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Soundtrack Cover Character Jam - TV Tropes

️Sun Jan 19 2020

Definitely not the Cats musical you were expecting.

A common trend for Anime and Video Games that sell their soundtrack commercially. Have the characters of the work itself participating in a jam session, playing instruments, singing or listening to music on the cover.

Usually, the characters will be dressed and playing appropriate instruments to reflect the musical genre featured in the release. Can be considered a form of Go-Karting with Bowser if both heroes and villains alike are featured.

This can also include promotional artwork, like the ones used to advertise a live concert or represent an online music channel, as long as it follows the pattern of characters being musical (plus, said artwork tends to be reused for CD releases anyway). Those are frequently a case of No Export for You since the physical media market for music has been on a constant decline in the West for a long time already.

A lot of the linked artwork in this page can be found somewhere else on TV Tropes, usually in the Awesome Music subpages for those series. Works that actually focus on music (like Rhythm Games), however, are not counted here for obvious reasons.

Compare Five-Man Band Concert.

Examples

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Anime & Manga

The Blue Exorcist soundtracks feature the Okumura twins listening to music on their headphones.
The cover of the Bubblegum Crisis Complete Vocal Collection features the four Knight Sabers performing on musical instruments: Priss on vocals, Linna on guitar, Nene on keyboards, and Sylia on bass. In universe, however, Priss is the only character that is an actual musician.
Digimon has dabbled with this a few times.
- The cover for Digimon Adventure Song and Music Collection has the chosen children performing on various instruments: Taichi on guitar, Yamato on his usual harmonica, Sora on keyboard, Koushiro on violin, Mimi on tambourine, Jou on drums and Takeru on triangle.
- The covers for the Digimon Adventure 02 Best Partner Original Karaoke feature respectively Taichi, Daisuke and Yamato singing at the karaoke while the others react.
- The cover for Digimon Tamers: Uta to Ongaku Shuu Ver.1 has Takato playing guitar, Jianliang on bass, Ruki on drums, Guilmon on tambourine, Culumon con cymbals, Terriermon blowing in a whistle and Renamon playing the fife. The Best Tamers Original Karaoke series also has once again the characters playing at karaoke, with different settings on each cover (the first disc has Takato and Juri at a Japanese fair, the second has Jianliang and his family in a karaoke place and the third as Ruki and Ryo at the former's house).
- The cover for Digimon Savers: Original Soundtrack depicts Masaru as voice and guitar, Yoshino on bass, Tohma playing drums and Rentarou on keyboard.
One of the Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood soundtrack CD covers depicts Ed conducting an orchestra.
Haikyuu!! features the main characters listening to music with headphones for the first season soundtracks, the second season soundtracks have Kageyama listening to music for the first volume and Yamaguchi offering one of his earphones to Tsukishima to listen to his music, and finally the third season soundtrack features them play-acting as a band with random cleaning supplies in their classroom.
The Symphony of Haruhi Suzumiya (an event where the Tokyo Philarmonic played orchestal arrangements of multiple pieces from the series) has Nagato playing the violin on the cover of the CD version, while the cover for the DVD version shows Haruhi as an orchestra conductor.
The Laid-Back Camp film album cover features one of the dogs listening to music on headphones.
My Hero Academia 2nd Original Soundtrack has several of the male characters playing music on the cover. The characters' apparel and instrument design seems to be a homage to 60s teen idol bands, most specifically The Beatles.
The poster for the 2023 Naruto The Live concert, features the characters from both the main series and Boruto playing instruments.

Film

The poster for the 1978 Star Wars concert featured C-3P0 and R2-D2 equipped with One-Man Band instruments.

Video Games

7th Dragon Super Arrange Version album's front cover depicts the Lucier princess Momomeno playing the cello with a rare, serene smile on her face that is completely unlike the more malicious smiles she flashes when using Evil Voice Songs. At least, until she accidentally snaps the cello's strings in the back cover.
Ace Attorney has had albums for orchestra and jazz arrangements of its series' songs, both featuring the cast humorously playing in concerts. There's also this one for the fourth game in the series, starring Apollo and Klavier listening to music together.
Aka to Blue's soundtrack has a young Blue accompanying the game's composer, Tetsuro "WASi303" Sato, as he plays the guitar. See here◊.
The soundtrack for the first Arcana Heart game has Heart listening to music through her headphones while surrounded by chibi versions of the rest of the cast doing silly things on musical notes, seen here◊. The second game's soundtrack meanwhile consists of Heart sharing her headphones with Petra◊.
Averted with the original Banjo-Kazooie soundtracks despite both characters being named after two musical instruments, but played straight with the vinyl re-release of the first game's soundtrack by Fangamer, featuring caricatures of the main characters playing their instruments from the opening.
Bastion's soundtrack features the Kid wearing headphones.◊
Downplayed with the soundtrack for the BIT.TRIP game, Runner3, which has CommanderVideo approaching a boombox.
BlazBlue:
- Two albums depict Noel Vermillion listening to music through her headphones: the first one being the console soundtrack for Calamity Trigger, and the second one being the Song Impression vocal album.
- The first soundtrack for Continuum Shift has Noel and Tsubaki in Idol Singer outfits with microphones in hand.
- The "Blue Drama Rebel Two" Drama CD shows the NOL academy group forming a band; Noel sings vocals, Jin is on the guitar, Tsubaki plays the bass and Makoto is on drums, all the while Ragna looks on in horror.
The soundtrack for Bugsnax depicts a Strabby^note wearing headphones, as shown here.
Downplayed with Celeste; the official soundtrack shows the protagonist, Madeline, holding what appears to be a mixtape◊. The soundtrack for the B-Sides meanwhile has a similar one of Badeline holding a tape of her own◊.
- Outside of Celeste, there's the cover art for the track "Beyond the Heart (Broken Heart Mix)" from Spin Rhythm XD, depicting Madeline as a DJ behind a booth, complete with headphones and speakers.
Chantelise: A Tale of Two Sisters has the titular sisters listening to a phonograph.
Code of Princess's soundtrack showcases all the heroes and villains gathered at the local tavern, listening to a record player. See here◊.
Colorgrave Universe:
- The soundtrack for Prodigal shows Keaton singing on the album cover. This makes sense because there is a scene in the game where she actually does sing, and it's mentioned that she has performed at the inn before.
- The cover for the soundtrack of Curse Crackers: For Whom The Belle Toils has Belle playing an electric guitar. Again, this is justified because Belle mentions that she plays guitar, and there's even a boss battle where she has to do so.
For a game that's all about navigating a Roguelike dungeon to the beat, it would be obvious that the soundtracks for Crypt of the NecroDancer would have such covers:
Dicey Dungeons' soundtrack has three of the dice contestants forming a band. The Inventor plays the electric guitar, the Thief plays on a drumset with Lady Luck's face adorned on it and the Warrior plays on the keyboard.
The Digimon Story original soundtrack features the player character, Agumon, and Betamon all wearing headphones.
The soundtrack for Eastward depicts a collage of images featuring characters playing with instruments. The first one features a trio of Sonic Punk drones hovering above a record player, the second depicts Jasper playing the saxophone, the third shows Sam with a megaphone, and the last one consists of John playing the drums.
- Likewise, the soundtrack for EarthBorn depicts a bard playing the harp◊.
The Epic Battle Fantasy series, over multiple games:
The Fate/Grand Order orchestra albums' art showcases Mozart, befitting the most musically talented Servant in its cast. For the recorded album, he's playing the piano with Marie Antoinette, while the live album has him conduct alongside his rival Antonio Salieri.
While the original soundtrack for Fight'N Rage doesn't quite count, as it merely depicts the playable characters in action-filled poses (seen here), the Gold Edition does play it straight, depicting Gal^note with headphones on her, as seen here.
Fire Emblem: Awakening has Lucina wearing a pair of flowery headphones◊.
One soundtrack for the first Gal*Gun game has the four main female characters playing on different instruments. See here◊.
The Genshin Impact concert album, Melodies of an Endless Journey, features various characters preparing to perform as an orchestral ensemble.
Girls' Frontline had several of its characters in formal wear for its orchestra DVD artwork, and went the extra mile by making those outfits available in-game and cementing them as canon for the game itself.
Granblue Fantasy has released several soundtracks with this style of cover art.
- The Chiptune Remix album has Lyria and Vyrn jamming out to synthesizers.
- Sora no Kanade, the orchestra album, has members of the game's own in-universe orchestra ensemble performing on the cover.
- The Granblue Fantasy Versus Special Soundtrack has Katalina playing a guitar while Ferry and Metera take a break from playing.
- The actual Original Soundtrack for Versus features the first wave of DLC characters (yes, this even includes Beelzebub) unexpectedly collaborating together as a band in a recording studio.
- Likewise, the second volume of Versus's soundtrack features the second wave DLC characters perfoming in a band of their own.
The official soundtrack for Grapple Force Rena depicts Rena using her grapple gauntlets to spin vinyls on a DJ booth, as seen here.
Graze Counter's soundtrack depicts Uzuki wearing headphones on its cover◊.
Guacamelee!'s official soundtrack features the in-game mariachi band playing music.
Unsurprisingly for a heavy metal-inspired series, the original Guilty Gear soundtrack features Sol Badguy playing a guitar◊.
The Gunstar Heroes Sound Collection (which compiles the soundtracks from both the original Genesis game and its Game Boy Advance sequel) has the protagonists from Gunstar Super Heroes carrying music-themed weapons, with the bad guys jamming in the foreground, as seen here◊.
Heartbeat's soundtrack showcases some characters playing with instruments; Eve plays a guitar, Klein uses a microphone, Mott plays the triangle and Patch plays bass. See here.
The main lead of Helios Rising Heroes, Akira Otori, is listening to headphones on the soundtrack's cover.
One soundtrack for Honkai Impact 3rd has Kiana and Mei performing on stage, the former with a microphone and the latter with a guitar. See here.
Immortal Redneck's soundtrack has the titular Redneck sitting by a campfire, playing the banjo. It can be seen here.
I Was a Teenage Exocolonist's OST has Sol playing the photophonor^note on the cover.
The Jackbox Party Pack:
Khimera: Destroy All Monster Girls's soundtrack has the titular Khimera lying in bed with a pair of headphones on her, seen here.
- Likewise, the soundtrack for the sequel, Puzzle Island, has Khimera playing on the saxophone◊.
The King of Fighters:
The Kingdom Hearts concert albums feature Sora as the conductor of the orchestra.
Physical copies of the Kirby 25th anniversary orchestra concert comes with artwork of most of the prominent cast performing an orchestra, complete with formal attire.
The Knack II soundtrack cover features Knack with headphones◊.
The soundtrack for the first Legend of Dark Witch game shows Zizou jamming it out in a DJ booth, complete with headphones◊.
- The "Dark Witch Vocal Collection" shows two characters (Zizou in the foreground, and Al in the background; Riva and Sola are the only exceptions) with headphones on listening to music, seen here◊.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero Super Arrange album shows the main characters listening to music on headphones.
The The Legend of Zelda: 2018 Concert used a promotional artwork featuring the Links from Ocarina of Time and Breath of the Wild, plus Zelda from Skyward Sword, all playing their iconic instruments (except BotW Link, who plays secondary character Kass' accordion).
The official soundtrack for Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded^note has Larry on stage playing the piano while accompanied by a singer.
The soundtrack of Magenta Horizon - Neverending Harvest features an image of Gretel, Archibald, Blucher, Cadilosh, and the Nest Father playing in a band together.
The official soundtrack for Maiden & Spell features the four human adventurers playing different instruments◊: Royal Arcanist plays the keyboard, Hero of Frost plays the guitar, Silent Redhood plays bass, and Sun Priestess plays a triangle.
Mega Man has had countless of those, which is very appropriate since the series is known as Rock Man in Japan. Most of them focus on rock (of course) and sometimes techno imagery:
The Monster Hunter 15th anniversary orchestra album features some Felyne characters in formal wear playing a violin and a flute.
The Muramasa: The Demon Blade album for its Updated Re-release and its corresponding DLC stories features female characters from each of the four stories playing traditional Japanese instruments.
Neptunia:
NieR: Automata used a piece of artwork◊ of the three main characters playing orchestral instruments to promote its "The Memories of Puppets" concerts. It was later used for the CD release of said concert. There's also the Piano Collections CD◊ with 2B playing the piano.
Noticeably averted with No Straight Roads's official soundtrack, which, despite being all about music, uses the game's cover art instead. It is however played straight with the soundtrack for the Encore Edition, which depicts Mayday and Zuke busking it out on a street corner.
Octodad: Dadliest Catch's soundtrack cover depicts the game's titular character listening to music through his headphones.
Octopath Traveler uses this artwork◊ of a typical tavern show for its soundtrack. There is also this one found within the special Arrangements Break & Boost -Extend- release, which features the cast playing in diverse, anachronistic genres.
The CD version of One Step From Eden's soundtrack depicts Saffron wearing a pair of headphones, with the rest of the cast featured in the background.
Petal Crash's soundtrack cover depicts Lilibri sitting atop a Game Boy listening to music through a pair of headphones (both of which are comically enormous compared to her due to her small size). See it here.
One of the soundtracks for Phantom Breaker Omnia, specifically the LoFi Remixes collection, shows Yuzuha sitting on a beam with headphones on. See it here.
The soundtrack for Phoenotopia: Awakening depicts Gail with a pair of headphones on her, as seen here◊.
Pizza Tower's first soundtrack had some of its characters playing instruments: Peppino plays the accordion, the Noise plays the guitar and a Pineacool is seen yelling into a microphone.
Plants vs. Zombies: The cover of the game's soundtrack features a Chomper, Squash, Digger Zombie and Sun-shroom singing (illustrated by music notes), with a Snow Pea playing itself as a trumpet and a Sunflower acting as the conductor, next to a sheet saying "Sunflower Music Lessons".
Given its subject matter, the Postal series has gained some rather... morbid covers for its soundtracks:
The Puyo Puyo series has a set of vocal albums that depict its characters singing various Image Songs. The first volume has Arle, Amitie, Ringo, Sig, Witch and Rulue◊, the second one shows Schezo, Lemres, Dark Prince, Klug, Maguro and Yu & Rei◊, while the third has Carbuncle, Suketoudara, Popoi, Donguri Gaeru, Onion Pixie and Ocean Prince◊.
The orchestral soundtrack for Rabi-Ribi has Erina and Ribbon in formal wear playing a violin and flute respectively. Said outfits can also be bought as DLC for the game.
The Rayman Legends soundtrack◊ is a rare western example, depicting all the playable characters rocking out.
- There's also the Rayman by Remi Live Project, depicting Rayman on the piano, which aimed to remake the soundtrack for the original game.^note
Retro City Rampage's soundtrack is an interesting example in that its characters aren't the ones doing the soundtrack jam; rather, they're in fact getting clobbered by the composers of said soundtrack^note, with the latter actually doing the jam themselves, with a boombox, electric guitar and keytar respectively. See here◊.
The third Resonant Mixes album for Rivals of Aether has Pomme^note performing on stage at Neo Julesvale, as seen here.
In Roots of Pacha, Jelrod plays the ocarina on the cover of Vol. 1 and 2 of the game's soundtrack.
The Season One◊ and Two◊ soundtrack releases of Sam & Max: Freelance Police feature the titular characters doing Jazz/Blues.
The Samurai Shodown Special Arrange Soundtrack that came with physical copies of the Samurai Shodown Neo Geo Collection shows its characters playing a variety of instruments: going clockwise, Haohmaru plays a pair of maracas, Gaira plays the flute, Shizumaru plays a traditional shamisen, Nakoruru plays the keytar, Cham Cham plays the tambourine, Tam Tam plays the bongos, Galford plays the electric guitar and Genjuro... gets stuck with a triangle of all things.
The vinyl release of Shantae (2002)'s soundtrack by Fangamer has its female cast performing in a band; Shantae is on the guitar, Risky Boots plays a skull-shaped bass, Rottytops plays on the keyboard and Sky is on the drums. In addition, the gatefold has Shantae listening to music on a Game Boy through her headphones.
Shinrai: Broken Beyond Despair's soundtrack has Raiko and Nobara listening to songs through earbuds and headphones respectively, as seen here.
Skeleton Boomerang's soundtrack depicts Hunter playing on the saxophone while some skeletons listen in. Likewise, the soundtrack for the Vampire Hunter expansion has the same thing, except Hunter is wearing some Cool Shades while the expansion's Big Bad looms over him.
Skullgirls has Marie playing a grand piano (with bones as the keys, natch) while the other fighters are hiding in the piano.
The second soundtrack for Slime Rancher has Casey (Beatrix' musician friend) sitting atop a rooftop in a city somewhere on Earth, with a guitar in hand. See it here.
Sonic the Hedgehog has the Sonic Adventure-centric Passion & Pride: Anthems with Attitude album, featuring everybody's favorite blue hedgehog playing an electric guitar and technically wearing headphones wrong.
Sony's Japanese Development Studio once advertised a concert through a poster◊ of Kat as a violinist and their Mascot Toro as a conductor.
The soundtrack for the first Spark the Electric Jester game depicts its titular protagonist listening to music through his headphones◊.
The artwork for the Stardew Valley concert, "Festival of the Seasons", depicts several characters playing in a music band outside of Pierre's.
The Street Fighter Compilation ''RE:''Mix Chiptune◊, containing the original 8 playable characters of SFII enjoying chiptune songs.
- There's also the 25th anniversary boxset, consisting of songs from Street Fighter to even Street Fighter X Tekken, featuring Chun-Li listening to songs through her earbuds◊.
Played with for SUGURI's soundtrack, TRANCENATION OF SUGURI; while the front cover merely depicts Suguri saying the album name, the back plays it more straight, featuring Saki and Iru wearing headphones and playing the keyboard respectively.
Super Mario Bros.:
Super Monkey Ball:
Tales Series has a series of orchestra albums from 2016-18, all of them featuring various characters across the franchise as part of an orchestra, but most prominently from either Tales of Zestiria (that being the latest flagship title for the first two albums) or Tales of Berseria (its immediate successor and a prequel to Zestiria, released in 2016).
The original album cover of Tavern Talk's soundtrack features Fable strumming on their lute.
One enterprising fan has made a Team Fortress 2-themed album for use in fanmade Source Filmmaker movies. Titled Tune Fortress, it depicts the RED team playing a variety of instruments: Heavy plays on the drums, Pyro plays the cello, Engineer plays an acoustic guitar, Soldier plays the trumpet, Medic plays the keyboard, Scout plays the bongos, Spy plays the accordion, Demoman plays an electric guitar and Sniper plays the saxophone. See here.
The Temtem soundtrack shows a Tamer hooking up his headphones to an Oree to listen to music◊.
The Trauma Team soundtrack cover art features the Mysterious Girl lying in a flowerbed and listening to music on her headphones.
One version of the soundtrack for ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove depicts the titular pair on a microphone and guitar respectively◊ on its disc.
The soundtrack for Tower of Heaven shows the Player Character sitting next to a record player playing songs, as seen here.
The soundtrack for the sequel to Twinkle Star Sprites, La Petite Princesse, has Time Buttermitt wearing headphones◊.
There are two soundtracks for the Umihara Kawase games that have this; the first one depicts Kawase listening to an MP3 player while music note-shaped tadpoles surround her◊, while the second one simply has her with a pair of headphones on, with its wire going into her backpack◊.
The soundtrack for Unbeatable's "White Label" release, titled "DEMO TAPES", has Beat listening to songs on a cassette player.
The first soundtrack for Under Night In-Birth, titled "Side-Abyss", has Hyde and Linne both wearing headphones, with the former playing a guitar, while surrounded by portraits of Carmine, Gordeau, Waldstein and Orie. You can see it here◊.
Underhero's soundtrack has its protagonist sitting on a ledge with headphones on.
Undertale: Fangamer's collector's edition of Undertale, which includes the soundtrack, has Papyrus, Shyren and Toriel singing, Alphys playing the saxophone, Sans playing the trombone, Napstablook sound mixing and Undyne playing the piano while Mettaton lays on it, feeding himself grapes as Burgerpants stands behind a prop bush; Toriel is wearing headphones while Papyrus is in his "Cool Dude" outfit. The standalone soundtrack, however, is cropped to just Sans, Undyne, Mettaton, Shyren, and Toriel.
Unhack's soundtrack has A², Weedy, and Debug side by side. The first two are listening to music, or at least trying to: A² has a Confused Question Mark and examining her headphones, so it seems they don't work, while Weedy's works, and Debug is sleeping on Weedy's shoulder.
One of the soundtracks for VA-11 HALL-A, Second Round, depicts Dana with a pair of headphones on her◊.
- There's also the Bonus Tracks Collection, which depicts a neon silhouette of *Kira* Miki reclining in a martini glass, singing into a microphone.
West of Loathing's soundtrack is a downplayed case, as it simply shows the Player Character standing beside a record player, seen here.
- The soundtrack for its sequel, Shadows Over Loathing, is also a downplayed case, as one of its characters (the musically-inclined Jazz Agent) is seen playing the trumpet, as seen here.
Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap (2017) shows mouse-man and the pig shopkeeper next to a music player, with the pig wearing headphones (the bonus album's cover is a more normal scene in the shop, but said shop features a radio prominently).
Wonder Wickets's first soundtrack has Halley as a conductor, with all the other characters playing different instruments, seen here. The second soundtrack meanwhile consists of Freen in Green's avatars playing music as well.
The cover for the first half of Yume Nikki's official soundtrack depicts Madotsuki playing on her flute^note. The cover for the second half is a more downplayed case, as it simply depicts Seccom Masada standing in front of his spaceship's organ.

Webcomics

Homestuck: The track art for "October" from One Year Older depicts the four main kids jamming out on a stoop. John, Rose, and Jade are playing their respective instruments, while Dave is beatboxing.

Western Animation

The cover for Bluey the Album features Bluey sitting on the patio listening to an MP3 player.
The cover of Steven Universe's second soundtrack has Greg playing his guitar while he and Steven are talking.