I want to finish this, especially after the hassle I had just to listen to the latest album (almost feels like I'm being gatekept by ZUN himself
). First, though, a note about the "eras;" from my introduction to the series, the separation between the "Classic," "First Modern" and "Second Modern" eras had confused me to some extent. As far as I can tell, the distinction refers to the games specifically, and technically has nothing to do with the music (although there may be some argument out of the Classic Era). I found them useful for the purpose of dividing up the series, allowing for easier compartmentalization, especially for this topic. However, as their seems to be no signs of a Third Modern Era being declared, the Second is becoming too large for my purposes. To keep things organized for myself, I have begun internally considering a division between Touhou 17 and 18, completely arbitrarily. This has no effect on anyone else, nor indeed on the task at hand, but it was on my mind as a curiosity, so I decided to share it anyway.
Touhou 18 ~ Unconnected Marketeers
Hard to believe this is three years old already. I'm not sure how accurate my perception on this is, but it seems to me this soundtrack gets undeserved flack, and I have no idea why. It's not necessarily one of my favorite collections, but it's far from being among my least favorites, and continues to deliver on exactly what I love about Touhou Music. I do see signs of ZUN experimenting with his instrumentation; this is technically nothing new, but perhaps it's more obvious here, resulting in others taking more notice of it? Regardless, I appreciate the more experimental tracks as much as the more standard ones. Personal picks here are
The Perpetual Snow of Komakusa Blossoms and
A Fantastic Giant Underground Railway Network; it's tough to favor these over the boss themes of Chimata and Momoyo, but overall I think this album's style shows more strength in the stage themes.
Touhou 17.5 ~ Gouyoku Ibun ~ Sunken Fossil World
This is the first entry to not be primarily composed by ZUN or Akiyama, instead featuring the talent of Shun Daimon, a.k.a. ziki_7. I was initially worried I'd fall into comparing ziki's style to U2's, but thankfully I didn't experience that tendency and was able to appreciate it on its own merits; and merits it has! There's a stylistic theme going on throughout the album connected to the game's setting, just subtle enough to avoid restricting genre exploration while still supplying a unifying character. Realizing this made the whole collection really engaging for me, especially in tying the remixes in with the original tracks.
Love-Colored Master Spark stood out to me immediately, and it's still the track I listen too most out of the album. ZUN's contributions were slightly less impressive to me; I'm all for reutilizing one of the best motifs from T17 into a more epic boss theme, but by doing it twice I think he unintentionally shortchanged both the new iterations, making them too reliant on each other. That may perhaps be why I prefer ziki's arrangement of
Memento of the Avaricious Beast over either of them, even though I'd have said
Memory of Fossil Energy otherwise. I wish there were more of those original compositions, but I'm still grateful for what is included; I'll highlight
Law of Heaven, Desires of Man as honorable mention.
ZUN's Music Collection Vol. 9.5: Rainbow-Colored Septentrion
What's to say about this one that I haven't said for its predecessors? Neither arrangement is significantly different from its original, although I do appreciate
Illusionary White Traveler having an ending.
The Wolves of Nanatsuishi Dash to Seize the Clouds is a good piece, but I'd have preferred it to have more unique companions.
Touhou 18.5 ~ 100th Black Market
I'm slightly prejudiced against this entry only because it didn't have a silhouette-art cover variant, being the only game in the entire series to lack it (even
ULiL's DLC had a unique silhouette-art cover!). That aside, this is an excellent addition to the spin-off soundtracks. It's comparable to T12.8 in organization, specifically in that it has unique boss themes, which is unusual for these titles. Despite this novelty, I still lean toward the stage theme
Black Markets Can Happen Anywhere, Anytime as my favorite, simply as a fun motif jovially presented.
Touhou 19 ~ Unfinished Dream of All Living Ghost
As a phantasmagoria-type, this release had me hopeful for some ZUN arrangements; my expectations weren't too high, given he doesn't usually change much (see MC9.5 above), but with the varied cast reveal I had at least hoped for some upgraded older themes and perhaps even a fixed version of
Avaricious Beast. In this respect I was admittedly disappointed, and I can't think of a single remixed track that impressed me from this collection. The new themes, however, were another matter.
Tiny Shangri-La gets early mention here, and I promise it isn't just because of the erhu; it's more how perfectly the piece is composed with the unique instrumentation in mind! For comparison, I offer
Kingdom of Nothingness for honorable mention as a continuation of T18's experimental styles; the pieces motifs and progression structure are designed to some extent around the instrumentation, favoring smoother transitions between notes and less movement through the bridges, allowing the flavor of the piece to be in that instrumentation. On the other hand,
The World is Made in an Adorable Way is a more standard composition, but for all that I think I prefer it over the final boss theme for casual listening.
ZUN's Music Collection Vol. 10: Taboo Japan Disentanglement
Yep, I found a way to listen to it, despite the best attempts of unidentified entities to thwart me. To those who have similarly managed to experience this inexplicably forbidden album, can we agree that the
Tinkerbell of Inequality is the most bizarre piece of music ZUN has ever composed? I'm not sure if I appreciate it or not, mainly because I suspect that's the entire point of the track. Regardless, it deserves honorable mention for novelty at least. Personally, though, I much preferred
The Lonely Road of Hitachi, which features some of the same kind of experimentation in its staggered notes, but with a much less chaotic result. Who knows, though; in a couple months, as I acclimate to this album, my opinion may flip. Whether it does or doesn't, I suspect my enjoyment of
Ghosts Exist Even When It's Not Night will remain unaffected; simultaneously a calm reflective piece and an actively journeying piece, both elements are presented as separate yet cohesive. Additionally, I want to note the arrangements of this album, which are unusually good, to the point where I'm not prepared to highlight a specific one.
With that, the list is finally caught up! A quick note for individual release tracks that don't fit into this format:
Touhou Unreal Mahjong has two original compositions of ZUN's, one being
Curious old Shanghai tile and the other being Shinki's theme from another game, and the collaboration album
Touhou Sound Fireworks featured a ZUN track called
Every Day a Red Day ~ Folksy Touhou Days. I also realize I didn't include
Akyuu's Untouched Scores in this ranking, thereby excluding
Theme of Eastern Story. There may be others I'm forgetting; should
Charming Domination ~ Speed Fox! count?
Seihou was excluded intentionally, as I figured it ought to be considered as derivative. Despite the long breaks I've taken with this idea (and how long it takes to write each post up), I genuinely enjoy doing this, and with the remix tournaments no longer active I don't get to do it as much. I may continue with reviewing some miscellaneous derivative works the way SoundOfRayne did; we'll see how I feel about it later.
