songs that everyone knows or should know! specifically of the scene variety.

i’ll go first. two i think are pretty famous:

Unreal Superhero 3

- as far as classic DOS keygens this one is iconic, probably since it was the keygen for Sony Vegas, which everyone pirated :P

Artificial Intelligence Bomb

- pretty famous NES song, mostly thanks to YTPMV vids and the like.

idk if this really fits in but i think everyones heard at least some rendition of rainbow tylenol

triptunes (lunar). kind of bloop (VA). super rite of spring (shnab). rise of the obsidian interstellar (disasterpeace). exit plan (fearofdark). everything j arthur has written. you will watch me die (exciting excellent). resolution (zabutom). these are all albums but all beautiful testaments to what one can do in chipped tune

Oh nice, I'll give my two cents:

Rolling Down The Street In My Katamari

- With 8.5M views its safe to say plenty of people have stumbled upon it. (specially if we count the ytpmv's that came from this too)

eek!

- I really didn't want to mention this one lol. But yeah its a "classic"

https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=66597
göte går på tivoli is classic i think

AI Bomb and The Penis (eek) are def classics.
a lot of dubmood too tbh - Toffelskater comes to mind.
mrgamer höstlov

probably some others that are most viewed on reclusivelemmings youtube channel lol

Zizibum, by X-Ray

Oh and first for Acidjazzed Evening haha

Be me: has made chiptune for a year. Has only heard/listened to unreeal superhero (and F.O.D's stuff like last month)

Is it normal for someone to be active in the scene without having listened to the classics???

(edit) apparently I'm also familiar with göte går på tivoli despite not knowing its name until now

avast your ass

if we're talking about what we mean by chiptune (i.e. not any music that merely uses old soundchips) then FearofDark's Rolling Down The Street In My Katamari

should count IMO

Otherwise surely that one GB Tetris theme?

Oh man u don't wanna get me started on this topic

Rainy Summer Days by Radix
Hot Buttered by Reed N Tempest
Water Level from Last Ninja 3 by Reyn Ouwehand
Tits That Fits by Andromeda
You Can Do It, But Not Like We Do It by Dubmood N Zabutom
Open Funk Sores by GOTO80
and Dances by Peer for something different...

I've never even heard of AI Bomb before. I'm also still trying to acquaint myself with older chiptune and classic tracker modules, so thanks retrokid for this thread!

Super strong agree on J Arthur Keenes Band though!!!!!

hopeless romantic, rolling down the street in my katamari and coffee zone by fod
super hexagon ost by chipzel
everlasting saturday by TQ-Jam
garten by ipi
empty by 4-mat
love is insecurable by chibi-tech

Silver Surfer - Level 1 (Tim Follin)
Gimmick! - Strange Memories of Death (Masashi Kageyama & Naohisa Morota)
Castlevania III (VRC6) - Aquarius (Konami Kukeiha Club)
FX4 - [Track 02: Incident Zero] (Virt)
(honestly Virt is a criminally underrated composer just in general)

Fearofdark's Motorway is an incredible experience all around, everyone should listen to that album at least once.

Zalza - 2204355.swf

lftkryo - The Hardware Chiptune Project

Cloudcones - Nagz (feat. Zabutom)

Zeta Force - Zabutom

if i think of more later i will add more.

I may not be super familiar with the non-game ost classics, but putting in aquarius instead of other castlevania songs seems like an unforgiveable sin to me.

I'd argue for:

beginning (VRC6)
vampire killer (rondo of blood)
bloodlines (dracula's kiss/ dracula x)
awake (GBA)

The Depreciation Guild - Nautilus

Goto80 - Contech

love cloudcones man
also didn’t see anyone mention the ducktales moon theme, it’s in a bunch of memes and also the show apparently

oh yeah and like, super mario
super duper goddamn mario for the nintendo

Almost every module from keygenmusic.net (RIP)

someone has backed up all modules in case you missed them:
https://github.com/winicu/keygenmusic

Maybe FearofDark's The Coffee Zone

doesn't count as a classic. But it SHOULD be a classic. We don't have enough VRC7 magic in this world, especially not with keyboards as sexy as THOSE. Give it a listen!

@flaminglog re: virt is underrated

hardly! he made the soundtrack for shovel knight, for goodness sakes!

bumping here for the sake of a bump - i think The Intro Stage

counts, at least within the niche of Mega Man chiptunes. this one completely encapsulates that Mega Man feel while still being something new and fresh.

How about Space Debris by Captain, and of course Inspiration by Purple Motion

Edit: and Sanxion by Rob Hubbard

Edit edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bM2b5cfeZo&rco=1

possibly cocktail hour
i think this is more of a classic with chiptuners rather than being a chiptune "classic" altogether but i think it counts enough

but defintely atleast one of jeroen tel's songs

oh and... possibly what a mario world's ost? (i think this fits enough)
the amount of covers ive seen of it - alongside hearing it in some videos a decent number of times - sorta makes it a "classic" ig (notably the overworld and athletic tunes)

oh man, how could we forget Unreal 2 - Second Reality

by Purple Motion? actually, i’d also just argue anything on this list

(posting it for reference, too!)

Wiklund - The digital force and Billy boogie,
early Anamanaguchi, especially from Endless Fantasy,
the Super Hexagon soundtrack by Chipzel.

If everyone knows them, what value is there in listing them? Or do you mean, 'quintessential tunes that everyone should at least hear once'?

In which case mist slug zan zan zawa veia

Newer/younger people might not know about them classics.

Also I'm struggling to think of any ones that EVERYONE would know after the ones mentioned in the first 4 posts... I'm really interested in seeing if someone brings up another widely recognized chip tune...
I mean there are a lot of songs I hear in videos and memes that are from genesis/snes games like 'Big Apple, 3 A.M' for example, but I'm wondering if I'll see another song posted that's not originally from a video game that I would be confident that someone not into chiptune might know. So I think listing them all here has value.
It could be cool to also list "must listens" too

I don't know about the rest of the world, but My Skateboard Will Go On

by Anamanaguchi is definitely a classic chiptune in Brazil thanks to YTPMVs

idk if this counts as chiptune strictly but Guitar Slinger by Jogeir Liljedahl, and Noisy Pillars (tune 1) by Jeroen Tel (the second is arguable but i heard it in so many cracktros it's a classic to me)

not really sure what does or doesn't count as classic, but here are some of my favorites:
eargasm, by maktone:
https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=40675
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObkKiAAnUP0

Cobra Arts, by am-fm
https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=154940
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L8DrJm05es

Travelling Around by sole
https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=156831
(too obscure for youtube, rip)

I found whole soundtracks!

Jesper Kyd - The Adventures of Batman & Robin

Sega Genesis! all YM2612. no SN76489! and afaik no samples. released 1995. may be the reason I'm here? still never heard anything quite like it. all this sound on six channels of sgen fm! so much character. the whole sound track rules; the Mad Hatter levels were unreal. at the time I just knew it pulled off things even the heavy metal radio stations never got near. manually recorded this one to warm cassette tape direct from the av jacks and a headphone adapter! less than a year later the PlayStation came out; the world went with a solid yet very different future

John Baker - ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron

also Sega Genesis! 1993. may be all YM2612 too? the horns rule. the bass lines are excellent. the organs! the samples have so much character. whole soundtrack rules. whole game rules! the first TJ&E gets more attention but the music really took off on this second one and it has so much energy

What about online_pizza.mod
https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=128899

my main "source" for chiptunes is still vgmrips.net... (stuff from early/middle 80's mostly) (and trying to convert .vgm files to furnace from scripts was a quite interesting process anyway - https://download.file-hunter.com/Music/Furnace%20Tracker/ for example)
early .mod files as found from modarchive.org might be great too

aryx.s3m

I would like to nominate the early entries in krelez's "random chiptune mix" series

. Not sure how other people relate to them but they were some of my first exposure to chiptune.

Pretty much anything David Wise wrote for the beloved SNES but especially...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qfID-wTTk0

battletoads and double dragon blows every other distorted guitar on the SNES out of the water

@Blast_Brothers; you could do a whole lot worse, those mixes have a nice wide variety, old stuff that was classic then and is now, stuff that maybe was "classic" then and seems less now, and some new stuff for then that maybe is "classic" now

Nectarine

demoscene radio is a good place to find classic tracks.

Sunny Day by pandavova
Moe Moe Kyunstep by chibitech

Fearofdark's Penguins of the Apocalypse

Plastic Pop by Tomas Danko

and Hymn to Aurora by Horace Wimp

are two archetypical songs for SID and Amiga respectively

https://bravewave.net/interviews/takashi-tateishi/

a few come to mind!

Super Reflex

Tres Frais

Turtle Dance 2

seconding:
Zeta Force

(album)
Motorway

(album)
all of early anamanaguchi

In terms of on the scene stuff, Bomb Boy's "Back Alley Clash" feels like the figurehead track of Soundshock FM 2.
Shout-out too, to Virt's Bubble Bath Aftermath - from the same album - which is criminally slept on and deserves to be iconic.

A lot of other examples I might give like Triptunes and Motorway have already been brought up. Shnabubula though is absolutely a name that belongs here too, if they haven't already been named (ah I see Dami did!). Cybersoccer 2099 and Game Genie are albums that come to mind as insane prog adventures (if you're by chance reading Tex, I would definitely recommend them to you - feel like you'd really enjoy both).
No way I can leave out Simon Stålenhag - The Lacustrine Beat Machine, or Cascade Cave Zone, also by Bomb Boy (aghh, or Tenfours CAVE BOUNCER - Soundshock 3 is so full of talent that it's difficult trying to be concise).

@treasurehead: Oh yeah, I remember Turtle Dance 2. Joshua Morse was the first person on the scene I heard use FM synths. I listened to Funk Bump

in 2008 and was like "whaaaat, it's the ToeJam & Earl bass!! I want to play with it too!!" lol

@OminPigeonMaster: Yeah, Back Alley Clash is insanely good!! Also, I like it that virt's song was followed by Shnabubula's on that album, since both are artists I've always looked up to since my earlier years online. Sho Nuff

from Game Genie has the classic wildchip definition for me: NES pulses + SNES samples + FM bass. And I really like Ripple Boogie

by Simon Stålenhag from the first Soundshock FM album. The lead design is so massive.