Music Monday: All You Need Is Love

Happy Monday everyone! As we all know, today is a special day dedicated to love, in all it’s splendid forms. To celebrate, Jenny and I have decided to make a few song selections based around the theme of “love”. We’ve got some new artists to listen to and some old favorites, so enough talk, let’s get it on.

Jenny:

“Theme of Love for Guitar Duet” from Final Fantasy IV, ocremix by Pot Hocket

Final Fantasy IV was one of my first RPGs, and to my knowledge, my first videogame couple (unless you count the never-together Mario/Princess Toadstool, as she was known then). Cecil and Rosa spend half the game dancing around each other before finally admitting their love and eventually marrying. The theme evokes ideas of idyllic romance, and the utilization of the soft guitars in the remix bring an extra level of beauty to it.

“You’re Not Here”, Silent Hill 3 (Akira Yamaoka/Mary Elizabeth McGlynn)

In a polar opposite selection, my second choice, sung by Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, chronicles how a relationship can go wrong, how one person’s happiness can be at the expense of another. Revolving around the idea that love is an addiction — with ugly withdrawal symptoms — and reminds the listener that not only can love go bad, but that the experience leaves the participants changed, sometimes for the worse.

Jon:

“Splash Woman” by Random (from Mega Ran 9)

People were pretty excited when they heard about the first female robot master coming to Mega Man 9 in the form of Splash Woman. Especially Random, who took the battle between the mermaid-bot and our hero Mega Man and turned it into a love story. A great tune with a somewhat dour ending, but you can feel the love in this tune.

“Aeris Lives” by Kevin Lau (from OCRemix.com)

Like FFIV for Jenny, Final Fantasy 7 was the first time I experienced a relationship in a videogame. Though it only lasted for one disc of a multi-disc epic, the burgeoning relationship between Aeris and Cloud has always been a powerful one. Who can forget the image of Cloud letting Aeris drift slowly under water? Beautiful, powerful stuff, like this remix of “Aeris’ Theme” by Kevin Lau.