C418 (left) and Lena Raine (right) have been two of the main contributors to the music of Minecraft.

The music of the 2009 video game Minecraft, developed by Mojang Studios, primarily consists of two soundtrack albums by German musician Daniel Rosenfeld, better known as C418. American composer Lena Raine has also contributed music for three major updates to the game since 2020, alongside Aaron Cherof who handled the latest version in 2023. Music included in downloadable content (DLC) for legacy console versions of the game was handled by British musician Gareth Coker.

Rosenfeld was the sole contributor of music in the Java Edition of the game until 2020. He has released two albums containing his work for the game, with Minecraft – Volume Alpha in 2011 and its follow-up double album Minecraft – Volume Beta in 2013, and three singles originally meant for release under a third soundtrack album were each released throughout 2018. His works have been lauded by music critics and the video game community – both released albums have received several pressings to vinyl and have held prominent positions on the Billboard Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart, with the former being certified gold by the RIAA in the United States for selling 500,000 units.

Alongside the launch of various DLC for legacy console editions of Minecraft in 2016, Coker issued three soundtrack albums, producing an additional three in the following four years. In 2020, Raine composed the soundtrack for the "Nether Update", and has since worked on the music for two more updates alongside Kumi Tanioka and Samuel Åberg. In 2023, Cherof contributed five new songs to the game's "Trails & Tales" update. Citing licensing issues with Microsoft, a completed third album by Rosenfeld, under the working title Minecraft – Volume Final, which was first teased in 2015 and confirmed in 2017, has still not been released as of 2024. All contributions to the game's soundtrack by artists other than Rosenfeld are owned by and have been released under Microsoft's own label.

Background and artistry

C418

German musician Daniel Rosenfeld had been making music under the moniker C418 since he was 15 years old, and was influenced by the electronic work of Aphex Twin.^[1] From 2007, he became active on online indie game community TIGSource where he met Markus Persson, who was still in the early stages of developing Minecraft.^[2] Rosenfeld was given creative freedom to create a soundtrack for the tech demo,^[3] and opted to make ambient music reminiscent of the works of Brian Eno and Vangelis. He was interested in "games with music that takes you completely by surprise," citing Dwarf Fortress as inspiration. Therefore, Rosenfeld wanted to "make something organic and partly electronic, partly acoustic" for Minecraft.^[1] Further, he intended to make the music as unintrusive to the player as possible, as if "they’d only notice it when something interesting happens in the game."^[4] However, the soundtrack's minimalistic style was also due to technical constraints, as he admitted the game "has a terrible sound engine."^[4]

Persson chose to commission the music from Rosenfeld, meaning the artist still retains ownership of all the music he made for Minecraft.^[1] Both the soundtrack albums also contain music not intended for the game, "extending the album into a more cohesive piece that can be played on its own."^[1]

Lena Raine

In 2020, American composer Lena Raine was contacted by Mojang Studios to compose music for the "Nether Update" in Minecraft.^[5] She had previously handled the soundtrack for video game Celeste (2018), and had just released her debut studio album Oneknowing (2019).^[6] In composing music for Minecraft, she felt "immense pressure" to deliver due to the "very highly acclaimed score" already in the game.^[7] After submitting a demo, her goal with the "Nether Update" soundtrack was to see how far she "could push the sound of the piano until it resembled other things entirely."^[8] With her third contributions to the game in 2022, Raine wrote she wanted to "focus the musical style around more of a blend between synths and live instrumentation," while continuing to use "strings, piano, and woodwinds in places."^[9]

Albums

Minecraft – Volume Alpha

The first installment of the game's soundtrack, Minecraft – Volume Alpha, was released digitally on 4 March 2011 independently by Rosenfeld.^[10][11] In June 2015, the record received its first pressing to vinyl and CD through American record label Ghostly.^[12] In 2022, the album was nominated for Top Dance/Electronic Album at the Billboard Music Awards.^[13]

The album was met with positive reviews, with Andy Kellman from AllMusic praising its replay value, stating that "none of the recurring elements is pronounced or simple enough to become fatiguing with repeated play".^[14] In 2011, video game blog Kotaku called it one of the best video game soundtracks of that year.^[15] "Sweden", one of the songs in the album, is one of the most-streamed songs from a video game on Spotify, with over 141 million streams.^[16][17]

Minecraft – Volume Beta

On 9 November 2013, Rosenfeld released Minecraft – Volume Beta as his fifth studio album and the game's second soundtrack album.^[18] It includes music sonically described as having a darker tone than Volume Alpha, added into the game in various updates following his first record. It also contains audio from 10 of the 13 collectable music discs within the game.^[19] In 2013 and 2023, the album appeared on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums chart, peaking at number 14 both times.^[20][21] It received its first pressing to vinyl and CD through Ghostly in 2020.^[22]

Minecraft: Nether Update

On 10 April 2020, it was announced Lena Raine had composed music for the game's "Nether Update".^[6] On the sequencing of her three new soundtrack songs, Raine claimed she "wanted each piece to feel like a progression of emotions, or a journey from place to place within this other world."^[8] The extended play (EP) also contains a new in-game music disc, "Pigstep", which has two different mixes on the soundtrack version, released 14 June 2020.^[24] Unlike Rosenfeld's independently released albums, Raine's work is owned by and published through Microsoft Studios Music.

Minecraft: Caves & Cliffs

On 20 October 2021, the fourth official release of the Minecraft soundtrack was released, with 10 new tracks coinciding with the game's "Caves & Cliffs" update. Seven of them were composed by Raine, including "Otherside", a new in-game music disc, and three were handled by Japanese composer Kumi Tanioka, known for her work in the Final Fantasy series.^[25][26]

Minecraft: The Wild Update

The fifth installment of the game's soundtrack, including songs introduced in "The Wild Update", was released on 20 April 2022. It contains three new tracks by Raine, and a new music disc, "Five", composed by Mojang audio director Samuel Åberg.^[8]

Minecraft: Trails & Tales

On 26 April 2023, Mojang announced American composer Aaron Cherof had contributed five new tracks to the game, to be introduced in the "Trails & Tales" update.

Unreleased third C418 album

Daniel Rosenfeld first revealed the development of his third original soundtrack album for Minecraft in a 2015 interview with Fact Magazine, commenting, "I'll still work on Minecraft, so there'll probably be another album. In fact, it’s gonna be more ambient than the others, just as an experiment."^[27] He also noted listeners' own applications of his previous works, remarking, "I’m interested in seeing how people use music as a sleep aid, so I think on the next album I might put a bonus track on there that’s just 15 minutes of complete ambience and see what people think."^[27] Rosenfeld again expressed interest in composing an ambient bonus track for his third album in a tweet posted in December of that year.^[28]

In a 2017 tweet, the musician confirmed the album's existence and said that it was set for future release, but that work on it at that point was "still far from done". Rosenfeld additionally stated that the record would be longer than the previous two albums combined, which in total clocks in at over 3 hours and 18 minutes.^[29] Rosenfeld additionally confirmed on Twitter that the third album will not be called "Minecraft - Volume Gamma", deviating from the Greek Alphabet naming convention used in the previous two Minecraft albums he composed.^[30]

Of the work Rosenfeld did on the third volume, he commented, "When I started making a third minecraft album, I didn't expect it to have this much work involved. I think I'm seeing the end of the tunnel?"^[31] On 8 January 2021, Rosenfeld was asked in an interview with Anthony Fantano whether or not the third volume of the soundtrack was still in production. Rosenfeld responded, saying, "I have something—I consider it finished—but things have become complicated, especially as Minecraft is now a big property, so I don't know."^[32]

Further contributions

Singles

On 16 July 2018, three new songs from C418 were added to the game for "Update Aquatic".^[33] It marked the first new contributions from Rosenfeld to Minecraft since Minecraft - Volume Beta in 2013. The three tracks were released digitally from August – "Dragon Fish" on 9 August, "Shuniji" on 10 November, and "Axolotl" on 12 December 2018.

DLC soundtrack

While Rosenfeld once composed holiday themed music in downloadable content (DLC) for console editions of the game in 2014, British composer Gareth Coker has been responsible for the bulk of music for DLC in the Legacy Console Editions.^[34][35]

On 21 December 2016, Coker released the albums Battle & Tumble, Chinese Mythology and Greek Mythology to complement three downloadable packs in the Legacy Console Editions.^[36] Two more records of similar themes, Norse Mythology and Egyptian Mythology, were released in December 2017 and May 2018 respectively.^[37] Coker's final album for DLC was for the Glide Mini Game, releasing on 22 December 2020. Unlike previous work by Rosenfeld, all of Coker's albums for Minecraft were released under Microsoft's own label.^[38]

Reception

The soundtrack's minimalistic and melancholic composition has been praised by critics.^[39] Keith Stuart of The Guardian noted that Rosenfeld's "wilting, minimalist tracks, slow-paced and slightly melancholy, recall the ambient works of Satie and Eno", calling it the game's "perfect accompaniment."^[4] In 2018, Jamie Hornsey of student newspaper The Boar described the soundtrack's composition as "nostalgia in its purest form," adding: "By encouraging players to associate pieces of music with certain actions, the game becomes capable of conjuring incredibly vivid images in the player’s mind."^[40]

Much of the soundtrack's retrospective praise has been directed at Volume Alpha, where Evan Tridone of The Review called the album "arguably the best ambient album to be released this decade."^[41] Writing for Kotaku, Luke Plunkett praised it as a "great album" and as "tranquil as a good night's sleep."^[42]

In 2022, the Minecraft soundtrack placed at number 54 on Australian radio station ABC Classic's top 100 countdown, as voted by listeners.^[43]

Charts