Mark Morgan's Inspiration

Prone Squanderer

Prone Squanderer

A bit of a Sillius Soddus.
Over the years I've listened to Mark Morgan's work on the first 2 Fallouts, and to this day they are still my favourite OSTs out of the Fallout series. Some of these tracks take inspiration from artists such as Brian Eno and Aphex Twin, and since I've seen several music threads on NMA I thought I'd list the tracks that sound like they may or have inspired Mark Morgan.

  • Vault of the Future (Vault 13) has a Russian voice at various parts, which translates along the lines of "The reports examines the evolution of nuclear arsenals and social-psychological problems of the arms race." This is heard at the start of Depeche Mode's To Have and To Hold, which may have inspired the use of this sample in Vault of the Future.







That's all I've got so far. Anyone know of any other inspirations?
 
Yes indeed. Also, check out The Vault (I always recommend The Vault over the Fallout Wiki, as The Vault has more in depth info and the Fallout Wiki copied the entire site when it started out) pages for the songs, they have some info as well.
 
After watching that video...some of the stuff is downright plagiarism. Not sure what to think of this.
Damn it Mark.

Also, wasn't that guitar part from Gold Slouch/Project Blue also used in Wasteland 2?

I mean, I don't want to label Mark Morgan as someone who steals other people's work, sampling is fine, but some of these tunes go beyond that.
I am wondering now if his work on other games, Ps:T namely, is "inspired" by some other artists...
 
I had a similar dilemma the first time that I saw this. It all can to light for me while I was rewatching old X-Files episodes and heard the unmistakable sound of "Fallout music." I started searching the net to see if Morgan had worked on X-Files at all and eventually found extensive notes and ultimately this video about how much he had sampled or covered.

The problem with calling it a cover though is that he seems to take full credit for the songs.

I wish I had answers for it, but all I can figure is that 'back in day' video game music wasn't something worth taking note of and so Morgan, probably working on a tiny budget and little time, basically swiped other's work and retooled it for the game. Either no one noticed or no one cared, because it was 'just a video game.' But yeah, it's disappointing as hell to find out the music I've loved for so long was essentially stolen work.
 
I thought the background music in Fallout was powerful and unique when I first played it. It is sad to know that they are shameless rips, but I don't mind too much. It would have been sufficient for me if he had simply acknowledged it and credited the authors. The first times hearing Vault of the Future and City of the Dead gave me the heebie jeebies.
 
Jubal Quintus said:
The problem with calling it a cover though is that he seems to take full credit for the songs.
Click to expand...



There was some talk earlier - whether from some interview or from it being some fan theory - that FO developers basically burned some untitled tunes to the CD and gave the CD to Mark. "Make us stuff that sounds like these" they said, and he took it a bit too literal I guess. Or maybe not, maybe he was just following the directions. Or maybe he is a thief. Maybe none and all of the above...who knows.

Whatever it was, I still consider Mark to be a good video game composer. AFAIK most of the Planescape: Torment soundtrack is original, and there's still a lot of original elements to the FO1/2 as well. Mark is capable, certainly, and I love the FO soundtrack to death, but I guess there's no such thing as pure, untainted perfection.

That being said, I am, ironically, quite glad that Mark "borrowed" this stuff. Way back when I discovered Fallout and heard his music, I also discovered, through his songs for Fallout, artists like Brian Eno and Aphex Twin, among others. To this day they are some of my favorite artists and their influence on me has been huge.
 
He's not 100% thief, to this day we don't know from what he sampled Industrial Junk. And using one voice line from some other song is doesn't equal to sampling the whole song.
 
This is actually not that uncommon in the music industry as a whole. This is actually so common that it is well and truly established as not illegal but just part of intellectual property sharing.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SuspiciouslySimilarSong

Jimmy Hart used to be a master of it (yes, from Professional Wrestling).

Note this is not exactly ACCEPTED by many artists as the whole Ghostbusters theme fiasco proves.
 
I love early ambient tracks. So along with Brian Eno (who was not only an influence on Morgan but the guy who did Minecraft's soundtrack) I really like Eskimo by The Residents

Jubal Quintus said:
I had a similar dilemma the first time that I saw this. It all can to light for me while I was rewatching old X-Files episodes and heard the unmistakable sound of "Fallout music." I started searching the net to see if Morgan had worked on X-Files at all and eventually found extensive notes and ultimately this video about how much he had sampled or covered.

The problem with calling it a cover though is that he seems to take full credit for the songs.

I wish I had answers for it, but all I can figure is that 'back in day' video game music wasn't something worth taking note of and so Morgan, probably working on a tiny budget and little time, basically swiped other's work and retooled it for the game. Either no one noticed or no one cared, because it was 'just a video game.' But yeah, it's disappointing as hell to find out the music I've loved for so long was essentially stolen work.
Click to expand...

Ya but everything is stolen from everything else actually.
 
TheHouseAlwaysWins said:
Ya but everything is stolen from everything else actually.
Click to expand...

Yes, I agree, but that's a poor defense to someone who is accusing Mr. Morgan of plagiarism. He even uses the word "swiped."

I guess someone should have told Mark Morgan...

2e3cby~01.jpg
 
Atomkilla said:
I am wondering now if his work on other games, Ps:T namely, is "inspired" by some other artists...
Click to expand...

Yes, it probably was. We just haven't identified all of it yet ;) You can hear some familiar sounds from the Mortuary music in this track taken from 8MM movie starring Nicolas Cage.



I think a bunch of these steals are because of shitty deadlines. I think Morgan had to compose both Fallout and PST soundtracks in ridiculously short time windows. Weeks or a month or two IIRC.

P.S. Apologies for the necro, but this topic is kind of timeless!
 
hexer said:
Yes, it probably was. We just haven't identified all of it yet ;) You can hear some familiar sounds from the Mortuary music in this track taken from 8MM movie starring Nicolas Cage.



I think a bunch of these steals are because of shitty deadlines. I think Morgan had to compose both Fallout and PST soundtracks in ridiculously short time windows. Weeks or a month or two IIRC.

P.S. Apologies for the necro, but this topic is kind of timeless!
Click to expand...



It's a damn weird necro, but good catch. Definitely another rip off.
 
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