Menu and start music themes set the tone for the beginnings of most games. They are not unlike appetizers or amuse bouches: a taste for what’s to come. For many people, these opening themes, along with their respective title cards, trigger a greater sense of nostalgia, in much the same way that smells activate older memories. All of these themes are composed and designed with a sense of beginning, acting as gateways towards something bigger. This album would be a celebration of, not only the memories these games hold, but also their function from a design perspective.

Specifically, we want to encapsulate the feeling when you first played a game, be it playing a video game for the very first time or picking up any game for the first time ever, and falling in love with it. Every video game fan had to start their appreciation somewhere, and that feeling is what binds our community together. By drawing from Materia Collective’s community of musical members during this album’s production, we hope to show not only how video games connect and inspire us all, but also pay homage to video games as a medium. We’re proud to present this album as a compilation of a remarkable set of remixes and unique covers of opening theme music from video games.