The music of computer games. From jaunty Dizzy ditties, chronicling notoriously egg-based tales of going from point A to point B and then back again, to the ear-piercing “OOOWEEEE OOOWOOOO, OOOWEEE OOOWOOO” signature riff of The Chaos Engine; these are the discordant sounds which shaped my early musical exposure–and maybe yours too.

Which is why I still believe the original Sensible Soccer theme to be a composition of certain majesty. In the real world, though, game soundtrack plaudits must surely go to some wisecracking, Latin American skeletons.

Let me explain …

Grim Fandango is one of those wave-your-mouse-around-and-combine-objects-with-stuff Lucasarts ‘adventure’ games, in pseudo-3d. With wisecracking, Latin American skeletons. Based (extremely) loosely on the Mexican ‘Day of the Dead’ festival, and rather more heavily on film noir, it’s all pretty weird and probably sold about three copies. This is a terrible shame, as it’s right up there with the Monkey Island series (also by those crazy kids at Lucasarts–before they became a turgid conveyor belt for shitty Star Wars games) in terms of HOT HOT FUN.

The guys who wrote it clearly loved games. And they loved the people who they envisaged playing their games. Indeed they loved those people so very, very much that they commissioned an exceptional soundtrack. I know precisely nothing about ’swing era bebop and jazz’ (for indeed, the majority of the record is thus), so perhaps it’s all frightfully derivative. Still sounds bloody brilliant though.

Unsurprisingly for a soundtrack from a game which is seven years old, the cd is nigh on impossible to track down. But thanks to some lovely internet obsessives, the whole thing is available to download. Huzzah!

Do yourself a favour and sample the surf-guitar-and-kazoo antics of “Bone Wagon”. At once.