Command & Conquer/Awesome Music

Near every song in near every Command and Conquer game is either made of pure concentrated awesome of the combat, searching or construction variety.

You can even listen to a lot of this Crowning Music here using the jukebox.

Tiberium Series

• All of the music from the first game (either Tiberian Dawn or The Tiberium Conflict) is awesome.
  • What C&C theme could possibly top Hell March? Why, only the first music you hear when you play the original Command & Conquer, the music that defined the game and set the standard subsequent entries in the series strove to match. Ladies and gentlemen, three words: Act on Instinct.
    • Four words: Act on Instinct remixed.
      • Here's a longer, better quality version: Extended Act on Instinct Remix. (from Kane's Wrath)
    • One of the good things to come out of C&C Renegade: Act on Instinct remixed (again)
  • I'm a mechanical. I'm a mechanical. I'm a mechanical man.
  • No! No! No! No Mercy. Mercy Is For the Weak!
    • Some of the verses are rather Narmtastic, mixing a lot of villainous tropes we've learned to love and hate, which only adds to the Campy appeal that is C&C.

Just in preparation... With the aid of my secret weapon! No longer will the world be dominated... by the legacy of these fools!

• • • These appear to be voice clips from Bill and Teds Bogus Journey, of all places. Why? Who knows? Who cares?
  • And of course, Surf No Mercy is catchy as hell.
  • This troper has always been partial to the soundtrack version of In Trouble. 'Perhaps you need another shot' indeed.
    • "LET ME CLEAR MY THROAT!"
    • Growing up with the N64 version, the part used with the airstrike in that one cutscene is especially badass.
  • The amazing thing about the first game's soundtrack is the sheer diversity of style. There's the expected (yet still badass) stuff like "Industrial", but the we get crazy bouncy songs like "Radio", or funky quasi-hip hop, or even eerie ambient songs. Then there's "Rain in the Night", and "Airstrike", which are just the sex.
  • Creeping Upon. Ominous and eerie, a hint of things to come...
    • What about Voice Rhythm?
  • Great Shot! ...return to base immediately.
• How come none has mentioned March to Doom? Awesomeness pure!
• While the music of Tiberian Sun and Firestorm music is...different from that of Tiberian Dawn it is still awesome.
  • Slave to the System A driving beat pumps you up to kick ass.
  • Lone Trooper A slow, mournful, slightly creepy tune that sums up the grim state of the Earth.
  • Stomp was actually first heard in TS but was also included in Renegade, the sounds of the Wolverine walker in the opening (Not to mention the rest of the song) makes me walk at the same pace as one
  • Pharotek. Egyptian-style, baby!
  • Valves. The first track you hear in the game (assuming you weren't playing as Nod scum), which like Act on Instinct before it set the tone for the next entry in the Tiberium sage - dark, futuristic, and apocalyptic.
  • Dusk Hour single handedly the creepiest song in the entirety of the Command and Conquer soundtrack (Red Alert included).
    • The only other song that can contest that is the aptly-named Gloom, at least in its first half of the song.
  • Nod crush is really popular as a nod theme, it also gained a remix for the Renegade mod Reborn
  • Link-Up, typically playing in the last mission for Tiberian Sun Firestorm (either side), this piece doubles as a Crowning Moment of Awesome, both for the atmosphere of the moment and for making a piece of music around the old modem dial-up noises that we're all familiar with.
    • Because Dystopian Sci-Fi Is Techno.
  • And of course, Frank's favorite track from the game, Mad Rap, is such with good reason.
  • It's bizarre that Mutants hasn't been mentioned, given that the intermittent nightmarish chord progression (beginning at about 0:10) has haunted me for years.
    • Want to be creeped out for the rest of your life? Ion Storm and Dusk Hour (the latter getting technoish by the end) will claim your soul.
  • Wait, Killing Machine hasn't been mentioned?!
  • What about Infrared? A drum and bass-esque song that goes really well with stealth operations.
• Destructible Times, the end credits theme for the Brotherhood of Nod campaign in the original game.
• How about some love for C&C3 Kane's Wrath? Mechanical Minds, anyone?
• C&C3's "Heavy Handed" is disturbingly creepy in a good way, but the most epic and ferociously brutal of all the tracks in the game is "Radiation Alert"
  • Black Dawn lets all people playing it know desperate the world is struggling to survive
  • Tiberian Influx
  • Hell, all of the C&C3 stuff is pretty good. Might not be Frank, but it's still good stuff. There's a great sense of urgency and panic in the combat themes (Deadly Force, Renegade Attack, Apocalypse) that suits the sudden arrival of the seemingly unstoppable Scrin, GDI's all-out assaults, or NOD's multi-pronged Mind Screw-based offensives, and an apocalyptic ambience in pieces like Gathering Intel.
• Fight, Win, Prevail Short, yet chilling...
• If there is one redeeming feature of the seemingly Ruined FOREVER C&C4, it has to be this: To The Death.
  • Or Prophet's Ascension played in the final cutscene of the game. The whole soundtrack reflects the games relation to the previous incarnations of the Tiberum series: has nothing to do with it. Doesn't mean it's bad though.
• The Fan Remake of Renegade (Renegade X) is worth mentioning too. Not only does it bring in remakes of old favorites (Act On Instinct, No Mercy, and of course, Stomp, among others), it also has its own unique, and rather awesome, tunes, such as Valiant and Blinded.

Red Alert Series

• Hell March from Command & Conquer: Red Alert. The entire Soviet Red Army marching over the German border to crush the Allies into dust underneath massive tanks? BRING IT ON!
  • Hell March 2 from the sequel: Ditto America.
  • I will see your Hell March, and your Hell March 2, and raise you Hell March LIVE. Pure awesome.
  • Good grief. They did Hell March 3, and remixed Hell Marches 1 and 2.
    • Hellmarch 3 Orchestral and Performed live at Video Game Live!
• Destroy. If it weren't for Hell March 2...or Grinder, It would definitely be Red Alert 2's defining Epic Riff.
• A snappy Soviet parade march and the credits music from Red Alert 3
• Also from Red Alert 3, this troper finds the Allies combat music (Shock and Awe) and the music it segues into when your winning the fight (How the West Was Won) to be particuarly awesome, as well as one of the few times dynamic combat music has sounded good.
  • Don't forget the other Allies combat theme.
  • Also don't forget their Uprising combat theme, which goes completely over the top into awesome territory.
  • When it comes to summing up the Allies, though, the slow, solemn Victory Theme outshines them all.
• Allied combat theme is garbage next to the crunchy, violent, brutally epic Soviet combat theme!
• Since the Empire of the Rising Sun is so un-represented, I give you For The Emperor!
  • In Uprising, Yuriko gets her own Theme music.
  • And of course there are new themes for the Allies, the Soviets and the Empire.
  • There's another example of this in Red Alert 3 during the Rising Sun campaign. That example is Enter the Shogun Executioner
  • This song, which wasn't on the OST (and according to one of the comments, is called "Mecha Storm"), is this troper's personal favorite.
    • This is the final section of "Mecha Storm" (skip to about 2:30), which is on the OST for your listening pleasure.
    • It is supposedly the "epic" song, playing when someone reaches threat level 3. The Soviets have their own version too: Battleground of the Bear
• Oh no, this list isn't complete until you've heard the track on this trailer. It features George Takei singing All Your Base. Allow me to repeat this with excessive formatting for emphasis: It features GEORGE TAKEI singing ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US.
• The menu themes from Red Alert 2 and Yuri's revenge: Grinder and Brain Freeze respectively.
  • Actually, Drok is the menu theme for Yuri's Revenge.
• The loading theme in Red Alert 2, Jank, is an excellent song. However, it only appears in the loading screen and can't be played otherwise. The only way to hear the whole thing in-game is if your processor is slower than molasses that Carville'll be dipped in.
  • Of course you could explore the CD and extract it or listen to it on Frank's site.
  • Grinder has an interesting callback - one of the voice samples comes from a cutscene in Red Alert (the one where Einstein is chrono'd away seconds before his execution). This troper will award a Made of Win to anyone who can provide a translation for that sample.
  • In Deep, which was the song that a was played when installing both RA2 and YR.f
  • And don't forget Red Alert 3's Grinder 2. Just pure awesome. Heck, you could practically see the Apocalypse Tanks, Tesla Troopers and Kirov Airships getting ready to pound the utter crap out of something when you listen to this.
• Traction, the sound in the first 10 seconds gain an instant like from this troper
• both Floating and Fogger (along with Traction) go great to building a base
• The Search, one comment remarks that its like being lost in a forest during winter
• "Radio 2" just makes you want to get up and dance. Not the best thing in the world when you're trying to not be blown to pieces by the Soviet war machine, but a kick-ass tune either way. The random chanting monks in the background don't hurt, either.
  • Remixed for the Counterstrike expansion, sprinkled throughout with voice clips from the actual game.
• Many songs from Counterstrike/Retaliation easily qualify as "awesome". Most of them are remixes of the songs from previous C&C titles, namely:
  • Crush
  • No Mercy
  • And of course Hell March
• Brain Freeze at first was Nightmare Fuel for this troper.
• The "Epic" themes: rarely-heard parts of the soundtrack played on specific maps, when you're utterly SLAUGHTERING the opponent, or when you've just unleashed catastrophe via superweapons: Soviet Empire and Allied.
• How did this list get this far without mention of both the Face the Enemy's? They rival Hell march in both diversity and awesomeness.
• The entire Red Alert 1 soundtrack is made of epic win, and this troper generally considers it to be the best music Frank Klepaki ever made.
• Apocalypse Rising (A mod for Renegade that brings RA 2 and YR to it) Has a pretty awesome theme that combines Hell March 2 (at the pace of the original HM) with Destroy,

Generals Series

• While very, very different from the usual C&C offerings, Generals is full of musical badassery. If you can listen to the GLA Anthem without an immediate urge to start blowing shit up, there is something very wrong with you.
  • Generals, while it didn't feel like a C&C game, did come up with music that fit the factions perfectly. This Chinese battle theme conjures up images of rank after rank of marching infantry, while this ambient music for the USA captures the feel of heroic resignation accompanying American troop deployments... and was actually heard at the Beijing Olympics, which is unintentionally hilarious.
• The music of official Trailer of the Zero Hour expansion, after all these years you can still feel the emotion!
• I believe Commanche Down is worthy of some merit!
• Additionally, the USA's main battle theme and it's remix.
• Something of an odd-one-out, the ninth Chinese track is downright spooky, and a complete case of Soundtrack Dissonance compared to the rest of the music. It's like it came from an entirely different game.

Dune series

• Before Command and Conquer, there was Dune II, which had context-sensitive midi music that matched the flow of the game. The battle music in particular is very well suited to get the adrenaline flowing. Klepacki reused many of the same melodies in Dune 2000, giving us some epic tracks such as Fight for power and Harkonnen battle.
  • Here are complete soundtracks.
• Every single track in Dune Emperor. The Atreides tracks have this valiant hero feel while still being badass, and have been made by Frank Klepaki, who made 90% of all the command and Conquer music. The Ordos music is creepy and mysterious, and was made by Jarrid Mendelson who made about a third of the tiberian sun music, while The Harkonnen music goes towards a guitar-heavy rock sound that is surprisingly remiscient of the harkonnen music in the 1984 Dune movie. The Harkonnen music was done by David Arkenstone.

Cross Series remix

• Ladies and gentlemen, witness the awesomeness that is C&C music mixed with Half Life 2 music: Half Life: Last Legs (Command and Conquer remix).
• Our dear Mr. Klepacki also worked on Universe at War and left three presents for us Command and Conquer vets:
  • Act on Instinct --> Act on Invasion
  • Mechanical Man --> Mechanical Brain
  • Big Foot --> Bass Case
• Regarding that last one, Frank still couldn't resist from reusing it once more on one of his solo albums. The result is the incredibly epic Machines Collide.

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