video game music

I still vividly remember how surprised I was when, more than 20 years ago, I first popped Final Fantasy V Dear Friends (1993) into my CD player. I was expecting to hear the energetic main theme with its iconic harp, strings and trumpet. Instead, the CD started with joik from Lapland – followed by a piece that begins with a kantele solo! Indeed, Dear Friends is one of the few game music albums to feature kantele and joik. But is there anything ‘Finnish’ about the album?

This playlist highlights the work of composers, arrangers and performers of video game music in Finland. Our list boasts a selection of addictive sounds from epic orchestral textures to quirky technopop and tunes that make you want to dance. How about next trying them as part of a gaming experience?

Game Music Everyday Memories, or GAMEM, is a research project undertaken at the University of Jyväskylä in 2020-2022. Funded by the Kone Foundation, the project examined people’s fondest and most lasting game music memories from a range of different perspectives, and the effect of these memories in their everyday life. The research results indicate that the impact of game music is significant.

Folk music and video game music are poles apart – or are they? Composer and sound designer Anni Tolvanen and Jimmy Träskelin, creator of the Pelimanni 8bit game, talk about the encounters between pelimanni players and the world of pixels.

These are golden years for the Finnish games industry. While mobile games by Supercell and others break records, console and computer game developers create increasingly ambitious works. The success of these games opens up new opportunities for Finnish music-makers.