Minecraft – Volume Alpha | ||||
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Soundtrack album by | ||||
Released | 4 March 2011 | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 58:59 | |||
Label | ||||
C418 chronology | ||||
| ||||
Minecraft soundtrack chronology | ||||
|
Minecraft – Volume Alpha is the first soundtrack album by German electronic musician Daniel Rosenfeld, known by his pseudonym C418. It was independently released on 4 March 2011 as the first installment of the soundtrack for the video game Minecraft. Since 2015, physical editions of the album have been issued by record label Ghostly. [3] [4]
Volume Alpha comprises most of the music featured in the game, as well as other music included in trailers and instrumentals that were not included in the game's final release. [5] In 2022, the album peaked at number five on the US Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums chart, and was nominated for the category at the Billboard Music Awards of 2022. [6] Rosenfeld released his second soundtrack album for the game, Minecraft – Volume Beta in 2013, with a completed third album remaining unreleased due to licensing disputes with Microsoft.
In early 2010, Rosenfeld began collaborating with Minecraft creator Markus Persson through internet forum TIGSource. He was given responsibility for developing the music and sound effects of the still in-development game. [3] Rosenfeld was forced to adapt to Java's "terrible sound engine" and took inspiration from Dwarf Fortress in creating the soundtrack, due to its "lovely guitar music" despite the game's "basic ASCII art for imagery". [7]
Deciding to "work with experimental simplistic acoustic music that doesn't actually tell you anything about the game", a key objective of Rosenfeld's work was to be unobtrusive, explaining "I almost hoped that [players would] only notice [the music] when something interesting happens in the game". [8]
Rosenfeld composed the soundtrack using Ableton Live along with "a ton of extra software and plugins" and synthesisers including a Moog Voyager. [7] He took inspiration from the soundtrack of Blueberry Garden, which he described as "piano music [recorded with] a really terrible microphone on top of the piano". Experimenting with this technique, Rosenfeld claimed the final release consists of "about 80 percent electronic and 20 percent acoustic".
Track 18, "Sweden", is the most popular song in the soundtrack of Minecraft, having Gold certification in the United States. [9] In April 2021, it was also the most streamed video game song on Spotify. [10] The track begins with a slow piano chord progression that turns into a melody as strings appear. The strings then stop as the piano changes keys alongside horns. Pizzicato strings then repeat the main theme before a glockenspiel and the piano finish the song. [9]
On 21 August 2015, the first physical releases of Minecraft – Volume Alpha were released by record label Ghostly, as an LP and CD. [11] The LP version features a sparser track listing compared to the digital release. [12] The album's artwork features a 3D model of a block of grass from Minecraft. On some vinyl pressings, lenticular printing is used to give depth to the blocks in the image. Since the first pressing, Ghostly has re-pressed the album several times due to high demand. [13]
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [14] |
Mojo | [15] |
Writing for AllMusic, Andy Kellman praised Volume Alpha's replay value, stating that "none of the recurring elements is pronounced or simple enough to become fatiguing with repeated play". [14] Stephen Worthy of British music magazine Mojo said the album contains "some of the most influential pieces of music of recent times. Some of the loveliest, too." [15]
Keith Stuart of The Guardian praised the album for acting as the "perfect accompaniment" to Minecraft. Stuart compared his compositions to those of Brian Eno and Erik Satie because of their minimalistic, ambient qualities. [7] For the Los Angeles Times, Raymond Tsai called the track "Sweden" an "embodiment of the aesthetic of playing in a survival world", praised its mixture of sadness and grandiosity. [9] Digital Trends called "Sweden" one of the "simple classics" of the game's soundtrack. [16]
Volume Alpha is a popular album to listen to while studying, especially for teenagers and young adults. [17] [18] In 2019, the University of Delaware's magazine The Review called the soundtrack "arguably the best ambient album to be released this decade", citing "Sweden" and "Mice on Venus" as "perfect ambient songs for studying". [19]
The album has received enduring praise from listeners for encompassing " nostalgia in its purest form". [20] Writing for The Boar in 2018, Jamie Hornsey reflected on their memories with Minecraft, saying "every remembered feeling [was] imbued with an overwhelming sense of presence thanks to C418’s ambient pieces." [1]
Digital download and CD (58:59)
|
LP (38:08) Side A
Side B
|
Notes
Awards | Year | Category | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
Billboard Music Awards | 2021 | Top Dance/Electronic Album | Nominated | [24] |
Weekly charts
|
Year-end charts
|
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
---|---|---|
United States ( RIAA) [40] | Gold | 500,000‡ |
‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone. |
Region | Year | Format | Catalogue | Label | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Various | 2011 | Digital download, streaming | – | Independent | [5] |
United States | 2015 | LP | GI-243 LP | Ghostly | [12] |
CD | GI-243 | ||||
United States, Europe | 2016 | LP (second pressing) | GI-243 LP | [41] | |
United States | 2020 | LP (third pressing) | [42] | ||
CD (reissue) | GI-243 | ||||
2022 | LP (fourth pressing) | GI-243 LP | [41] | ||
Various | 2023 | LP (fifth pressing) | [43] |
Minecraft – Volume Alpha | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Soundtrack album by | ||||
Released | 4 March 2011 | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 58:59 | |||
Label | ||||
C418 chronology | ||||
| ||||
Minecraft soundtrack chronology | ||||
|
Minecraft – Volume Alpha is the first soundtrack album by German electronic musician Daniel Rosenfeld, known by his pseudonym C418. It was independently released on 4 March 2011 as the first installment of the soundtrack for the video game Minecraft. Since 2015, physical editions of the album have been issued by record label Ghostly. [3] [4]
Volume Alpha comprises most of the music featured in the game, as well as other music included in trailers and instrumentals that were not included in the game's final release. [5] In 2022, the album peaked at number five on the US Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums chart, and was nominated for the category at the Billboard Music Awards of 2022. [6] Rosenfeld released his second soundtrack album for the game, Minecraft – Volume Beta in 2013, with a completed third album remaining unreleased due to licensing disputes with Microsoft.
In early 2010, Rosenfeld began collaborating with Minecraft creator Markus Persson through internet forum TIGSource. He was given responsibility for developing the music and sound effects of the still in-development game. [3] Rosenfeld was forced to adapt to Java's "terrible sound engine" and took inspiration from Dwarf Fortress in creating the soundtrack, due to its "lovely guitar music" despite the game's "basic ASCII art for imagery". [7]
Deciding to "work with experimental simplistic acoustic music that doesn't actually tell you anything about the game", a key objective of Rosenfeld's work was to be unobtrusive, explaining "I almost hoped that [players would] only notice [the music] when something interesting happens in the game". [8]
Rosenfeld composed the soundtrack using Ableton Live along with "a ton of extra software and plugins" and synthesisers including a Moog Voyager. [7] He took inspiration from the soundtrack of Blueberry Garden, which he described as "piano music [recorded with] a really terrible microphone on top of the piano". Experimenting with this technique, Rosenfeld claimed the final release consists of "about 80 percent electronic and 20 percent acoustic".
Track 18, "Sweden", is the most popular song in the soundtrack of Minecraft, having Gold certification in the United States. [9] In April 2021, it was also the most streamed video game song on Spotify. [10] The track begins with a slow piano chord progression that turns into a melody as strings appear. The strings then stop as the piano changes keys alongside horns. Pizzicato strings then repeat the main theme before a glockenspiel and the piano finish the song. [9]
On 21 August 2015, the first physical releases of Minecraft – Volume Alpha were released by record label Ghostly, as an LP and CD. [11] The LP version features a sparser track listing compared to the digital release. [12] The album's artwork features a 3D model of a block of grass from Minecraft. On some vinyl pressings, lenticular printing is used to give depth to the blocks in the image. Since the first pressing, Ghostly has re-pressed the album several times due to high demand. [13]
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [14] |
Mojo | [15] |
Writing for AllMusic, Andy Kellman praised Volume Alpha's replay value, stating that "none of the recurring elements is pronounced or simple enough to become fatiguing with repeated play". [14] Stephen Worthy of British music magazine Mojo said the album contains "some of the most influential pieces of music of recent times. Some of the loveliest, too." [15]
Keith Stuart of The Guardian praised the album for acting as the "perfect accompaniment" to Minecraft. Stuart compared his compositions to those of Brian Eno and Erik Satie because of their minimalistic, ambient qualities. [7] For the Los Angeles Times, Raymond Tsai called the track "Sweden" an "embodiment of the aesthetic of playing in a survival world", praised its mixture of sadness and grandiosity. [9] Digital Trends called "Sweden" one of the "simple classics" of the game's soundtrack. [16]
Volume Alpha is a popular album to listen to while studying, especially for teenagers and young adults. [17] [18] In 2019, the University of Delaware's magazine The Review called the soundtrack "arguably the best ambient album to be released this decade", citing "Sweden" and "Mice on Venus" as "perfect ambient songs for studying". [19]
The album has received enduring praise from listeners for encompassing " nostalgia in its purest form". [20] Writing for The Boar in 2018, Jamie Hornsey reflected on their memories with Minecraft, saying "every remembered feeling [was] imbued with an overwhelming sense of presence thanks to C418’s ambient pieces." [1]
Digital download and CD (58:59)
|
LP (38:08) Side A
Side B
|
Notes
Awards | Year | Category | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
Billboard Music Awards | 2021 | Top Dance/Electronic Album | Nominated | [24] |
Weekly charts
|
Year-end charts
|
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
---|---|---|
United States ( RIAA) [40] | Gold | 500,000‡ |
‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone. |
Region | Year | Format | Catalogue | Label | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Various | 2011 | Digital download, streaming | – | Independent | [5] |
United States | 2015 | LP | GI-243 LP | Ghostly | [12] |
CD | GI-243 | ||||
United States, Europe | 2016 | LP (second pressing) | GI-243 LP | [41] | |
United States | 2020 | LP (third pressing) | [42] | ||
CD (reissue) | GI-243 | ||||
2022 | LP (fourth pressing) | GI-243 LP | [41] | ||
Various | 2023 | LP (fifth pressing) | [43] |