In this final installment of Pop Music and the Classical Idiom, we turn yet again to the subject of classical music within the context of videogames. As we saw last time, early game developers didn't pay much attention to the musical content of their products and often resorted to lifting pieces from the Western canon in order to provide some sort of background sound. In other words, creative endeavors in the musical domain were virtually nonexistent. All of that changed, however, when Nintendo launched the Nintendo Entertainment System in the mid-1980s...

ANDREW SCHARTMANN'S MUSICAL TIDBITS