"I didn't pretend that I was good at writing music, so I wrote terrible music, intentionally. As time went on, the terrible subsided, and I started getting good."
Daniel Rosenfeld
(born May 9, 1989), better known as C418 (pronounced "C-four-eighteen", not "C-four-one-eight") is a German electronic musician and sound engineer best known for composing the soundtrack to Minecraft. He and Notch would later try collaborating again with a game called 0x10c that eventually got scrapped.
He has released a lot of independent work which can be listened to on his Bandcamp page.
His unique style blends elements of ambient, house, trance, and IDM.
Discography
- bps (Dec 2007)
- The whatever directors cut (January 2008)
- Mixes (May 2008)
- sine (September 2008)
- zweitonegoismus (December 2008)
- Bushes and Marshmallows (August 2009)
- A Cobblers Tee Thug (January 2010)
- circle (March 2010)
- life changing moments seem minor in pictures (August 2010)
- little things (January 2011)
- Minecraft – Volume Alpha (March 2011) (the Minecraft soundtrack, with some bonus material)
- I forgot something, didn’t I? (July 2011)
- 72 Minutes Of Fame (July 2011)
- Seven Years of Server Data (November 2011)
- Catacomb Snatch Original Soundtrack (March 2012)
- one (December 2012) (the soundtrack to the Mojang documentary, with some bonus material)
- Minecraft - Volume Beta (November 2013) (the second Minecraft soundtrack with songs that are to be added to the game, also includes the rest of the music discs)
- 148 (December 2015)
- 2 years of failure (September 2016)
- Dief (March 2017)
- Excursions (September 2018)
- Cookie Clicker (September 2021)
Tropes featured in C418's music include:
- all lowercase letters: The vast majority of his song and album titles are not capitalized- the main exceptions are the two official Minecraft soundtracks, Volume Alpha and Volume Beta.
- The Anti-Nihilist: C418 seems to be very doubtful about his own capabilities as a music artist, as shown in plenty of his songs. This includes "I Jate My Hob" (I Hate My Job) from LCMSMiP (the entire album is about his shift into becoming a music artist, really), "Alive" from 72 MoF, which is about him questioning his old job; and "Blank Cubicle" from Dief, which is about him questioning the paths he could've taken in life and the consequences of such. He's also prone to Self-Deprecation as he thinks that his music is bad, though his fans assure him otherwise. Despite this, the music he makes in itself is somehow cheerful, showing that he doesn't let this negativity overcome him.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Bushes and Marshmallows includes a track of silence called "Turn". The next song, "Edward", begins with a vocal singing, "It is done. The album's done. Close your player, the album's done. ("Edward" is then followed by the song "What".)
- Cloudcuckoolander: C418 is an odd person, which is reflected in his music and his digital footprint. Even the ambient Minecraft music he's known for poses some semblance of strangeness to it, even if he is trying to fit into the elegant freeform environment the game provides with his music.
- Concept Album: According to the musician, Excursions is supposed to feel like a journey through the messy parts of New York City.
- Darker and Edgier: Minecraft - Volume Beta is C418's darkest album. However, it's his only darker album, as none of his other albums match its sense of dread by comparison. Even then, it's still rather lighthearted, because Daniel is too much of an idealist.
- Drone of Dread: Minecraft - Volume Beta includes a few pieces written as background music exclusive to the Nether, such as "Concrete Halls" and "Warmth", which are heavy with low, foreboding tones evoking the dangerous, yet lonely nature of the dimension.
- Everything Is an Instrument
- He uses what sounds like pots and pans in a kitchen sink in "water" from Seven Years of Server Data.
- Rhythmic mechanical keyboard clacking intended to represent Minecraft's programmers hard at work form part of the percussion backing in "surface pension" from one.
- I Am the Band: C418 is Daniel Rosenfeld, playing keyboards and synthesizers with himself.
- Instrumentals: His work predominantly lacks vocals of any kind. Notable exceptions include the various remixes of "Tsuki no Koibumi" (vocals by Laura Shigihara), and a handful of songs on 148.
- Lonely Piano Piece: "Sweden" is based on the same minimalist, fading, primarily-piano principle as "Minecraft", the song C418 built Volume Alpha around, and subsequently the eponymous game's musical character.
- Nice Guy: In spite of Dan's open political beliefs and how devoted he is to them, he is ultimately someone who sees the positives in life and likes to make his music for the sake of it. He's also rather humble about it (well, self-deprecating, anyway), as he doesn't consider his music to be of any real quality and more the result of messing around with a studio, and will only decide to release things that he considers 'ready enough' rather than rushing his work.
- Non-Appearing Title: "Tsuki no Koibumi", "Semantic Sanitation", "Septic Shock", "Seismic Stratigraphy", "Ample Time", "Habitual Crush", "Round Up to the Inevitable End", "841", and "Blank Cubicle" are all songs with vocals, but their titles never appear in any of those songs in question, or come close to doing so. In terms of "Tsuki no Koibumi", though it's in a foreign language, the phrase is never heard, and in terms of "841", the entire song is a repeat of the reverse number (148) like the title of the album it's from, so its title never appears either.
- The Not-Remix: "Vierton"note , "Aria Economy"note , "Biome Party"note and "Beta"note from 148 are remixes of pre-existing Minecraft songs. The arrangement and general sequencing isn't altered that significantly from their original versions, however, mostly being comprised of the original songs with an electronic beat layered on top and the original song audio slowed down, though "Vierton" is mostly a rearranging due to starting from the second half.
- Numbered Sequels: "Moog City" and "Beginning" on Volume Alpha are remade on Volume Beta and use the same titles with a "2" at the end.
- One-Word Title: Many of his song titles are singular words, too many to list specific ones.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis: He's most well known for the ambient soundtrack to Minecraft. Because of this, he deliberately avoided producing ambient music on several subsequent albums, aiming more for house and electronica.
- Secondary Character Title: In the context of his friends being the secondary characters.
- "Danny" on Minecraft - Volume Alpha refers to Danny Baranowsky, someone who also releases music on Bandcamp like Daniel does.
- "Taswell" on Minecraft - Volume Beta refers to Ryan Davis from Giant Bomb, a game review site.
- Self-Backing Vocalist: When there are vocals in the songs, the singers will be the ones backing themselves, whether it's him or Laura Shigihara.
- Self-Deprecation:
- Common on his former blog, and to a lesser extent on his website."Here you'll find some articles about who I am and why I'm such a dork"
- "Habitual Crush" from 148 is mostly the protagonist lamenting how they obviously don't deserve affection despite having lied and screwed up.
- Common on his former blog, and to a lesser extent on his website.
- Species Title: "Cat" and "Dog" on Volume Alpha alongside "Dragon Fish" and "Axolotl" from the Aquatic Update are titled based on an animal species.
- Stage Whisper: Daniel whispering '4, 1, 8, 2' in the left speaker can be heard very slightly before 'Round Up to the Inevitable End' enters its first status of percussive crescendo.
- Take That, Audience!: "Friend" from 148 is an angry piece that repeatedly tells someone they aren't the protagonist's friend and to go away. According to Rosenfeld, the song was directed at all of the people who follow him on Twitter just to bash him.“Friend” is a secret message to all the Twitter followers who hate me but still insist on following me. Why? Leave me alone. You are not my friend.
- Variable Mix: Dief was written to accompany Teddy Dief's" 2017 Game Developers Conference presentation "Still Grooving: Game Dev Life Set to Live Music". Rosenfeld deliberately made sure every song on the album had the same tempo so that he could quickly switch tracks as the presentation progressed.
- Word Salad Title
- The album a cobblers tee thug was made in five days "for shits and giggles" (to quote Rosenfeld) as a collaboration with his friend sohnemann.
- "I glove thy flob" from one, in addition to being nonindicative, is a cover of Pachelbel's "Canon in D" done in a mix of Minecraft note blocks, piano, and some synthesized sounds.
- Xtreme Kool Letterz: The title for "Kompass" on 148, a collaboration with Disasterpeace, is the word 'compass' with a k instead of a c.
