i don' think that pico pico has really, much to do with 8bit.. pico can be 8 bit. but pico pico is really, imo, hyper charged, video game influenced pop music. it has more in common with like, side scroll shooter sound tracks for the SNES, then game boy blips and beeps.. though, there are blips and beeps in pico pico. i personally view SoCoPo has pretty much the marker of pico pico. and not much in the way of 8 bit to be found there imo.

I agree, although the word piko piko in Japanese just means "bleep." (Why we decided to use a "c"...? I dunno.)

The bigger question: will everyone want to start listening to old video game sounds in their music? Probably. Pop never started to become d'n'b, but it got really breakbeaty in the late 90s.

I first heard the term connected with the 1979-era band the Plastics (who's producer/synth guy went on to produce Judy and Mary). It's about using analog rhythm boxes rather than real drums.

Good question about the pico spelling. The value step below nano in metric = something real small sounding?

Motocompo being Neo New Wave would be some sort of link between very new bands and 1979.

I don't know, I see this more as a viable avenue for remixes, rather than singles. I've heard any number of amateur remixes of pop songs done with Gameboys or C-64s and they sound great for the length of that song, but an album full of it would get tired very quickly.

...though I bet if you could sell yourself as the 8-bit Timbaland or something, you might have a shot at becoming a producer.

http://www.supermadrigalbros.com/

i don't think that gameboy music can really stand on its own. well YMCK is quite nice. i honestly can't make it through the album in one punch, great in the mix. luckly, or hopefully, it will just be another sound palette open to pop music. i don't see why "gameboy" sounds need to be differentiated from any other sound. any straight up single style thrown down is quite a bore i think anyways. hopefully it will be assimilated. beck is a good main stream start.

I don't think the game sounds HAVE to be differentiated for the casual listener but I think the fact is that there are being differentiated by those into the genre is important. I can kind of see a parallel with something like hardcore noise in that you have some people getting a big charge out of the sound. People figured that one out in regards to game generated music as music 2 decades ago. There is an audience who gets a kick out of it

The difference then was the added layer of nostalgia applied to old game sounds. Harking back to a simpler era either real or imagined. (Perhaps one when games didn't contain marketed radio dreck) Further parallel with something like hardcore noise is people into it relish the fact that many just don't "get" it, that it annoys the common masses.

But with a lot of more esoteric genres, there's always the opportunity to use bits of it as a garnish or perhaps a reference to display hipness. I don't see it getting "huge", certainly a chance of overexposure, but there is an audience and a lot of people kind of amused and hovering around if anything happens.a