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Answerman - Why Are Anime Soundtracks Missing Songs?


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CatSword



Joined: 01 Jul 2014
Posts: 1489
PostPosted: Fri Jul 14, 2017 2:51 pm Reply with quote
I was excited when the Yuri!!! on Ice OST was added to Spotify...only for it to be missing "History Maker". Confused
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relyat08



Joined: 20 Mar 2013
Posts: 4125
Location: Northern Virginia
PostPosted: Fri Jul 14, 2017 2:59 pm Reply with quote
CatSword wrote:
I was excited when the Yuri!!! on Ice OST was added to Spotify...only for it to be missing "History Maker". Confused


I've found that most OPs/EDs, unless composed by the actual show's composer, tend to be omitted. This is the case with nearly every OST I've purchased.
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invalidname
Contributor



Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 2434
Location: Grand Rapids, MI
PostPosted: Fri Jul 14, 2017 3:08 pm Reply with quote
scrwbll19 wrote:
Part of the reason why iTunes is cheaper is because of the lower quality. A CD has a bitrate of 1411 kbps while mp3 has a max bitrate of 320 kbps. So, while you might be paying over 3 times the cost on Amazon.jp, you will be losing almost 4 times the sound quality. Just something to think about. :wink:

A compact disc is completely uncompressed (16-bit/channel stereo LPCM, plus some overhead); iTunes uses 256 Kbps AAC. The use of audio compression accounts for the bitrate difference, not a deliberate discarding of 75% of the audio data.

If you'd like to learn more, I wrote a book on digital audio.
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Top Gun



Joined: 28 Sep 2007
Posts: 4566
PostPosted: Fri Jul 14, 2017 3:21 pm Reply with quote
I used to know a couple of people who'd created a really in-depth fansite for Samurai Champloo, a series which used a decent amount of insert songs. There was one prominent vocal track that not only didn't show up on any of the Japanese soundtrack releases, but wasn't even identified in any public credits. It took years before a fan managed to track down its identity and submit the title and artist. I can definitely sympathize with people that have never been able to track down that one memorable song.
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Mosaic



Joined: 26 Feb 2005
Posts: 75
PostPosted: Fri Jul 14, 2017 4:05 pm Reply with quote
I was severely disappointed when I got the original Cutie Honey soundtrack on CD back in the day, since it was missing a few songs from the TV series. Then I got the DVD box, which included an "Eternal File" CD of the original soundtrack. It had all of the missing tracks (with the exception of any studio library music). It was still lacking the full version of the opening and ending songs, but I'm guessing that's because those versions weren't exactly featured in the series.

Anyway, it's always really frustrating when a OST is incomplete. I was going to hunt down the vinyl for Stop! Hibari-kun!! a while back, but I found out it was missing the one track I wanted, so I changed my mind. I was also pretty bummed that the Tokimeki Tonight soundtrack was also missing a lot of memorable tracks.
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WingKing



Joined: 27 Apr 2015
Posts: 617
PostPosted: Fri Jul 14, 2017 4:49 pm Reply with quote
relyat08 wrote:
CatSword wrote:
I was excited when the Yuri!!! on Ice OST was added to Spotify...only for it to be missing "History Maker". Confused


I've found that most OPs/EDs, unless composed by the actual show's composer, tend to be omitted. This is the case with nearly every OST I've purchased.


Yes. If you want the OP or ED song, you almost always have to buy it as a single instead, especially if it was performed by a popular artist or group - a Nana Mizuki OP is not going to end up as track 29 of the OST CD. The singles generally cost around $10 (US) and have several versions of the song. You get the original full version, of course, and then you might get a couple of remix versions, or if it was sung by the seiyuu, then it might repeat the track several times with just each seiyuu's individual vocal parts (or each one solo-singing the whole song), that kind of thing. If the series also had insert songs, those sometimes end up on the OP/ED singles as B-sides, too.


Last edited by WingKing on Fri Jul 14, 2017 4:51 pm; edited 1 time in total
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redcar



Joined: 04 Jun 2009
Posts: 172
Location: Texas
PostPosted: Fri Jul 14, 2017 4:50 pm Reply with quote
Oh man, this kind of thing is really obnoxious, especially when they leave out/change some great music. I tend to notice it more when it comes to videogames, though. The most recent example was the Tales of Zestiria OST, where the official release left out some incredible mood music and changed a few other iconic tunes (for the worse, I feel). It's good to hear some of the reasons that it could happen, but still...I'd rather they just go the extra mile to get all the original music in and charge a little extra for it :/
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leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:23 pm Reply with quote
Shaterri wrote:
I'm not going to go down the audiophile rabbit hole (except to note that the comparison here is completely meaningless something something compression etc), but this seems pretty nonsensical to me unless you can point to a _specific_ correlation of quality with production cost. Yes, there are some 'audio purists' who will pay enough that occasionally high-quality releases make sense, but for this market I think there's basically zero demand for any fidelity bar of CD over purely-digital music. I'm pretty sure the difference here comes down to much more traditional physical factors: it costs money to physically make CDs, and it costs money to get CDs from point A to point B, and by and large those costs don't exist for MP3s. (There are also some reasons related to the old-school Japanese publishing strangleholds, but that's a much more complicated matter.)


There are also fewer middlemen involved in selling digital music versus selling physical music storage, since the vendor is also the distributor.

WingKing wrote:
Yes. If you want the OP or ED song, you almost always have to buy it as a single instead, especially if it was performed by a popular artist or group - a Nana Mizuki OP is not going to end up as track 29 of the OST CD. The singles generally cost around $10 (US) and have several versions of the song. You get the original full version, of course, and then you might get a couple of remix versions, or if it was sung by the seiyuu, then it might repeat the track several times with just each seiyuu's individual vocal parts (or each one solo-singing the whole song), that kind of thing. If the series also had insert songs, those sometimes end up on the OP/ED singles as B-sides, too.


That sounds mighty annoying, but I guess the fans will put up with that. They couldn't at least make it Track 1?
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Shaterri



Joined: 03 Jan 2008
Posts: 173
PostPosted: Fri Jul 14, 2017 6:10 pm Reply with quote
leafy sea dragon wrote:
WingKing wrote:
Yes. If you want the OP or ED song, you almost always have to buy it as a single instead


That sounds mighty annoying, but I guess the fans will put up with that. They couldn't at least make it Track 1?


To be fair, it's a bit of a mixed bag - often 'TV Size' versions of OP/ED songs (i.e., the edited versions that actually play over the opening or ending animation) tend to wind up on the OST disc while full 3-4 minute versions of those songs are sold as singles. It can be really nice having both versions available.
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leafy sea dragon



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PostPosted: Fri Jul 14, 2017 6:37 pm Reply with quote
Shaterri wrote:
To be fair, it's a bit of a mixed bag - often 'TV Size' versions of OP/ED songs (i.e., the edited versions that actually play over the opening or ending animation) tend to wind up on the OST disc while full 3-4 minute versions of those songs are sold as singles. It can be really nice having both versions available.


I see. It sounded like the songs weren't present on the soundtracks at all in any form, which I'm sure would irritate many because those songs would be the ones most closely associated with the show.
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Juno016



Joined: 09 Jan 2012
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 14, 2017 8:38 pm Reply with quote
Does anyone know how well the Pokemon OST collection that included just about every non-film track from 1998-2010 sold? I don't think we've heard of any intent to release the music for Best Wish and beyond, which is bothering me due to a few really amazing songs I absolutely want to add to my Pokemon disc collection.

That OST collection release was all I ever wanted, considering it was practically every track, named or unnamed, in the series.
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veemonjosh



Joined: 06 Mar 2008
Posts: 307
PostPosted: Fri Jul 14, 2017 9:50 pm Reply with quote
Luckily fans of some series are able to remedy this if a home release has a 5.1 audio track. Separate the BGM and vocal tracks, and you can extract music tracks that have never been released on their own. I know One Piece fans at least have done this using the Funimation DVDs.
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Top Gun



Joined: 28 Sep 2007
Posts: 4566
PostPosted: Fri Jul 14, 2017 10:00 pm Reply with quote
One thing I miss the most from the 2000s anime bubble is Geneon's soundtrack-publishing wing, though maybe I miss it the most because they all wound up in RightStuf's $5 bargain bin after Geneon folded. I picked up a whole bunch of their releases over the years from series I watched. It wasn't from Geneon, but one soundtrack set in particular that stuck with me was that for Eureka seveN: it was 4 disks total and covered (as far as I know) pretty much every track from the series.
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WingKing



Joined: 27 Apr 2015
Posts: 617
PostPosted: Fri Jul 14, 2017 10:42 pm Reply with quote
leafy sea dragon wrote:
Shaterri wrote:
To be fair, it's a bit of a mixed bag - often 'TV Size' versions of OP/ED songs (i.e., the edited versions that actually play over the opening or ending animation) tend to wind up on the OST disc while full 3-4 minute versions of those songs are sold as singles. It can be really nice having both versions available.


I see. It sounded like the songs weren't present on the soundtracks at all in any form, which I'm sure would irritate many because those songs would be the ones most closely associated with the show.


What you get depends entirely on the OST. Sometimes you get TV versions on the OST CD and sometimes you don't, but if you want the full version of the song, 99% of the time you have to buy the single. That's why I always tell people that if they're counting on getting an OP or ED with an OST to look at the track list before buying, if possible. Looking at some of the ones that I'm familiar with, for instance:

Yuki Yuna's OST has a TV-length instrumental version of the OP - no vocals - and nothing for the ED or the insert songs. That kind of annoyed me, but I would've been more annoyed if I hadn't already bought the OP single anyway.

The Love Live S1 OST has the TV-length versions of basically everything, including both the OP and ED and all of the S1 insert songs.

Conversely, K-On!'s three OST CDs have only a few insert songs and none of the show's six OP/ED songs at all, not even short versions.

Lyrical Nanoha included the OP and ED (TV length) on the first season's soundtrack, but did not put them on the soundtracks for any of the subsequent seasons. None of Nana Mizuki's insert songs ever made it to the OST CDs either.

Madoka Magica did not have the OP or ED on any of the three OST CDs in any format, but the full-length versions of both are included on the two-disc "Music Collection" set that was released a couple of years later.
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leafy sea dragon



Joined: 27 Oct 2009
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 14, 2017 11:59 pm Reply with quote
Yikes--somehow, I was not surprised at all to see a complete lack of consistency though, which, in a way, makes it sound even more annoying.
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