Nerd
Up returns from a Holiday break with another installation of The Listening
Chamber.
Not every VGM cover band is
successful, and not all successful VGM cover bands play what would be called
“good” covers.
Determining what
constitutes “successful” or “good” is rather subjective, and opinions on styles
vary from person to person.
This can
lead to a polarizing situation where different people might love or hate the
music, and that is the case with the topic of today’s discussion.
The
band in question is The NESkimos, and the album is Battle: Perfect Selection, self-released in 2002. The NESkimos are based out of St. Augustine,
Florida, and although they had hung up their instruments in 2008, they started
making some appearances at conventions and other events again in 2012. In general, The NESkimos play rock covers of
music from video games from the NES and SNES, but the group does perform some
songs in different styles such as surf rock and bossa nova. The group currently consists of two guitar
players who also provide vocals on some tracks, a bass player, and a
drummer. Between the period of their
last album release and their reformation, they had no drummer and used
sequenced drum tracks instead.
Most
of the differences in opinion on the band’s quality arise from the fact that
they do not always attempt to recreate the songs they are covering
note-for-note, and they will often create additional parts to songs, change the
way the song is played, or add lyrics to the arrangement. While none of these things is unheard of in
cover bands, The NESkimos were the first widely known VGM cover band to do
this. Some people had issues with the
improvisation. Others thought that the
songs were simply being played poorly or incorrectly since the notes were not
the same as the original music from the games. I’ll leave it to each individual to decide for
themselves if they like the style or not.
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The NESkimos - Battle: Perfect Selection (2002) |
Battle: Perfect Selection contains 23
tracks – 22 covers and 1 original skit – and runs for roughly 1:12:08, making
it longer than most other VGM cover albums.