LONG BLOG
The Alphadeus Discography Decade - 2009 to 2019
Hello, friends. I've been wanting to write this for a while. As you know, I make music. It's about all I do in life. It has been a decade since I started taking it seriously, but I've been writing original music since 1996. From 2009-2019 I've released over 40 albums. I wanted to talk a little bit about each album. Instead of linking to every single one, here is a general link to my Bandcamp. All of my albums are free to download, except for one (AD Infinitum I - Alphadeus), so that people had the option to purchase my entire discography starting at 1 dollar.
2009 / 2010 / 2011 - Walking in Circles : I technically put this album together at the very end of 2009, released it on Bandcamp in 2010, took it down, and re-released it with bonus songs in 2011. This is my first official album. I consider it one of my best. It tells a depressing story, because at the time, I was very depressed and waiting for the end. The entire album is quite good, so I don't really have individual song suggestions. I recommend listening to the first 9 tracks (the rest are bonus tracks).
2011 - From Alpha to Omega : This is my second album release. It was a challenge to see how much music I could write in a short amount of time. I wrote 24 songs (one for each letter of the Greek Alphabet) in 10 days (although around 4 or 5 were written before the album). Notable songs include Epsilon, Theta, Xi, Omicron, Upsilon, Phi, Psi, and Omega.
2011 / 2014 - Songs for Gamers aka The Destructoid Community Album : I'm not sure where to put this on the list. It started in 2011, volume 2 was released in 2012. Volume 3 I think was 2014, and there were a few tracks written for volume 4 in 2014. All 4 volumes were remastered, and combined into one mega album.
Songs for Gamers is a project where I reached out to a bunch of people, asked them if they wanted a video game style theme song, and worked with their tastes to try to write something they liked. Overall I think it was a successful project, and gave me a lot of experience writing custom music for clients. It was also a gift to the community.
2012 - AD Infinitum I - Alphadeus : This album is basically a "happier" version of Walking in Circles, and shares almost all of the same songs. To be honest, I prefer most of the Walking in Circles versions, although this album has Breakdown, and Distorted Reality, which weren't on Walking in Circles (and are quite good).
2012 - Nonsensicals : This album is a collection of songs I wrote for no particular reason. I gave a lot of the songs silly names to fit the theme. I recommend Dreamless, Sweet Treat, Verbatus, and Heroitis.
2012 - Nonsensicals II : Breaking tradition early on, the music on this album had a "story", and all of the tracks were written for it specifically. The general story is that someone is using different modes of transportation to eventually get to outer space, find a wormhole to another dimension, and realize they were home all along. Most of the tracks are good (quite experimental). The 13th track "The Long Way Home" represents backtracking (the song is the previous 12 songs in reverse without percussion).
2012 - Nonsensicals III : Going back to the original concept, Nonsensicals III is a collection of songs I wrote for no particular reason. There is no story.
2012 - A Well-Known Stranger : A dark album with somewhat of a story. It's actually the 2nd part of a trilogy of albums, although it was written first. The story is about a madman in prison going through different mindsets, until being left for dead. "Off the Rocker" is one of my favorite songs, and it's 9 minutes long. I recommend almost every song though.
2014 - Nonsensicals IV : This album is an interesting beast. It includes songs written in 2013 that I didn't have enough to make an album with, songs for a failed project called "30 Stories" where I asked Dtoid, and friends and family to give me story prompts to write music for, and it also had 3 rearrangements of songs from From Alpha to Omega.
2014 - 2AD14 aka Ad Lib - Vol. 1, Part 1 : This idea behind the "2AD1X series" started in 2013, but never released due to lack of songs. It was meant to be a Jam Track album, similar to Nonsensicals. I included a ton of great songs on this one, like Forest of Dreams, Enigmatic by Design, and rearrangements of several Songs for Gamers songs. The reason the album has 2 names, is because in 2017, when I went to put it on Spotify, I was told I couldn't use the "year" of the album as the album name. So I changed it to Ad Lib.
2014 - 2AD14 II aka Ad Lib - Vol. 1, Part 2 : More of the first album. Various tracks including rearrangements of Songs for Gamers.
2014 - 2AD14 III aka Ad Lib - Vol. 1, Part 3 : Even more tracks! When I released these three albums on Spotify, I combined them into 1 album called "Ad Lib - Volume 1", removing the Songs for Gamers rearrangements to make room (I can only have 35 tracks on an album).
2015 - 2AD15 aka Ad Lib - Vol. 2, Part 1 : 2015 was a bad year music-wise. While there are some great songs on this album, overall, I feel I wrote too many duds.
2015 - 2AD15 II aka Ad Lib - Vol. 2, Part 2 : Same issue as the first album. Skyscrapers, Intelligence Report, and Friendly Fire are excellent songs, though.
2015 - FRACTURED : This was a fun project. The idea was to write an album with track names that begin with the letters to spell EMOTION, and 5 tracks to spell LOGIC. EMOTION represented the white keys on a piano, and LOGIC were the 5 black keys in an octave.
2015 - ADBC : Stands for "Alphadeus Best Collection". It's not a "best of" compilation, instead it is a collection of songs I wrote in 2015 that I really liked.
2015 - Nonsensicals V : Easily my least favorite album ever written. The songs are solid, but I feel like I could've done way better. Unlike the general idea of "songs written with no album in mind", these songs have a theme. They all deal with "Locations" for a vertical shooter.
2016 - 2AD16 aka Ad Lib - Vol. 3, Part 1 : Decent collection of new songs. Everything I've Learned and Convulsions are wonderful tracks. This album and one other are the only albums on spotify with a song written for the Songs for Gamers project.
2016 - 2AD16 aka Ad Lib - Vol. 3, Part 2 : More good songs. Star Seed, Plasma, One to Be Feared. Also includes a Piano Journal unlike any other album released.
2016 - CHIPS : An album dedicated to chiptunes. I tried to stay within the restrictions of the NES system. I think it makes some of the tracks sound kind of boring. I am planning on redoing this album with Genesis FM synth style sound.
2016 - The Divide : Part 3 of the A Well-Known Stranger trilogy. The main character left for dead in the second album, is collected by a doctor that performs experiments on him that causes him to split into 2 separate beings. One of light, one of darkness. The two beings manage to work together to defeat the doctor and escape the laboratory.
2016 - 2AD16 aka Ad Lib - Vol. 3, Part 3 : Great songs on this one. Smoke, Warrior Spirit, Dynamo, Radius Circus, Funeral - The Unthinkble (written for my cat that died in 2016), and March of Zars, one of my oldest songs.
2016 - Songs for Gamers DLC Pack 01 : I started up the project again, and wrote music for some more cool people. It's a small 12 album track.
2016 - Songs for Gamers DLC Pack 02 : Even more songs written for cool people!
2017 - Trigger : Part 1 of the A Well-Known Stranger trilogy. It gives the main character a name, Detective Grayson. He is searching for a man with the power to turn any person into a killing machine by just whispering a few words in their ear. When he finds the man in a warehouse, the man uses his power to cause Grayson to kill his wife and child. Grayson is arrested for the murders, and is in prison at the beginning of the second album.
2017 - Ad Lib - Vol. 4, Part 1 : I mentioned earlier that I started putting my music on Spotify in 2017, and that I had to change the name of the album. So all "2AD1X" albums from this point only have the one name, Ad Lib. This album has some great Piano and Cello pieces, Holding Hands, Memories, The Drinking Song, and Warrior's Rest.
2017 - Spectrum : The goal of this album was to see how many songs I could write in one month (October 2017). And the answer to that question is 20 + 3 songs written in the previous month.
2017 - Ad Lib - Vol. 4, Part 2 : Great songs, Herald, Zero Factor, Accidental Heroes, and Rabid Endings, which is a track my brother wrote, that I added instruments to.
2017 - Songs for Gamers DLC Pack 03 : I picked up the project again, and wrote 13 more songs for most excellent people.
2018 - Universe of Dreams : This is a great album, and an interesting one. I decided to use samples for more than just drums, but also synth riffs and such. I highly recommend listening to the whole thing if possible.
2018 - From Alpha to Omega II : I wanted to see if I could recreate these 24 songs with the knowledge of music I had at the time. Many songs were only slightly transformed, while others took on whole new melodies.
2018 - Songs for Gamers DLC Pack 04 : The final Songs for Gamers full album. Lots of great music.
2018 - Songs for Gamers Bonus Stages EP : Put together at the request of Jiraya, that had a song written for them that was never on a Songs for Gamers album. I found some other music I wrote for people I could also share.
2018 - Conundrum and Bass : My first major attempt at a single genre album (Drum and Bass). I used samples for most of the drums, and some of the bass lines. Also I used a picture of the cat that died in 2016 as the album cover as a tribute.
2018 - Ad Lib - Volume 5 : The only year so far that I only wrote 1 "Part" of the album, making it the shortest tracklist of all the Ad Libs.
2019 - Magic Coins Soundtrack : An album written for an imaginary RPG, using songs I wrote for other projects going back to 1997. It tells a story that deals with a man fighting machines controlled by someone close to him. I'm proud of this one because of all the updated songs I wrote.
2019 - Ad Lib - Vol. 6, Part 1 : Excellent collection of songs, including In This Moment, a song that won a friendly competition, and is just a great song. Also includes my first ever original song, Trial and Error.
2019 - CHIPS II : Another album dedicated to chiptunes. This time I had more fun and used advanced instruments to give the songs more "beef".
2019 - Hyperion : Written for an imaginary space shooter game. The main songs dealt with the elements, light, dark, earth, wind, water, lightning, fire, and ice. 2019 - Madness : An album I had been trying to write since 2015 or so. I wanted to capture the different feelings I had in my mind that hurt me the most. It's a very personal album.
2019 - Ad Lib - Vol. 6, Part 2 : More great tunes, including Vanguard, Out of Control, and The Mad King.
And that's my decade of music wrapped up. I also worked on 2 secret game projects that I have permission to release most of the music for now. As well as various projects for other people. I plan on hitting this decade even harder, having already released 2 albums in 2020.
I hope you enjoyed reading about my thoughts on all my music from 2009-2019. Thank you for your love and support. It keeps me going. Take care.
LOOK WHO CAME:
