Cyril Nadar - Week 16 - Thank you, C418
When I was kid, one of the first games I played was Minecraft. Everybody knows what Minecraft is and many of you have played it. From someone looking in from the outside, all they really see is a silly block game about going around and exploring. And the occasional killing of animals.
I still remember playing with my father. We had a PS3 and we played split screen on it. I used to go on play dates to my friends house to play Minecraft where we made arenas out of bedrock to fight monsters—my favorite were slimes. It was beautiful. It’s nostalgic to remember and reminds me when I didn’t have to go to this class.
However, whenever I reminisce about my childhood Minecraft days, there is always one thing in common. The music. Daniel Rosenfeld or C418 (the creator of Minecraft’s Alpha music) is what I consider to be a musical genius. I would say that he is better than Mozart and Beethoven and one day he will be more influential than them. His music is already taking great steps, being inducted into the Library of Congress for its “immense cultural, historical, and aesthetic significance.” His music is engrained into my psyche and millions of other children who played Minecraft. His music is synonymous with the word “nostalgia” for millions of people who grew up on the game.
It gives us a little peak into what life was like before, making those memories much more vivid. Honestly, the soundtrack that C418 blessed us with is probably one of the greatest things to come out in video game history.
On Tiktok, my feed has seemed to revert back to Minecraft nostalgia videos where the main song that they play is “Dreiton,” and I would like to say this song could make a grown man cry. Whenever I hear this song, I just lay back and close my eyes to remember. I do not know how C418 does it. Neither do I want to.
Hello Cyril, I thought your blog was incredibly refreshing and heartfelt. I too can relate to games and shows and other types of media shaping your childhood, frankly I think I organize periods of my life by what shows I used to watch at the time. For example I categorize 3rd grade with Ever After High and 8th grade with Wednesday Addams, although games are more impactful to you than TV shows, entertainment is entertainment! Your blog did a wonderful job of putting the feeling of nostalgia into words and as someone who frequently finds drifting from 2017-2023 in my head. It makes me think about my past self, I wonder if she'd recognize me, or be proud of who I'm becoming. What I particularly enjoyed in your blog was was the connection you mentioned between music and your memories and I completely agree, just song transports me back in time. Even scrolling through my playlists on spotify I can see where one era ends and another begins. I think its truly astounding how something so simple can transport us back in time and carry so much emotion but I believe there's beauty in not understanding how it works either. I appreciated your blog and it elicited certain beloved memories of mine too. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteC418’s music is something that would play in an elevator in a forgotten dream in the case of the music discs, or as background noise on a quiet summer evening made fuzzy by memory if you listen to the in-game music. There really is nothing like it. Game music tends to be upbeat, with dramatic scores backing exhilarating combat or cheerful chiptunes looping into oblivion, but Rosenfeld did not take that route and the Minecraft OST is made better by that. The piano notes drag and echo in the beginning of the Sweden track, isolated from each other just enough to get lodged in your head individually, and thus lending themselves to long-lasting memory.
ReplyDeleteMojang has pivoted in a very different direction with the newer music they have added to the game, with Lena Raine and Amos Roddy tracks departing from the gentle memory of piano and turning to more contemporary kinds of music. Now, don’t get me wrong, Pigstep and Tears are great, but they are also inherently different. The entire game is, too, if you think about it. They changed all the texture art years ago, and the mechanics have been overhauled and added and augmented into more complex and well-rounded versions of the originals; gone are the days of neon-green grass and jagged edges.
Although, that’s how nostalgia is born for anything, essentially. Things change over time, drifting away from the familiar and towards something you no longer recognize and suddenly hearing the start of Mice on Venus makes you cry. Regardless, good job on your blog!
Cyril, I love how vivid your imagery is throughout this blog. I have played Minecraft once in my life and I can proudly say that I was awful at it. I found myself stuck in a hole more time than I would like to admit and I never could figure out how to fly. My friend got quite frustrated with me. As for your assertion that C418’s music is “synonymous with the word ‘nostalgia’” for many, I completely agree. I believe music has an incredible power of being able to transport people back to memories, feelings, and old experiences. I did not know that the C418’s music was being inducted into the Library of Congress; that is actually a very cool fact and I am happy you shared that. While the Minecraft music may not bring back any particularly fond music for me, I feel a similar way when I hear the introduction songs of shows like Sofia the First and Girl Meets World. They have a way of bringing me back to that era of my life and reminding me of the innocence of childhood. I miss those times when I spent my whole day watching a show and then trying to hide how much I watched from my parents. It truly is crazy to think about how we are now finishing our junior year of high school. Thank you for your blog this week! I have really enjoyed being in your cohort this semester!
ReplyDeleteHi Cyril! I can completely relate to the experience of playing Minecraft when I was younger, courtesy of my elder brother who was obsessed with it for multiple years. I think we still have all of our old worlds saved, as I remember looking back at them a couple of years ago with my brother. I also remember thinking that it had uncharacteristically catchy background music for a video game, or at least compared to other video games that I was aware of. It is funny to me that after all of these years, I can still hear it so vividly.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is sweet how you associate C418’s soundtracks with the feeling of nostalgia. Personally, while I too feel a bit sentimental when I hear this music, I don’t think any soundtrack will ever take the place of Hedwig’s Theme by John Williams, maybe better known as the theme song for the iconic Harry Potter movies. I think I have watched each Harry Potter movie a minimum of fifteen times, though probably more now that I think about it given that I used to pick one of the eight movies every week or so and watch it when I was younger. Even now, I am constantly putting Harry Potter on in the background as a comfort movie. The point in saying this is that I wholeheartedly understand what you mean when you describe music as something that has the power to instantly take you back to earlier parts of your life. Your reaction of laying back and closing your eyes when you hear “Dreiton” is very relatable, as I have also done the same thing when hearing songs that I am beyond impressed by. Thank you for sharing, and I have very much enjoyed reading each of your blogs this semester!