Unlimited Replays: Video Games and Classical Music

This book explores the intersections of values and meanings in two types of replay: where video games meet classical music, and vice versa. From the bleeps and bloops of 1980s arcades to the world's most prestigious concert halls, classical music and video games have a long history together. Medieval chant, classical symphonies, postminimalist film scores, and everything in between fill the soundtracks of many video games, while world-renowned orchestras frequently perform concerts of game music to sold-out audiences. Yet combining video games and classical music also presents a challenge to traditional cultural values around these media products. Classical music is frequently understood as high art, insulated from the whims of popular culture; video games, by contrast, are often regarded as pure entertainment, fundamentally incapable of crossing over into art. By delving into the shifting and often contradictory cultural meanings that emerge when classical music meets video games, Unlimited Replays offers a new perspective on the possibilities and challenges of art in contemporary society. - William Gibbons is Assistant Professor of Musicology at Texas Christian University.