What is the difference between the first and second game ?
Music in comparison is doom and gloom
When there was first tune for this game, I was a bit wondering about : when will some more lively music come to soase 2.
The majority of what I heard was sleepy and sleepifying. You hear it for some time and youre asleep, or staring into nowhere while the game plays.
Solution :Turn the music off.
I mean, I will explain my stance regarding the 'iconic' and what not, music, from old games. Like did you hear red alert 1 ? I heard music from that one only after hearing RA2. Ra2 music was much more refined. But were all the tunes on the theme, or somewhat dark raving ? Not really and not at all imo. Some were higher energy some were doom and gloomy, as if, again, staring into who knows where. Outside a game, you could play them, form time to time. Did I like hearing each one of those soundtracks ?No.
Another example, Warcraft II. Rather fast but memorable tunes, because much of the music was put together from classical samples, so of course it was hard to make it bad, with sound pieces that survived centuries. And they still sound the same.
Difference between warcraft 2 and 3 in music, that the usic was in a big part what made the world feel more alive. Sure, if you hear it for 3 hours straight, it will tire you out as well, because it is constantly pumping.
Warcraft 3 music ? Mostly sleepy ambience. PLus a game of chaotic character who wanted to be a D2 LoD in an RTS clothing. It still produced a mechanically very interesting thing, making D2 into an RTS setting, the proto-moba. However, the music was so strange and unlike WC II, that it felt it had no continuity.
Starcraft/BW had much more in common than it did with WC II. ANd there you still had memorable tunes.
WC II and SC music apart from the zerg part sounded sort of heroic, melancholic, pompous/heroic and what not, a bit militaristic/march-like.
WC III music was an ambience, not something you would want to hear outside the game. Sure it wasnt complete trash, but there was already this sleepiness all aound.
RA2 had some great tunes like grinder or what its called. Good tunes id not get out of fashion. It seems those who would like to set fashion just lost themselves along the way.
Soase:R I reinstalled after 4 years, I had a listen. So not entirely too much drummy, too fast overwhelming you with tunes. Slower, a bit military-like sounding here and there, while not coming up with superb new sounds and what not, overall I got the sense that it pretty much fit the game. I not too sleepy, not too aggressive. Not acting as too much ambient, not too much doom and gloom.
Have you guys ever played DoW 3 ? Most memorable from it was the sounds. I dont mean the gameplay. On what drugs those people were, when its constant lowkey reaper-like gas release sound, sure to some people who have no music taste, and somebody else says its cool, they will agree, (some will agree that stuff released in toilet is a great perfume) IF you get negative reviews because its a moba and you wanted an rts, while you dont know what that means anyway, youre more likely influenced by the negative feel the music instills and get an overall 'idea' the game is bad. Because rationalization.
Did any of you play AoS ? I did. I had to put the music off. Chilly, perhaps beautiful music as well, but do you want to play a game that has music that makes a mood, like it is - 40 degrees celsius ? To me it wasnt a great game by any stretch, however, play with the music on for half an hour, so that you can hear it properly. It is ambient, slow, freezing, sleepy. Jump to bed instead 
CnC generals, both had ambient and pretty good mix of then modern guitar music, plus military style trumpets, drumming etc. Sometimes too loud, (going from too silent to much too high volume, turning it low went between hearing nothing and only when something was happening did you hear it) when engagements went.
In Soase 2, the tune that touches the string one, then second time, then loud, heavy deep sounds proceed points to the sort of ominous doubt, uncertainty, no positive emotion is expressed. Music isnt very lively.
Harbingers arent there even and the game already is trying to sort of impress with Jaws almost, tpye of something lurking somewhere close. Do you make music for peace, some lively marching tune, all is gonna be well 
while you may then start with some more serious tune when a big fight goes on, or even change the tune (? 
) depending on how youre getting beaten of they are.
Like what you have with Chaikovsky's Overture. That would imply there is a different tune for each faction, so 2, both rebel and loyalist faction. (whatever the new names)
When multi-faction engagement ? Or you vs the same faction adversary, I guess something more generic.
For folks who dont know how marches sound Ill give a few examples. Not too sleepy, some are well played in military style lik this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdD_0sWPeaE
much more serious in tone (notice, the tune going from up high, going low quite often, not as all nice and dandy) still ends as not too gloomy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s9UC2QVFFQ
Merrgy go round 2 or somehing like that from Rollercoaster Tycoon 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PvBOHCEhy0
a different but still a march, often made to sound more bombastic and less serious. Even if the theme isnt too serious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EerDvChP7K8
What I wanted to say, making music that is sleepy, and in an extreme case of DoW 3, dead music is how you are able to sabotage your own game unless people are aware that they can turn it off, when it is made less than lively. Warcraft 2 was lively but always. The music. WC III music was already half-dead. It felt some of the time like some mourning or funeral music. Low key bvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvm isnt music. If you do use it, make sure it is only temporary, in specific cases, so that youre not tiring the listener with something that will be able to sap his ability to play your game, becoming bored after that because it is tiresome having to listen to constant negativity basically. Put life into the music, make it more lively, listen to it, think what emotions does it evoke in you. Not everybody reacts the same of course. Soase:R music was more lively and not acting just as ambience.
You can play wc 2 with its music, or with some other. It will give off a different tone as a whole.
I guess I dont need to reiterate what I wrote multiple times. What comes off as 'modern' music in the last 15-20 yers, there was nothing remarkable, only a trend toward that deadness. DoW 3 made it in 2017 and in that sense, it is perfection. Just not to play a game with, it is really terrible, not music. I mean something worse is hard to imagine. (DoW 2 had some very good tunes for eldars and space marines the rest was rather unremarkable) That type of 'music' is like ambience heading to the grave. No real tune, nothing. The thing they were promoting to be music was I dont know how to name it further, Yes it was extraordinary, in how bad it was. DoW1 music was ok. Nothing special. 2 had some very good drumming and bass, good tunes as I mentioned in some cases.
It is better to have music in a game that plays and does not try to act as hindrance/nuisance, so this thread is about trying to make the devs/music makers think of the more positive direction, again, the 'modern' 'music' trends tend to sound like the grave, almost as if they were trying to die, the authors themselves. And listening to that sort like DoW 3, all over I am pretty sure caused not too few psychological issues like provoking depression and similar unhealthy things.
Ashes 1 music, despite it being very well made, had this ambient cold freezing feel. Do oyu want to play freezing music, or play a bit of warcraft 2 music to see the difference ? If oyu think this doesnt affect how people 'think' about your game, it is very much how when on forums you have some specialists who try to make an issue of of a mosquito. When they are not stopped, they will create an atmosphere of groupthink, that will ignore everything else and focus on non-issues, even though the negativity came from the mood they were in, which was caused by music among other things. Once ('The Sheepish') they 'rationalize' its the game and not the music,(and probably host of other factors) that caused the negativity, it does not matter with those types, to think is too much for those. Music is not something you talk to, music works one-way, you cant interact with it, other than you listen to it, or you turn it off. No in-between, just like game sounds etc, but it is a part of the overall experience that a player undergoes and that is why it shouldnt be negative. Negativity is not all that subjective.
Anyway, maybe somebody even read this, hope you understand what I was trying to point to and if my reasoning is understood and taken for valid, I gave also some examples of music which in a few decades seemed to have been evaporated, even when there was nothing wrong with it and its 'replacements' turned out to sound bad and not even being music. Weird sounds here and there dont music make
cheers and thanks for reading, yea I dont do tldr
