If you loved the popular songs that appeared in each episode of Alan Wake, they were pretty simple to find. Just head to iTunes or your favorite music downloads store and pick up “Space Oddity” by David Bowie, “In Dreams” by Roy Orbison or so on. Finding the orchestral score by Petri Alanko was more difficult, as a segment of it was only available on a CD that came with the limited edition of Alan Wake. Now, you can get the full Alan Wake Original Score thanks to Sumthing Else Music.

On July 20, 2010, Sumthing Else Music will release the Alan Wake Original Score so everyone who didn’t feel like paying for a premium version of Alan Wake can get it. Or, if you prefer, you can just pick up your favorite compositions from the 18 track release. In case you’re having trouble remembering what some of those songs sounded like, you can head over to Sumthing Digital…

From the success of the original incarnation of Spore comes a sort of spin-off for the Wii called Spore Hero. Spore Hero leaves the concept of growth and evolution behind in favor of light quests suitable for the youngest of gamers. Backing up the gameplay to Spore Hero is an original score composed by Winifred Phillips who is also responsible for creating music for other games including SimAnimals, The Maw and God of War.

Phillips’ music has always done a wonderful job of matching the vibe of a game whether the character is walking carefree through lush fields of vegetation or dealing a decisive blow to the final boss. With a game such as Spore Hero and the audience it caters to, you would imagine the soundtrack would consist of quirky or blatantly jolly songs, but Spore Hero’s soundtrack totally outdoes those expectations. The entire soundtrack is orchestral in nature and drips of complexity and style. It’s entirely possible to view Spore Hero’s music as that of a feature animated film and not that of a video game.

This week Gaia Online celebrates the music of zOMG! during zOMG!fest featuring music composer and symphonist Jeremy Soule and music composer and songwriter Jeff Miyahara who has composed not only music for Gaia Online events such as the more recent Promageddon but have also worked with popular J-pop (Japanese pop music) artists.

I was given the opportunity to ask Jeremy Soule a few questions to get a better understanding of what goes into creating the music players hear while playing zOMG!

Title: Video Games Live: Volume OnePrice: $16.98 ($0.99 per song download)Release Date: July 22, 2008Publisher: EMI Records Ltd. (Angel Records)Pros: An excellent collections of impressive performances. Often well-orchestrated collections and homages to game music with an honest air of respectability that even non-gamers can appreciate. The name implies there will be a Volume Two.Cons: A few segments are a bit slow and some of the instrumentation plainly mimics or masks the vocals.Overall Score: Two thumbs up; 91/100; A-; * * * * out of five.

No matter where you fall in the games as art spectrum there’s no denying that plenty of artistic efforts are put into many games’ production. Case in point is the Video Games Live tour which offers orchestral performances of video game music that would be difficult for any music snob to scoff at.

The CD (and digital download) release of Video Games Live: Volume One offers selected studio and live performances featuring the Slovak Symphony Orchestra, Crouch End Festival Chorus and various soloists as conducted by Jack Wall.

Click through for a track-by-track review…

Score Hero – is that ver. two? Or eleven? I say they change it to Score Hero 2000: The Reckoning after hearing that GuitarHero developer, Harmonix, donated $2,000 towards upgrading their servers. Said Harmonix prez, Alex Rigopulos on the Score Hero forums: “Hey everyone, I just kicked in a big donation on behalf of the more »