Civilization 7 Soundtrack/Music discussion

[Siptah]

Thanks for tracking down the track!

This video features the instruments used by whoever composed the theme, but I implore you to find a video with multiple vocalists. The harmonies in Bulgarian folk music are godly.

Indeed. There‘s a record by the Bulgarian Angelite Voices with Huun Huur Tun and the Moscow Art Trio called Mountain Tales which I consider one of the best „world music“ recordings ever made.

 

[Kimiimaro]

I turned the game on to give both the new themes a listening or six.

Now, I went into Bulgarian theme expecting it to be good from the leak. And that part of the theme - which is roughly the second half of the theme - truly was good. But the part before it... That was beautiful. It is quite plain, but it works that way. It starts with the voice of a sole singer without any instrument accompanying her, and that's all there needs to be, because I think she has a very nice voice to listen to. In fact, it's probably the most moved I felt since listening to the Mongol theme for the first time.

As for the Nepali theme, I like the playful instrumentation and the contrast between the overall lively and optimistic sound of the theme and the intimidating mountain horn that interrupts the theme at several places. It gives me the feeling of walking through a simple, yet lively Nepali town under the Himalayas. Whenever the horn blows, I picture taking a look at the towering mountains above.

Very nice themes in this batch. I think they might both be Geoff Knorr's work.

 

[Uberfrog]

I caught glimpses of the Bulgarian theme during the livestream, but I’m looking forward to the whole thing. It mixed quite well with the (outstanding) Mongolian theme in-game!

 

[Ryansinbela]

Someone please share it I can’t wait

 

[Kimiimaro]

The Bulgarian theme

 

[Ryansinbela]

It’s peak

 

[Guandao]

The "Heeeee!" sounds a bit weird/funny to me though.

 

[Willie5000]

Bulgarian theme is two folk songs, "Kozhilyo, pisan i sheryan" (Кожильо писан и шерян) and "Rano, Mi e More" (Рано ми е, море).

 

[evonannoredars]

It's pretty, although there are elements that feel unusual to me - which I think is good! I like how many themes in Civ 7 (eg Khmer and Hawaii) have gone in different directions (compared to the fairly same-y vibe Civ 6 had) to create a soundtrack that is more interesting and diverse, even if it takes me a while to find them as appealing as the usual stuff. Much more inclusion of vocals definitely helps also

 

[Baudshaw]

My ranking of Civ 7 music after listening to it all:


Color-coded: brown is antiquity, blue is exploration, and green is modern

An update:

Carthage is B tier. A better version of Rome, though the drums are a bit repetitive.

Bulgaria is A tier. The two songs are extremely good on their own, but the transition is a bit jarring

Britain is A tier. A bit simple, but a wonderful orchestration and really captures the feel of Britain.

 

[evonannoredars]

Heard the Nepal theme entering the modern age in my game last night (then never noticed it again during modern age gameplay rip) and it goes incredibly hard. Definitely one of my faves now.

 

[evonannoredars]

They sure are taking their time putting it on youtube though!

 

[TheGhostEnthusiast]

Now this is starting to feel a bit silly. What reason could the gap possibly have? There's a hidden video in the playlist, did someone accidentally mess up a scheduled auto-publish or something and nobody has noticed yet? I've noticed, and I would really like to hear the music...

 

[evonannoredars]

Hoping get a Crossroads of the World album on Spotify and stuff soon also!

 

[Guandao]

Nepal's theme is here!!!

@Kimiimaro It's a Roland Rizzo composition instead of Geoff Knorr as you thought.

 

[Guandao]

I'm looking forward to one day hearing the themes of the next batch of DLC Civs, Dai Viet, Silla, Qajar Iran, and Assyria. I wonder if the wonder music for Emile Bell and Dur-Sharrukin are actually parts of Silla's and Assyria's themes. I'm hoping Geoff Knorr composed the themes for Dai Viet (love his Civ6 Vietnam themes) and Qajar Iran (he does good work for Persia's themes in Civ5 and 6).

 

[canadamufc]

That Nepal theme is delightful. Took me by complete surprise, that's a great track. Top 5 (3?) in the game for me.

 

[Kimiimaro]

@Kimiimaro It's a Roland Rizzo composition instead of Geoff Knorr as you thought.

Seeing Roland Rizzo produce something brilliant is always a nice surprise, so I'm glad to have been wrong on this.

 

[benjamin28]

Inca (I can’t really explain it, but a lot of Roland Rizzo’s themes have the same rhythm)
[...]

D tier

[...]

All the Exploration ambience (Stock Renaissance music)

Prussia (Insane origin, and Rizzo effect)

Russia (Insane origin, Rizzo effect, and very boring)

You have voiced many of the concerns I had with the soundtrack.

I will preface all of this by saying that I didn't play Civ 6, but I listened to some of the tunes on my own (Malian, Zulu, Mongolian) and to some others by watching streamers. I don't know who composed what in that game, but I was aware that one of the Civ 7 composers (Rizzo) had started in that previous iteration.

After listening to the entire soundtrack from 7, I have to say: I'm not a fan of how Rizzo composes. That doesn't mean he lacks brilliant moments: there are some outstanding tunes with the Incas, the Songhai, the Aksumites, among others. In general, however, I find that his tracks are very... safe. Sterile, sometimes. Like Baudshaw commented, much of the percussion sounds the same. The tempo is quite similar in most cases too. And then there's the "insane" origin of some tracks: The hunt for red october? A Lithuanian song for Prussia? Somebody mentioned that the main inspiration for Nepal was a song from Studio Ghibli, which turned out to be false, but given these precedents, I wouldn't have been surprised if it was true.

Accuracy (or lack thereof) aside, my impression is that most of Rizzo's music is coded as happy (major chords, lively percussion, clear melodies), but everything is so stale, so repetitive that it feels like it's a forced happiness, or a sad celebration. Special mention to the two exploration ambient tracks: I'm quite fond of baroque music, but these two are not only repetitive: they're almost grating, between how corny they sound and how Eurocentric they are. I've come to the point of muting the game during exploration because I can no longer tolerate those.

The DLCs have done nothing but to reinforce these impressions:
- Great Britain (by Knorr)? Incredibly moving and serene. Carthage (by Rizzo)? It may have over-the-top percussion and horns, but the whole thing feels heavy and slow, almost tiresome.
- Bulgaria (by Knorr)? It's bold, it's innovative and includes a solid vocal work. Nepal (by Rizzo)? I know it has its fans in here, but I found it to be generic, not very representative of the region and, once more, happy only in theory.

In the end, it's all subjective when it comes to music. I hope, though, that the game incorporates more composers in the future. Plus I hope we get more and more ambient tracks: two per era (in a game that lasts hours and hours) was an insane decision.

 

[Menocchio]

Something about Roland Rizzo's music—and I hope he doesn't read these posts and take them as caustic!—reminds me of a few different artists you can find on YouTube, like Adrian von Ziegler and Derek Fiechter, who make a kind of "world music" around broad themes: you search up "medieval music" or "Celtic music" or "ancient Roman music" and you get their compositions. But they have a similar, uninspired, plodding quality. They're tonally consistent, so they give the aural sensation of being "ancient" or "medieval" or so on, but they don't have much going for them beyond this thematic-ness. A bit like desert and water level music in older video games, you know? Except with the limitation of midi music some of those can be fairly good standing on their own...

Rizzo also typically uses the same rhythm as has been pointed out and, not coincidental to this, his parts of the soundtrack are all in 4/4 time. I like the beginning of Carthage's theme in VII, but you listen to it long enough and you soon pick out that the drums are almost literally pounding out "ONE and TWO and THREE and FOUR" on to the end. Then the melody, which in good compositions (other than dance music) distracts from this, is kind of a flat ornamentation here. It just doesn't make for really memorable music. Next time you listen to one of Rizzo's songs from Civ VII, try to pick out the time signature: you'll find it's 4/4, even for themes written for musical cultures that have rhythms very different from Western styles.

That said! I actually really like his Meiji Japan theme, and I'm surely not biased because they're my favourite Modern civ—I've had to listen to it time and time again. It's quite inspired honestly, and I think it's helped by the composition being deliberately Westernised: you have the intro with traditional Japanese instrumentation, before the bombastic, marching cadence of the Western instruments comes in and take over; the two halves of the composition spend most of it competing back and forth in a fantastic kind of tension. More like this!