internet came to my house, Plok melodies were among my searches of midis and early P2P. I always thought it was incredible and so advanced for its era... and when I read about how the Follins "hacked" the SNES channels I proved I wasn't wrong! I still get excited when I listen to it, and I promised myself to look for the game and play it again, and see if at my age and experience, I will be able to finish it LOL BTW let me suggest me another impressive OST of the Follins, it's from "Spider-Man and the X-Men, Arcade's Revenge". The game is bad, but the music is REALLYGOOD. I suggest a lot GAMBIT STAGE. It's godly!!
The Follin guys just always hit it out of the park. I genuinely believe that they must have literally set a bunch of nintendo sound chips on fire when working on their music.
Thank you for continuing to shine a light on the genius that is the work of the Follin brothers. We've been performing their music for a handful of years and every time after a show we have people come up to us and say something to the effect of "Plok? Who knew? Blew me away!" Glad to know these masterpieces are getting out to a wider audience now. Kudos - great video!
I am so grateful that you have stumbled into this world. As a child, I played many of these games or revisited them later. Although I was a music student for years, that chapter of my life is far behind me. HOWEVER, there are still small opportunities to learn and appreciate the wonderful work of the Follins and relive these masterpieces and others. It's nice to revisit this music from a theory involved perspective. Thanks for taking us on these journeys Charles. Solstice is still my favorite ^_^
A lot of this reminds me of some of the Kansas instrumental tracks, like Pinacle. They also sound like a lot of the tracks in Final Fantasy 5, were we know Uematsu listed Kansas as an inspiration. The earth temple and battle on the big bridge.
I've been looking for a long time for that tip on moving in minor thirds--so happy I watched this one! That sound is one of those common "jazzy" ones I hear but didn't know how to reproduce. Thanks Charles!
A childhood game that I always forget the name of. I have tried multiple times to describe this game to friends and they do not believe that the game existed. It's a game to be remembered for all it's wacky fun and great soundtrack. Thanks for bring back the memories.
hell yeah, great choice of video game music right here. i was just talkin about Plok's soundtrack with my coworkers last year. this game holds a special place in my heart. my sister and i played for so many hours back in the 90's
Plok! Yes! I played this game as a kid and I'm having the soundtrack in my gaming playlist for several years now (obviously because it's awesome). The game is rather underrated imo and the soundtrack really deserves the attention! Some humble suggestions for other videos would be: "Still More Fighting" from FF VII "Alaska" from Marvel Super Heroes in War of the Gems "Beware the Forest's Mushrooms" from Super Mario RPG "Laughin Jokin Numbnuts" from Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures
While you‘re in the Follin Hole, look at Time Trax (Genesis) or the Gauntlet 3 (C64) Title Theme (Make Sure it‘s the C64 version, there are some others i think with a different Soundtrack)😊 If you want to Switch it up, Look at Earth Bound (SNES, not Tim Follin tho)
Tim Follin did the soundtracks for all 3 platforms (C64, Amiga, and ZX Spectrum), and they're a bit different. I believe the soundtrack Speccy version is mostly a downgraded C64 version, but the Amiga version is really good too.
This was one of my favorite games when I was younger. And the crag level you focus on at 5:30 was my favorite next to the boss themes. I knew at age 8 THAT I loved these songs. Your breakdowns and passion prove to me why. My parents (and many adults in the 80s and early 90s) had such stigma about video game music being awful, and I love when you prove them wrong.
I have no musical talent whatsoever but I love your videos. It’s fun watching you break things down, even if you are speaking a language I don’t understand.
I remember this being one of those weird games that I ended up loving. I hadn’t thought about this one for so long and this video just rushed in the nostalgia. Thank you so much for reminding me of this hidden gem.
PLOK was a much-enjoyed rental of mine back in the day, but I CERTAINLY didn't have the ability back then to appreciate the sorcery that is this soundtrack! I'd love to see a deeper dive into it, if that's possible. Keep up the good work!
It's awesome to finally see in recent years so much love for the soundtracks I used to jam to as a kid. Back then, it seemed as if I were the only person I knew who appreciated them as more than "beeps and boops". But I see now that I was definitely not alone!
Amazing video, always interesting to learn all the different techniques to create such cool music! Thanks for putting the chord names etc up, was super easy to follow! 😁
I am so glad you finally covered Plok! I love it when you cover songs by the Follin brothers as much as the next guy, but I’d like to see you cover some songs made by Jeroen Tel. He mainly composed for Commodore 64, which only has 3 channels as opposed to the NES’s 4. If you love Tim and Geoff Follin’s work, then you’re gonna love Jeroen Tel’s music, because his compositions are just as amazing and mind-blowing! Another recommendation I have is to listen to the Tetris CDI soundtrack. It has that pure late 80’s/ early 90’s sound that has no right being in a Tetris game!
YES!! I LOVE it whenever I see someone react to, talk about, or listen to PLOK. Regardless of its intense difficulty spike, this game is so wonderful in my eyes for anyone to fund and try out. Definitely a gem hidden other many other popular title's!
It's so cathartic to hear a pianist react to and give props to the original video game composers that definitely never really got the credit they deserved up until about 10 to 15 years ago because of the internet. People like Tim & Geoff Follin, Yuzo Koshiro, Jesper Kyd and many others inspired me to get into making music as a teenager and still amaze me today after all of these years. I didn't know Geoff passed which is a shame because I was hoping maybe one day we would get an interview from him just to see what his takes and influences were in comparison to Tim despite them being brothers.
Yoooooooooo I appreciate everything you do with these video game tunes and breaking everything down. Remind me of my marching band teacher for sure. The tune at the very end of your video is so funky. I’m going to play this game just so I can hear these tunes.
I knew I was in for a treat when I saw you were covering Plok! I really wanted you to cover the "guitar" solo in the middle of the Beach theme. Other than that, I love that you're fascinated by the Follin Brothers' genius songwriting!
We're SO fortunate to have this work from Geoff Follin to look back on and enjoy for years to come. I can't think of a better way to remember him and his incredible work than to geek out over the pure musical insanity that is PLOK! Thank you, Geoff.
Are you going to make a new Studio Ghibli music theory video? I left a comment on about this on another video and you replied saying its a "pretty awesome idea". Just wondering what the status of that is.😃😃
can you take a look at Olivier Deriviere's track for Remember Me that is called Nilin the Memory Hunter?, the track is rather beautiful for being a modern video game piece
Can you react to duke ellington nutcracker, and cannonball adderleys fiddler on the roof? Please!
How did you find out about this game?!? My dad got it for me on sale when he was in Germany ( snes games where extremely expensive for us Poles at the time ). I absolutely love this game and this insane soundtrack.
Have you listened to the soundtrack for Soul Eater? Super unique and interesting instrument choices and placements!
FUN FACT: Besides the title music, basically every other song in the soundtrack only uses 5 of the 8 SNES sound channels in order to make room for sound effects to never interrupt the music.
They were literally only using like 62.5% of their power, man.!.!
The Follin Brothers’ black magic at work
The 9th chords in the beach theme are just 2 major chord samples layered on top of each other.
@@Peepimus There was a similar design philosophy used in doom 2016, where they made sure the dominant frequencies of the music and most of the sound effects didn't overlap which would cause player confusion. Here it's to make sure there's no awkward sound drops
Follins need only 1 channel to create a masterpiece.
Geoff Follin has passed away this year due to pancreatic cancer... RIP and thanks for the tracks... Regards to his brothers Tim and Mike Follin.
The surviving Follin Brothers are participating in the Great Step Forward, a fundraising walk supported by Pancreatic Cancer UK in 2025, whilst Dean Belfield, a former Software Creations coder, is taking part in the Manchester 10K, both to raise funds for the charity and to honour Geoff's memory.
WHAAAAAAT NOOOO
Wasn't Tim the one that made this music though?
@@thewinterprince1731both Tim and Geoff made music
I f***ing hate that stupid disease
Only the Follin bros. could amaze people w/ their music skills by the likes of Miyamoto. Even Sakurai recently acknowledged Follin’s music in a video.
in what video???
@@VOXD56.MP3 In his recent video titled "Famicom and NES music"
@@sinitheexcellent3654 Thanks!!
Want to add another level to the insanity? Listen to the interview that he did on the Super Marcato Bros podcast, episode 321. They ask him about his composition process, and he says that it wasn't composed first and then transcribed into the game system. He was pretty much just entering frequency and duration values directly into the code, making it up as he went and keeping it all in his head. Now *that's* brilliance!
the code itself was his sheet music
@@derp2397 which anyone that understands anything about music theory here is absolutely insane without looking at precise sheet music. to look at the code and understand musically what's going on... this man is an absolute genius when he made plok.
Plok was created by John and Ste Pickford who were games designers in Manchester UK. I drew, produced and animated the promo for Plok old style (2D animation) so that the brothers could take it to States. The games animation had not been created at that time. The promo worked and Plok was commissioned. I didn't hear most of that awesome music until after work on the game had begun. A few months ago I went back to Scotland to visit family and got talking to my two nerdy nephews. While we were discussing my old career, one of them was consulting his phone. Suddenly, he shouted "F*CK! You worked on PLOK???" I didn't know it had become such a cult, it's gained a new life, and this great music is part of that.
Was this a purely internal thing to share to pitch meetings? I can't seem to find any animated advertisements at all, I'm genuinely curious to see what that was like
That is awesome
@@goodguy8457 It was purely to sell the project at a Comicon-type gathering in the States. I believe it ran on a loop for guests/attendees at the convention.
@AlexMc9395 Do you have a copy of this animation lying around? I'm curious to see it
@@soupmiser725 sadly it's long gone (I assume). It was done old school, animated on paper, photocopied to cel, painted and shot under rostrum, then dumped to video for the show in the states. The boys might have it, but I doubt they would it make it available.
This channel is slowly becoming a Follin bros appreciation channel and I'm here for it.
Tim Follin and Nobuo Uematsu are my faves
One of the best video game music playlists i could find on youtube is called "Tim Follin is a god"
Tim Follin is basically that one unemployed friend in Friday who makes random masterpieces out of nowhere
@MaoRatto
0 seconds ago
On* Friday not in Friday. When was last time you can physically go inside of "Friday"?
@@MaoRattoThere's a movie named Friday. I don't know if that's what this was though.
Babe wake up, he dropped the PLOK video
FINALLY I’ve only been begging for this in the comments for years
one of my most favourite games of all times :)
Yes! Yes! Yes!
It’s finally here!
Honey, I'm up! You get the snacks, I'll put on the coffee and nab the laptop, we meet back on the bed in 10!
Been waiting for this!
We need a follow up. We’ve barely scratched the surface of this masterpiece.
Senn's remasterings of these songs tend to have a lot of interesting info shown alongside the songs
I truly need to see his reaction to Spot for the gameboy. Geoff saw that poor reversi clone and was generous enough to grant it that miracle called the game's idle music.
As a jazz drummer that never learned how to read music/music theory, I have no idea what you're saying half the time but I have a profane love of weirdo time signatures and for whatever reason old games love doing crazy stuff with the rhythm. But I also love how excited you get when a soundtrack does something you don't expect. A true love of music is really fun to watch.
I'd reckon the 8-bit sounds limitation would likely play a big part in retro-games' obsessions with weirdo composition, since they can't go crazy with instrumentalisation they have to go crazy with harmonies and rythm for the songs to be distinct and memorables
As a progressive metal drummer I agree with literally everything you said! I absolutely love your time, signatures and complex shifting harmonies, and seeing Charles get stoked listening to game soundtracks makes some of his videos worth watching multiple times!
If you're interested in video game music with insane time signatures, let me just recommend all of the salmon run songs from splatoon 2 and splatoon 3. They are not the easiest songs to listen to, but I think that they are very interesting. The most ridiculous time signature out of those tracks is definitely fishing frenzy.
the boss theme of this game is good and all, but the beach theme doesnt get enough love, it really goes really hard
The Beach theme gets the most attention. The true beauty is Creepy Crag. Unfortunately, he did not cover that one in this video, but it's my favorite song
Love Beach - when the Trumpets kick in, you could swear you were listening to a Stevie Wonder track (it does have some similarity to do I do). On a SNES chip - The Follins were just wizards with hardware of this time
creepy crag is underrated
Are you kidding me? Everyone knows the beach theme 😭
They're all great, but Venge Thicket has always been my favourite.
I'm a simple man: I see someone talk about the Plok! soundtrack, I click. I still hold Plok! as the pinnacle of SNES audio engineering and composition. Whenever someone asks me for SNES music recommendations, this is one of my go-tos.
Many of the recordings of the soundtrack on UA-cam have a "crunchy", bitcrushed sound to them (which you can hear, for example, at 5:56). I heard this was because it was difficult to record the music at the time the recordings were made. When played on an SNES, the aliasing is smoothed out by the console's audio filter. There are licensed soundtrack releases on vinyl and cassette tape that sound more like the an actual SNES's output.
Yeah i got disappointed that he listened to the lower quality uploads on UA-cam but I'm still so hyped he made this video at all
@@roilo8560 He needs to learn how to use Zophar's domain
Never knew what Plok! is but I'm so damn into it right now. The curiosity dragged me into chaos and I'm enjoying this at the fullest
That's really cool, and now I realize why what I've been hearing recently online doesn't match up with what I remember from playing
Why don't people just record the audio from the system?
0:43/3:06 - Title
5:39 - Beach
10:29 - Akrillic
11:40 - Boss
13:05 - Rocket Launcher
16:37 - Conclusion
Thank you!
Well hello Roller Mobster
This soundtrack absolutely takes influence from 70's era Genesis! The 7/8 piece at 8:58 sounds so much like the solo in the second half of The Cinema Show for example. And especially those chords over a single pedal tone at 15:48 are typical for Genesis progressions. Thank you for showing us this incredible OST!
Lots of Yes influences in Follin compositions too.
We should be clear: this is the British prog rock band named Genesis, not the SEGA Genesis video game console (which Tim also wrote for). Not many contexts where those would get mixed up but this is one of them!
10:58 it's crazy how much this sounds like a genesis thing
I was looking for this comment! Yes!
It's weird thinking of Genesis as 70s prog rock, knowing them mostly from "The Way We Walk".
I love that you've dived so deep into video game music.
It's a highly underrated artform.
My father grew up in the 70s, imparted his love for THE PROG (ie genesis crimson ELP). As a classical pianist (and growing up SNESboy) all I hear is genesis amidst this chaos!! Dancing w Moonlit knight, the Knife, even later sans Peter stuff like wind and wuthering.
Keep up the lovely stuff man, really tickles my nostalgia and musical bone every am!!
*HE DID IT! CHARLES FINALLY TALKED ABOUT ONE OF THE MOST 🔥 SNES OST OUT THERE! LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOO!!*
But fr tho, I'm glad you're finally talking about this amazing game's OST, definitely one of my favorite works from the Follin Brothers. ❤
Also, may Geoff Follin rest in peace. 🙏
RIP Geoff Follin. Never heard of him (or this game) until now, but he did incredible work.
the number one rule of video game music is...give it to the Follin boys and itll be an instant hit.
Unfortunately the games were never hits, though.
Even when I dont know the rules of making music, I just love how much Charles enjoys every little thing
I hear the title screen blues and immediate thought, "Wait, WHAT? That's CD QUALITY! HOW is that on a SNES??!?!?"
Lol what's the answer? Because the sound quality was the first thing I noticed too
@@randman21(disclaimer: only semi-informed opinion, I don’t know all the details!) The answer is, simply put, this is what happens when you have a brilliant musician who is also a brilliant programmer. In short, the Follin brothers knew how to program the music on what’s known as a “bare metal” basis, entering instructions directly into the computer chip(s) involved so they were able to stretch their capabilities. This was actually what happened a lot of the time in the 8/16 bit era, since a lot of music had to be programmed this way. The Follin brothers were just particularly amazing at this, since they’d been doing it for a WHILE on multiple chipsets. Also consider progressive rock, coming into its own in the 8/16 bit era, which was basically ALL about finding new ways to use new tech to enhance and create new sounds for music. Probably not a coincidence, I think!
Not a single person in my County had this game. They all thought I was lying it existed, pretended I made it up, or just straight up thought I was playing the music off a cd or laser disc. It was unbelievable. The incredible soundtrack and unique gameplay was something out of this world. I am still so humbled to this day that I own and can play this on an original system, with a tv that provides the perfect sound for it (my parents kept a lot of stuff). Glad to see the world enjoying everything about Plok and other hidden gems in this day and age. Game preservation is a growing demand and I am here😊 for it.
I never got an SNES as a kid, but that didn't stop me from reading every issue of Nintendo Power at my local library and I LOVED reading about Plok. It was always on my list of games to play and I had no idea the music was so incredible.
I said this on the Tim Follin video, but I’m so glad more and more people are acknowledging Geoff and Tim these days.
Tim and Geoff Follin turned every soundtrack they touched into gold.
I see Plok musical analysis, I click. Simple as.
Man Tim and Geoff were decades ahead of their time. Glad you got around to covering the Plok OST, I think it’s arguably one of the best game soundtracks of all time
Thanks for all you do! I love your videos. I never grew up playing Plok but I did play the MESS out of Skyshark on Nintendo and the music for that game was written by Tim Follin. The intro is one of the most epic things I've ever heard, the prog rock epicness is strong with that game. I'm 1000% positive its 4 songs would blow your socks off.
RIP Geoff you absolute legend
What impresses me beyond music theory is the attention to detail that makes samples not merely sound like instruments, but like instruments someone is /playing/.
The harmonica notes bend like a harmonica player would bend them, and the harmony notes are present but not constant, like the player is throwing them in here and there.
And the electric guitar notes have these little clicky bursts of noise like someone is handling the strings. And the bends and slides feel authentic too.
They weren't satisfied to just make music if it was possible to approximate reality.
One of the tricks here is to use a sample of a single note at different pitches to create a chord, then mix that chord down to its own sample. It was done because these systems (particularly the Amiga) could only play a few samples simultaneously, so it was more efficient to mix down to a chord sample. It's easier to do it that way in the music tracker software they would have been using as well. Particularly at 14:45, those major chords would be one sample played at different pitches.
This is why Charles is really having trouble wrapping his head around this - this was a *common* trick in Amiga music. To be fair, Tim & Geoff are doing it *exceptionally* well here, because their major/minor samples are 7th/9th chords, not just 1/3/5.
@@BixenteFabregas Correct. The point to note here is that only Plok's Title Theme uses all 8 channels that the SNES sound chip allows for. The "Gift" song uses 6. Everything else uses 5. You *have* to do these sorts of sample-crunching tricks.
@@Benanov Or have with the game cartridge a sound enhancer chip. There were many. FDS audio, Namco 163 audio, MMC5 audio, Sunsoft 5B audio, INES Mapper 018, INES Mapper 072, INES Mapper 086, INES Mapper 092, Mitsubishi M50805, VRC6 and the most rare, VRC7 used only once in Lagrange's Point. Some enhance audio capacity, others even add new audio channels...
@@BixenteFabregas You're referencing NES/FDS mapper chips which are unavailable on the SNES/SFC. I do not believe the SNES/SFC exposed the audio path to the cartridge as the NES did.
@@Benanov You are absolutely right. My bad. But the point is sometimes game manfacturers add chips to enhance either graphical or audio performances for certain consoles. Was the SNES able to welcome extra chips? I don't know now.
OH MY GOODNESS THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR UPLOADING AN ANALYZATION ON PLOK!'S SOUNDTRACK AAAAA I WAS FREAKING OUT WHEN I SAW THIS-
I'm sure other people have posted this, but pretty much every time I see someone say the thing about Miyamoto thinking the console was modified, someone else shows up and says that's a myth. He was certainly impressed, but having been involved in the design of the console, I'm sure he knew the sound chip was _sample-based_ and not "just an 8-bit system" as Charles put it. The reason most SNES music sounds samey is that most composers didn't really know what they were doing with the chip, and passed around the same set of basic samples; the true potential of the chip was limited only by the quality of the samples you could cram onto the cartridge alongside your game.
Works of follins are incredibly intuitive, deeply sophisticated, powerful and inventive. Each time I end up being mindblown after encountering one of the tracks. Liked yours vids about them. And the versatile manner of a way they work with harmony gave me such an impact as Promised Neverland did. So I remembered about one of my fav jazz guitarists Paul Metheny and found his soundtrack works with his group. After discovering the soundtrack to a forgotten film The Falcon and the Snowman I was completely blown away by a painful beauty, soulful nature and moving spirit of the 4th track The Falcon. Metheny and the keybordist Lyle Mays did such a tasteful, subtle, lucid and distinctive work with arrangement and majestic voice of the group's vocalist Pedro Aznar just entirely let you burst into tears. Highly recommend you this unexpectedly breathtaking OST for a new analysis, and their works as well.
5:43 The sounds my music bro makes when I show him this cool new lofi prog jazz bop I found
10:17 Not gonna lie that was preatty smooth
nice hidden gem. Would love to see you break down ActRaiser for SNES
Thanks for looking at the Beach theme. It is one of the best tracks of Tim/Geoff. The sevenths/ninths sea is amazing, absolute genius. And of course the rest rest too. I played it during the SNES period, directly recognizing the soundtrack. If I think of the uniqueness of their compositions, it still brings me to tears.
We need a Plok series where you deep dive on every tune. Such a masterpiece.
Thanks for this. This is one of the best sound track in SNES. My first comment in this channel I mentioned this master piece. No even a bad music in this game. The music IS PERFECT. THANKS.
The Follin Bros. continues to be absolutely iconic and absolutely carry the games they worked on
Thank you for bringing attention to this masterpiece of a game
we're getting closer to him discovering splatoon 😩
That would be nice!
Here we'll go totally atonal and nuts
Good music in that game
god if he listens to w-3's music, hes gonna lose his mind
The 31/16 time signature 😩 🐟🐟🐟
8:21 this ten seconds of brilliant editing and dialogue should absolutely have everyone using this site subscribed
Thank you for this video! I actually get so much of Maurice Ravel from these chord progressions. The Follin brothers' music is simply amazing!
13:05 - "Rocket Launcher" sounds like someone took the level 1 theme from Rocket Knight Adventures and told Emerson, Lake, and Palmer to do their own prog rock take on it. It's just wild!
the beach theme is fun, it's doing that parallel harmony thing you'd hear in a lot of house and techno tracks, where the composer had these sampled 7th chords, sometimes theyd even layer these 7th chord samples over each other and just make these huge ethereal sounding jazzy chords, or let the bass recontextualize that voicing too.
80s/ealry 90s house music is a very interesting little window of music where like electronic music, incredible sampling and very jazzy harmonies just sort of coexisted all at one point
OMG I'm so glad you did Plok I LOVE this soundtrack. You always pick excellent classic games Charles!
The Follins brothers heard what the sound chips of the time were like, were super unsatisfied and then said "fine, I'll do it myself".
This soundtrack is almost CD quality on a SNES. A friend of mine tought this music was from a PS1 or N64 game. It is insane how good the SNES soundchip is.
OMG yes finally a PLOK video. This was my first game as a kid and honestly probably influenced a lot of my music taste to this day.
After studying over the few talks youve had on the backdoor 2-5, i managed to figure out the absolutely harmonically bending ways you can traverse the 12 tempered keys messing with minor thirds and all things diminshed. After decades of studying and breaking thru my old classical training i can finally 'throw colors' onto a canvas with my improv. I was really appreciating what you were highlighting by isolating the dimished scale out of one of the earlier chords. Thanks prof! 💜
THANK YOUUUU FOR MAKING THIS VIDEO I LOVEEEEE THE PLOK! SOUNDTRACK SO MUCHHHH
Some of these progressions blow me away even though I have no clue what's going on theoretically. It just has such an otherworldly sound and I vibe so hard with it. Truly a musical masterpiece by any metric.
I looked up "Charles Cornell Plok" LAST NIGHT and was disappointed when I got nothing, I was surprised because you hadn't covered it in your other video about Tim Follin, and now see that you uploaded this 2 HOURS AGO. Feel like I literally willed this into existence lmao
Well thank you
I love how you get impressed with the music!
I played it when I was a kid, almost when game was released, and it was instantly in love with the soundtrack! When the internet came to my house, Plok melodies were among my searches of midis and early P2P. I always thought it was incredible and so advanced for its era... and when I read about how the Follins "hacked" the SNES channels I proved I wasn't wrong!
I still get excited when I listen to it, and I promised myself to look for the game and play it again, and see if at my age and experience, I will be able to finish it LOL
BTW let me suggest me another impressive OST of the Follins, it's from "Spider-Man and the X-Men, Arcade's Revenge". The game is bad, but the music is REALLYGOOD. I suggest a lot GAMBIT STAGE. It's godly!!
WE ARE PLOKONTINUING THE FOLLIN SERIES
The Follin guys just always hit it out of the park. I genuinely believe that they must have literally set a bunch of nintendo sound chips on fire when working on their music.
Tim and Geoff Follin are freaking geniuses!
Thank you for continuing to shine a light on the genius that is the work of the Follin brothers. We've been performing their music for a handful of years and every time after a show we have people come up to us and say something to the effect of "Plok? Who knew? Blew me away!"
Glad to know these masterpieces are getting out to a wider audience now. Kudos - great video!
A Made in Abyss Soundtrack video and this year is over. VOH still sends shivers down my spine.
that would be incredible
I am so grateful that you have stumbled into this world. As a child, I played many of these games or revisited them later. Although I was a music student for years, that chapter of my life is far behind me. HOWEVER, there are still small opportunities to learn and appreciate the wonderful work of the Follins and relive these masterpieces and others. It's nice to revisit this music from a theory involved perspective. Thanks for taking us on these journeys Charles. Solstice is still my favorite ^_^
A lot of this reminds me of some of the Kansas instrumental tracks, like Pinacle. They also sound like a lot of the tracks in Final Fantasy 5, were we know Uematsu listed Kansas as an inspiration. The earth temple and battle on the big bridge.
I've been looking for a long time for that tip on moving in minor thirds--so happy I watched this one! That sound is one of those common "jazzy" ones I hear but didn't know how to reproduce. Thanks Charles!
Nothing will ever hit as much as the Boss theme, what a soundtrack!
A childhood game that I always forget the name of. I have tried multiple times to describe this game to friends and they do not believe that the game existed. It's a game to be remembered for all it's wacky fun and great soundtrack. Thanks for bring back the memories.
0:40 Bach will remember this
hell yeah, great choice of video game music right here. i was just talkin about Plok's soundtrack with my coworkers last year. this game holds a special place in my heart. my sister and i played for so many hours back in the 90's
11:24 don't forget he's doing a genocide on the whole species just because his flag was stolen
Plok! Yes! I played this game as a kid and I'm having the soundtrack in my gaming playlist for several years now (obviously because it's awesome). The game is rather underrated imo and the soundtrack really deserves the attention!
Some humble suggestions for other videos would be:
"Still More Fighting" from FF VII
"Alaska" from Marvel Super Heroes in War of the Gems
"Beware the Forest's Mushrooms" from Super Mario RPG
"Laughin Jokin Numbnuts" from Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures
While you‘re in the Follin Hole, look at Time Trax (Genesis) or the Gauntlet 3 (C64) Title Theme (Make Sure it‘s the C64 version, there are some others i think with a different Soundtrack)😊 If you want to Switch it up, Look at Earth Bound (SNES, not Tim Follin tho)
Tim Follin did the soundtracks for all 3 platforms (C64, Amiga, and ZX Spectrum), and they're a bit different. I believe the soundtrack Speccy version is mostly a downgraded C64 version, but the Amiga version is really good too.
@@bfish89ryuhayabusa Rob hubbord is the goat of the C64 music
This was one of my favorite games when I was younger. And the crag level you focus on at 5:30 was my favorite next to the boss themes. I knew at age 8 THAT I loved these songs. Your breakdowns and passion prove to me why. My parents (and many adults in the 80s and early 90s) had such stigma about video game music being awful, and I love when you prove them wrong.
14:15 someone please take this out of context somehow
The part at 9:00 is the same type of harmony in Cinema Show by Genesis at about 8.04. Always great contents Charles.
Do u allways listen to music so emotionally??.... like imagine a guy sittin next to u in train and GO LIKE " oohohohooHOO" *extreme nodding*
you mean to say you don’t?
I mean if I hear a nasty melody that shakes my core I will def do that
It's a byproduct of learning how to hear
The video would be awkward if he wasn’t so expressive about it imo…
that's what passion for your craft does.
Been playing and collecting games for more than four decades and I have never heard the music for this game. I feel ashamed. Thanks for covering this.
10:17 That run made me instantly think about Back to the Future.
Holy cow…I hear it too.
Made me think of Zelda: ALTTP title screen 😁
@@EdBoi18 yes that too!
I have no musical talent whatsoever but I love your videos. It’s fun watching you break things down, even if you are speaking a language I don’t understand.
4:46 but the track is not in B major, but rather B (minor) blues. D is in B minor and B blues.
But i am shocked, that you didnt mention Creepy Crag. This song is the most iconic in the entire game
lets goooooooo more of the Follin brothers . they are legends , :( rip Geoff
I remember this being one of those weird games that I ended up loving. I hadn’t thought about this one for so long and this video just rushed in the nostalgia. Thank you so much for reminding me of this hidden gem.
Contra was one of my favorite games growing up. The soundtrack is wonderful! :) I'd love to hear you discuss that one!
Yeah do Contra 3!
PLOK was a much-enjoyed rental of mine back in the day, but I CERTAINLY didn't have the ability back then to appreciate the sorcery that is this soundtrack!
I'd love to see a deeper dive into it, if that's possible. Keep up the good work!
He actually did it.!.!
It's awesome to finally see in recent years so much love for the soundtracks I used to jam to as a kid. Back then, it seemed as if I were the only person I knew who appreciated them as more than "beeps and boops". But I see now that I was definitely not alone!
Poll’s Akrillik and Beach themes are some of my personal favorites.
Amazing video, always interesting to learn all the different techniques to create such cool music! Thanks for putting the chord names etc up, was super easy to follow! 😁
I am so glad you finally covered Plok! I love it when you cover songs by the Follin brothers as much as the next guy, but I’d like to see you cover some songs made by Jeroen Tel. He mainly composed for Commodore 64, which only has 3 channels as opposed to the NES’s 4. If you love Tim and Geoff Follin’s work, then you’re gonna love Jeroen Tel’s music, because his compositions are just as amazing and mind-blowing!
Another recommendation I have is to listen to the Tetris CDI soundtrack. It has that pure late 80’s/ early 90’s sound that has no right being in a Tetris game!
YES!! I LOVE it whenever I see someone react to, talk about, or listen to PLOK. Regardless of its intense difficulty spike, this game is so wonderful in my eyes for anyone to fund and try out. Definitely a gem hidden other many other popular title's!
Check out the Ecco the Dolphin OST on the Saturn. It's Follin on modern synths in full glory.
The SEGA (Mega) CD ones or Defender of the Future (DC/PS2)?
Rereading I see you mean DotF. Passage to Genesis is a wonderful track and my personal favorite Follin track.
@@feartheskulls Oh yes, I did mean Defender of the Future (althought eh Mega CD Ecco is good too).
It's so cathartic to hear a pianist react to and give props to the original video game composers that definitely never really got the credit they deserved up until about 10 to 15 years ago because of the internet. People like Tim & Geoff Follin, Yuzo Koshiro, Jesper Kyd and many others inspired me to get into making music as a teenager and still amaze me today after all of these years. I didn't know Geoff passed which is a shame because I was hoping maybe one day we would get an interview from him just to see what his takes and influences were in comparison to Tim despite them being brothers.
Never thought charles would make a video on PLOK 😂
Yoooooooooo I appreciate everything you do with these video game tunes and breaking everything down. Remind me of my marching band teacher for sure. The tune at the very end of your video is so funky. I’m going to play this game just so I can hear these tunes.
yessss been secretly waiting for you to cover plok 🙂↕️
I knew I was in for a treat when I saw you were covering Plok! I really wanted you to cover the "guitar" solo in the middle of the Beach theme. Other than that, I love that you're fascinated by the Follin Brothers' genius songwriting!
9:22 That part goes totally House music. XD
IIRC Tim Follin was inspired by Stevie Wonder to do a key change like that
@@Benanov Good inspiration!
I remember someone was reviewing video game songs, and he legitimately thought the songs from Plok didn’t stand a chance till he heard the beach theme
Cannot wait for more Follin content. You should also do Silver Surfer and Concentration on NES.
Needless to say, Geoff truly cooked.
And Equinox
Aw YAY!!! I played PLOK and I LOVE THIS MUSIC!! So happy to see you break this one down.