An Update on My Absence and an Announcement!

I haven't posted in a while.  There is a reason for this: I have been sick.  Actually, I've been sick for roughly two-and-a-half or so years now, but for the past few months, even typing on a keyboard has been a painful endeavor, I'm working on this.  Those who did read our countdown of Anime Openings we posted during the summer months may have noticed another name on the publication: Craig.  Say "Hi" Craig!

I essentially added Craig as a contributor, he's a friend of mine and leans to a slightly different area of pop culture than I tend to, this is good because it gives Important Pop Culture a chance to expand its scope.  I'm hoping to work with him with some regularity and you will also likely see some upcoming posts that are entirely his.  Also, I have another major announcement.

Resonant Bytes will focus on music with a slight lean towards music from video games.  Craig and I have, for a while, discussed doing a giant series on game music but I just consider the subject, like much of pop culture, too large for a little series of articles devoted to it.  I'm hoping, with Craig working with me, we will be able to keep a constant stream of posts coming.  Also, if you like something you read on here, share it.  We're looking to get our names out there and (despite some spelling errors I noticed a couple of times :P) I think we are capable of sharing a great deal of insight.

So, why game music?  Honestly, for me anyway, it more or less boils down to the way music impacted me.  Most people develop a music taste around what is popular when they are, say, ten or into their teens.  This would put me smack in the middle of the Grunge Era of Rock and the dawn of Gangsta Rap.  I do like much of the music of the early 90's today but as a kid, I wasn't listening to that.  No, my musical taste developed much, much earlier than my friends and I quickly became a child of the 80's.  Even through high school, when all of my friends listened to Korn and Busta Rhymes, I was still listening to the Talking Heads.  Incidentally, I got into video games very early too, and before I was ever able to beat one of those games, I was enraptured by the music.  Some games, like the Mega Man titles and the literally-stellar soundtrack to Life Force, had music so good that I was actually a fan of the games' soundtracks before I was a fan of the titles those soundtracks belonged to, often hanging out with my friends and listening to the music as they played.

So, there you have it, I'm weird.  I've come to terms with this, and I hope that, through a series of posts on game music and music as a whole, I will be able to help ever so slightly to push game music to full mainstream legitimacy.  It's already headed in that direction, with black tie symphonies devoted to the sounds of Nobuo Uematsu and a number of websites devoted to the archiving and elevation of game music, but I do believe that some of the compositions from some of the games actually rank amongst the greatest music of all time.  Not all of it, but I can think of a few powerful tunes that actually invoke a powerful emotional response in me.  So, if you read this, and you are interested or even merely intrigued, follow us here and keep your eye out because Resonant Bytes is coming soon!