Choreographic Analysis + Brief Intro
Indie Musicians can create artistic expressions of great magnitude. And The Living Tombstone is one of the greatest examples out there.
The name TLT is extremely hard to avoid when interacting around the topic of music on the internet, a western musician hailing from the US. A simple google search would instantly pop up his creations featuring the popular gaming franchise, Five Nights at Freddy’s, which by itself has its merits of being a great piece of music, but ultimately, it would also be a bit of a turn down for some due to the infamy that is associated with the community surrounding the franchise; and those who create content based on the basis of a popular title.
His music focuses primarily on Electronic Pop, often featuring modified vocals in his tracks, along with edgy lyrics and aggressive electric guitars, paired with equally driving percussions. Obviously this kind of music would be reminiscent heavily with teenagers going through changes in their lives, or with those who have a general interest in Rock or softcore-metal. I’m also certain that those who are interested in Vocaloids would find a similar appeal here.
A good chunk of the music made by the Living Tombstone features characters from popular culture such as Cuphead, Among Us, Hazbin Hotel, Overwatch, etc etc, the list goes on. Despite their association with said characters and communities, this should not dissuade anyone from recognizing TLT’s music as being unique and outstanding. And in many aspects - They are! Inside the library of songs, a good amount of them follow a similar formula when it comes to their composition philosophy, so there often may be similar melodic progressions that are interchanged between tracks. This “negative” aspect is featured in a lot of the recent releases with varied results, so take it what you will.
Despite that, it is important to say that as mentioned before, each of them has their own merits that must be recognized in order to distinguish his music from standard pop culture. “My Ordinary Life” for example, is exceptional when it comes to the creative expression TLT can provide. Although somewhat lacking in musical depth, the simplicity works in favor of the bittersweet tone of the song, along with lyrics that I personally find engaging enough to feel relatable, such that I can listen to it often and will still contemplate its meanings post-listening.
I think it’s also important to recognize the musical depth that applies to many of TLT’s music, present or past, originals or remixes. They are easy to follow, albeit a bit hard on the ears, they become very pleasant to listen to when one gets used to the aggressiveness of his music. Not to mention, an absolute witch’s brew of sounds and harmonics that stirs inside the music can sometimes be staggering, if not overwhelming, which I personally find that aspect to be nice as I believe music that can be listened to ten times over and still have details to discover - is one that has great value.
Give TLT’s music a try! Perhaps you might find yourself a treasure or two, or even find them worthy enough to be actively listened to.
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Pop Culture may be a bad influence in music
But when one’s creativity is placed into the mix
They can make a great piece of pop culture that can be accepted by all.
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Music Review
I’ll be mainly focusing on the music videos that The Living Tombstone made for video games, since it is safe to say that TLT’s popularity skyrocketed after the release of their FNAF2 music video, which at the time is a very well timed release, successfully capturing the attentions of FNAF fans with a compelling theory as to what happened to the characters in FNAF alongside with a well composed song with lyrics that complements the lore they are trying to get through perfectly.
Anyways, enough on that.
Two songs that I think is their magnum opus when it comes to video game music would be 1000 doors (Spooky’s jumpscare mansion song) and Basics in Behavior (Baldi’s basics song). These two songs(in a lack of a better term) capture the feeling of the first playthrough of these two games quite nicely. For 1000 doors, it perfectly tells the gist of the story without spoiling too much about the game itself, all while retaining the sense of tardiness of playing Spooky’s jumpscare mansion, the feeling of “you’ve already went through X many amount of doors, at this point it is too late to turn back, mind as well push onwards and hope for the best”, which was done quite well for a game with a concept and scale of Spooky’s jumpscare mansion, and the music video did not fail in capturing any of those feeling.
Then there’s Basics in Behavior, another song of TLT that I hold in quite high regard. Much like 1000 doors, this song too encapsulates the feeling and sensation of the game well, the lyrics of this song represents the game nicely without adding any additional head-cannon lores to it, while having it’s own interpretation on what is happening in Baldi’s Basics.(Albeit the lyrics being quite edgy), but once again it is their style so I respect that, and of course big kudos to these two songs for reminding me of early 2010s Vocaloid music (i.e. Lost one Weeping), which has almost the same atmosphere to it and its tone and rhythm is similar.
And they do not skim on the production quality of their videos as well, almost all of their music videos have high quality illustration or 3D rendering of the game environment they are using for their music video, so that’s a bonus point for them in my book.