Minecraft - Volume Alpha
This article is missing trivia. The basic details are all here, but if you know some fun facts on these tracks, you should add them. |
Minecraft - Volume Alpha | |
---|---|
AKA | Minecraft Volume Alpha |
Release date | 2011-03-04 |
Genre | Ambient, IDM (Intelligent Dance Music), Minimal Techno, Orchestral, Soundtrack |
Running time | 58:51 (digital and CD) 38:13 (vinyl) |
Bandcamp | $6 or more |
Apple Music/iTunes | $9.99 |
Spotify | Ad-supported |
Google Play Music | $9.99 |
Ghostly | $10 (digital) $12 (CD) From $18 (vinyl) From $21 (vinyl, international) |
Minecraft - Volume Alpha is an album by C418 containing the original soundtrack to Minecraft, although several other songs never used within Minecraft are also included.
Minecraft - Volume Alpha was C418's first album to be released outside of Bandcamp, additionally being released to iTunes, Spotify, and Google Play. To date it is C418's most successful album due to the popularity of Minecraft and its soundtrack.
Official descriptions
This is probably why you’ve come to this website! Minecraft is one of the most popular video games in recent history, and Volume Alpha is the first official soundtrack to the game. Critics like to compare the style of my album to Erik Satie, Roedelius, and Brian Eno. Aphex Twin also once said I stole his style.Minimalism was and is definitely key when it comes to the soundtrack. Although Minecraft in and of itself is a very frantic and wild experience, I wanted to give the game a contrast by essentially giving the player a pentatonic chill pill. Some fans actually like to listen to this album while they go to sleep, which is just as well another interesting use for it.
Volume Alpha has been released in 2011 and was the first commercial release I’ve ever published, and luckily also the most successful, kickstarting my career as an independent composer and game dev. There is a lot that I have to thank Minecraft for, and there will be much more that I can thank it for.—C418, C418.org
This album contains most of the songs in Minecraft! It also contains even more unreleased music! In high quality! Meaning FLAC if you want!If you have a problem or just want to chit-chat, mail me under myself@c418.org !
Also, if you're wondering where the other songs are, those will appear in Volume Beta!
[...]
The OFFICIAL soundtrack of the critically acclaimed multi award winning indie block game!
Features 15 additional soundtrack exclusive minutes of music you haven't heard before!
Features Cat! In STEREO!
Features CD quality music! No more extremely low bitrate youtube videos of the soundtrack!
Features a high quality image of the album cover!—C418, C418.org
Tracks
Key
Key | |
---|---|
AKA | nuance1 |
Length | 1:05 |
Bandcamp | $0.99 or more |
opens—C418, Bandcamp
key is the song that sort of introduces you to the album, whereas door is a little bit of a small medley that welcomes you to the world of Minecraft.—C418
With “key” I had the thought of getting some more background’ey music into the main world. In technicality it’s just “Subwoofer Lullaby”, but slower and with a ton of more echo, but it effectively sounds wonderfully creepy, and I just enjoyed that.—C418
Connections
- Also appears on Minecraft - Volume Beta as Ki, using a different second half.
Door
Door | |
---|---|
Length | 1:51 |
Bandcamp | $0.99 or more |
Welcome!—C418, Bandcamp
Subwoofer Lullaby
Subwoofer Lullaby | |
---|---|
AKA | hal1 |
Length | 3:28 |
Bandcamp | $0.99 or more |
Imagine a forest with a subwoofer on overdrive...—C418, Bandcamp
Subwoofer Lullaby is a song I named that way because I always imagine a big speaker somewhere far far in a forest blasting this odd little melody.—C418
Connections
- Briefly remixed at the end of Floating Trees.
Death
Death | |
---|---|
Length | 0:41 |
Bandcamp | $0.99 or more |
Totally worth it though—C418, Bandcamp
Living Mice
Living Mice | |
---|---|
AKA | hal2 |
Length | 2:57 |
Bandcamp | $0.99 or more |
Yes, I mean you.—C418, Bandcamp
Living Mice, or the opposite would be deadmau5, hah. Joel did help me a bit with making this album, so there’s that reference.—C418
Trivia
- The track title is a reference to Joel Thomas Zimmerman, better known as deadmau5.
- C418 and deadmau5 would later collaborate on several other songs, one of which can be found on Seven Years of Server Data as mau5cave.
Moog City
Moog City | |
---|---|
Length | 2:40 |
Bandcamp | $0.99 or more |
Imagine that!—C418, Bandcamp
Moog City is a fun track. Moog actually contacted me on it, telling me how much they liked it. I’m glad they never found out I actually didn’t make it with a Moog device. I kinda created this song because I ordered a Moog, but I didn’t have it yet.—C418
Connections
- Remixed on Minecraft - Volume Beta as Moog City 2.
- Also remixed as part of Alpha.
Haggstrom
Haggstrom | |
---|---|
AKA | hal3 |
Length | 3:24 |
Bandcamp | $0.99 or more |
MHG MHG MHG—C418, Bandcamp
Trivia
- This track's title likely refers to game soundtrack-producer Mattias Häggström Gerdt, also known as anosou.
- C418 would later collaborate with anosou on Catacomb Snatch Original Soundtrack and also remix one of anosou's tracks as Cobalt Something Something.
Minecraft
Minecraft | |
---|---|
AKA | calm1 |
Length | 4:15 |
Bandcamp | $0.99 or more |
The very first and last song.—C418, Bandcamp
Minecraft is by far the most minimalist song and also the first song I created for the game. It’s purely pentatonic in scale, builds up very slowly, and then slowly fades away. This is kind of what I built the entire soundtrack around on.—C418
Connections
- Technically predated by its first remix, Minecraft is acid, though this track made its first appearance in a video on 2009-06-07 testing sound in the game Minecraft. The version shown is Classic 0.0.14a_08, from 2009-05-28.
- It also made an early and very brief appearance in a 2010 preview of the Minecraft soundtrack.
- Remixed on this album as Beginning.
- The theme also appears on this album in Door, Chris, and Beginning .
- Remixed on Minecraft - Volume Beta as part of Alpha and The End.
- It was also remixed directly there as Mutation.
- Remixed by extension in Beginning 2.
- The theme also appears in the music discs. It can be heard towards the end of Far, the middle of Strad, and in parts of Chirp, .
Oxygène
Oxygène | |
---|---|
AKA | nuance2 |
Length | 1:05 |
Bandcamp | $0.99 or more |
Accidental reference obviously.—C418, Bandcamp
“Oxygène” and “Équinoxe” are naturally references to Jean Michel Jarre.—C418
Trivia
- This track title and the following track Équinoxe are references to French electronic and ambient composer Jean Michel Jarre
Équinoxe
Équinoxe | |
---|---|
Length | 1:54 |
Bandcamp | $0.99 or more |
No reference in here!—C418, Bandcamp
“Oxygène” and “Équinoxe” are naturally references to Jean Michel Jarre.—C418
Mice on Venus
Mice on Venus | |
---|---|
AKA | piano3 |
Length | 4:41 |
Bandcamp | $0.99 or more |
Or mars.—C418, Bandcamp
Mice on Venus, or Mouse on Mars. MOM is a definite inspiration for me, and this album directly. It’s a highly experimental German musician duo that has been super active in the late 90’s and early 2000’s and I obsessed over their work. The song started as a piano solo, but as game development went on, I added a kind of, uh, addendum to it. A little cheeky piece that kind of says, Minecraft is also quite silly.—C418
[Mice on Venus] evolved into more and more stuff, really. I started with the super simple piano solo, and then added everything else to it. Back then people complained that there was too much depressing music, so I tried to make something optimistic.—C418
Trivia
- The track title is a reference to the German electronic music duo Mouse on Mars.
Dry Hands
Dry Hands | |
---|---|
Length | 1:08 |
Bandcamp | $0.99 or more |
Yep!—C418, Bandcamp
Wet Hands
Wet Hands | |
---|---|
Length | 1:39 |
Bandcamp | $0.99 or more |
And cold too.—C418, Bandcamp
Clark
Clark | |
---|---|
Length | 3:11 |
Bandcamp | $0.99 or more |
<3—C418, Bandcamp
Trivia
- This track title and the following track title Chris are a reference to English electronic musician Chris Clark.
Chris
Chris | |
---|---|
Length | 1:27 |
Bandcamp | $0.99 or more |
He likes it.—C418, Bandcamp
Thirteen
Thirteen | |
---|---|
Length | 2:56 |
Bandcamp | $0.99 or more |
No human was harmed in the making of this recording.—C418, Bandcamp
Thirteen is a creepy little record you can find in Minecraft. I always wanted the player to find it somewhere deep within a cave, because it’s being played by a device, creating a creepy atmosphere. But it turns out it’s just a creepy song being played. We never actually did that in the game though.—C418
Excuse
Excuse | |
---|---|
Length | 2:04 |
Bandcamp | $0.99 or more |
...—C418, Bandcamp
Excuse was originally intended to be a song for Minecraft’s hell world, the “Nether”. However when I started creating this album, I wanted it to be more than just carbon copies of what’s in the game. I wanted to give people more. So I ultimately decided that Excuse would be one of several exclusive songs only to be found on this record.—C418
Sweden
Sweden | |
---|---|
Length | 3:35 |
Bandcamp | $0.99 or more |
Wonderful country—C418, Bandcamp
Sweden is by far the most popular song, and I think it’s because of it’s very minimalistic chord progression that you can follow very easily. It is also based on the principle the song Minecraft is built on. Slow buildup, slowly fading away.—C418
Cat
Cat | |
---|---|
Length | 3:06 |
Bandcamp | $0.99 or more |
You know what they say - curiosity killed the cat.—C418, Bandcamp
Cat is a whimsical little track. People seem to like it a lot! I don’t know why!—C418
Dog
Dog | |
---|---|
Length | 2:25 |
Bandcamp | $0.99 or more |
I don't know about dogs though...—C418, Bandcamp
Danny
Danny | |
---|---|
Length | 4:14 |
Bandcamp | $0.99 or more |
All his fault—C418, Bandcamp
Trivia
- The track title is named after fellow game soundtrack-composer Danny Baranowsky.
Beginning
Beginning | |
---|---|
Length | 1:42 |
Bandcamp | $0.99 or more |
All his fault—C418, Bandcamp
Beginning because the end is always just the beginning. And with Minecraft, now we do know that this is not the last album and there is more to discover. That’s why I named it that.—C418
Trivia
- C418's Bandcamp comment of "All his fault" was probably added as this track's description in error.
- A remix of Minecraft.
- Specifically remixed on Minecraft - Volume Beta as Beginning 2.
Droopy likes ricochet
Droopy likes ricochet | |
---|---|
Length | 1:36 |
Bandcamp | $0.99 or more |
Featured in the video on minecraft.net—C418, Bandcamp
Droopy Likes Ricochet and Droopy Likes your Face are both songs from life changing moments seem minor in pictures. It’s a song I haven’t created for anything in particular, but the first Droopy song ended up in the first official Minecraft game trailer.—C418
Droopy likes your face
Droopy likes your face | |
---|---|
Length | 1:56 |
Bandcamp | $0.99 or more |
Not featured in the video on minecraft.net but nontheless completes the song—C418, Bandcamp
I get a lot of questions on what Droopy says. To be fair, I don’t know. It’s a sample library that you receive if you buy Kontakt. As far as I know, it’s a toy you could buy in the 80’s or 90’s which says random phrases about itself.—C418, C418.org
A brightly coloured track with a steady beat and robotic sounding vocals, “Droopy likes your face” serves as bonus material for the Minecraft – Volume Alpha album, having originally been released a year prior. The track is orignally from C418’s 2010 album, “life changing moments seem minor in pictures”. After seeing “Droopy Likes Ricochet” in an official Minecraft trailer without any knowledge of it being in, Daniel added the 2 Droopy tracks in to “Minecraft: Volume Alpha” as bonus material.
At Reddit, when asked about the lyrics of "Droopy likes Your Face", C418 replied “oh boy I have no idea. It's one of those sample libraries you get when you buy komplete. They sampled a droopy toy? [...] Yeah, I dunno. I never really looked into it. It sounded cool, which is what mattered, haha”
Lyrics
Note that these lyrics were transcribed by a fan and may not be accurate.
Yoo hoo
Hi
Boing
Yoo hoo (The egg, the egg)
Hi
Yoo hoo
Hi
Boing
Yoo hoo (The egg, the egg)
Hi
Yoo hoo
Hi
Boing
Yoo hoo (The egg, the egg)
Hi
Yoo hoo (Droopy is enormous)
Hi
Boing
Yoo hoo (The egg, the egg)
Hi
Droopy looks in a cave
No one is there
Droopy looks under a tree
Droopy is enormous
Droopy looks in a cave
No one is there
Droopy looks under a tree
Droopy is enormous
Droopy looks in a cave
No one is there
Droopy looks under a tree
Droopy is enormous
Droopy looks in a cave
No one is there
Droopy looks under a tree
Droopy is enormous
Droopy looks in a cave
No one is there
Droopy looks under a tree
Droopy is enormous
Droopy looks in a cave
No one is there
Droopy looks under a tree
Droopy is enormous
Droopy looks in a cave
No one is there
Droopy looks under a tree
Droopy is enormous
Trivia
- The vocals are from a Kontakt library named “Droopy the Dragon”. It contains text to speech samples from the Magic Wand Speaking Reader made by Texas Instruments in 1982. The Reader was designed to read aloud phrases and sound effects in children’s books that were written for the device. Kontakt includes samples from a book called The Droopy Dragon by Jean Greenlow.
Vinyl tracks
The vinyl version has a different tracklist to the main release due to limitations of the format.
Side A
Side B
Trivia
- The first three tracks are connected together, and so are tracks 5 and 6, 9 and 10, 14 through 17, and 19 through 21.
- The last two tracks are from C418's previous album life changing moments seem minor in pictures.
- The tracks "Oxygène" and "Équinoxe" are references to the albums of the same names by Jean-Michel Jarre.
- Some of the songs in C418's album 148 are remixes of songs found in this album.