Celebrating Famicom culture is fine. It doesn't mean you don't want to grow up.
People listen to the Beatles today for several reasons - for nostalgia, for inspiration, or for sheer enjoyment. It doesn't mean that they haven't abandoned their teenage years in the 60's. It sounds as if you just have a different taste to these guys.
Johan, Maybe so, and thanks for your measured response to what I realized might not be a popular view. But, in the end, and as an ex-game player, I just concluded that spending hours navigating Super Mario Brothers etc. isn't a richer way to spend your time than listening to the Beatles, or reading a book, or taking a walk.
Is it possible to make something new with Famicom as a reference? Yes, and I think it's been successfully done already. I wish, though, that those creators would come up with things that are even crazier, and more removed from their childhood objects of love.
Japan Times interview published last with Famicom poppers YMCK here: here;http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/
fm20080229a1.html
I wrote the little sidebar part of that Japan Times YMCK feature, talking about some of their new album's precursors and there's quite a lot of diverse stuff out there using 8-bit sounds.
There's Metronome (http://www.artpop.org/meto21/indexx.html), who really aren't my thing, but do something a bit different to the cutesy YMCK style of things.
There's Binary Kidd (http://a-babe.plala.jp/~binary_kid/index.html) who I'm a bit biased towards because I've put them on at C.A.R. events before and I'm actually on their album somewhere, but they have their own take on the sound as well.
Welle:Erdball, who I mentioned in the JT piece, use a Commodore 64 SID chip and do music that comes more from a Teutonic new wave/industrial background (Einsturzende Neubauten, DAF, Laibach etc.) which might appeal to anyone who finds Japanese 8-bit a tad infantile.
Sounds interesting, will try to check them out.
Commenting by HaloScan
