Your top 5 chip albums (Page 2 of 3)

1. Virt - FX3
2. Shnabubula - Game Genie
3. Various Artists - Kind of Bloop
4. Jay Tholen - Control Me
5. Disasterpeace - Rise of the Obsidian Interstellar

1. little-scale - Dynasty
2. Mobb Beep - Modificeret
3. Stay Ali - Vati Vati EP
4. Misfitchris - Data Tides
5. Ten and Tracer - Dark Before Dawn

Khonnor - Lost Pets should get a mention in here somewhere too.

5. A.M.U - diamond
4. A.M.U - diamond
3. A.M.U - diamond
2. A.M.U - diamond
1. A.M.U - diamond

pretty much, yeah

I've excluded EPs, demos and VGM - I could bore you for even longer...

1. Family Genesis by YMCK (Avex Trax)
YMCK perfect their songwriting on this album, while their attention to detail is utterly charming.  The choir of chipmusicians (check the credits) on 8番目の虹, and the ambitious closer, フィナーレ ～Welcome to the 8bit world～, are just two moments that demonstrate what a labour of love Family Genesis is. 

2. Maxi German Rave Blast Hits 3 by Bodenstandig 2000 (Rephlex)
Not only pioneering – Ataris on Rephlex! – this is a fantastically creative paean to computer culture backed up by strong songs and serious tracker skills. No other release captures the DIY atmosphere of the early Micromusic scene as well as this.

3.Decades by 4mat (self-released)
There are other comparable .mod/.it/.xm/etc albums, but this wins out with its broad range of styles, all consistently well executed. There are memorable melodies (Decades), slamming grooves (Latin EQ) and slick combinations of the two (1989).

4. Eclipse of Mars by Soundburst (self-released)
An underrated album to say the least - the only time I’ve seen this mentioned is in a VORC awards post back in the day. Using OctaMED, Soundburst summons the spirit of Jun Ishikawa or Konami’s sound team circa Pop ‘n Twinbee, with a seemingly effortless knack for composition.

5. Cryptoburners by Team Doyobi (Skam)
Few chipmusic artists push the envelope of their respective platform as far as Team Doyobi. Their deconstructed glitch funk has little in common with conventional ‘chiptunes’, yet is clearly an antecedent for lo-fi movements that followed like Skweee (listen to the bass of Nomen Lumi).

Last edited by Stevens (Oct 29, 2011 11:10 am)

This is a digression, but I would almost argue that in the chip world an EP IS an album.  4, 5, and 6 songs seems to be the norm for a lot of (really good) releases.  I wouldn't mind seeing the whole music biz move towards concise, quality EPs.  A tight, well-sequenced five-song set is really appealing to me. 

Just sayin'.

I hear that, but it would be an offense to the albums mentioned in my list to lump them in with EPs. There's a lot of content on them. It's hard to do a whole album, and to make every song on that album worth hearing, but when done right, it deserves a lot of credit.