Best and worst hourly musics in the entire franchise?

[Alolan_Apples]

As of today, we have five main-series Animal Crossing games, and there’s a total of 96 hourly songs. Although you can do a list of best five and worst five altogether, or the best or worst of each game, I’ll go ahead and try to rank all 96 of them from best to worst.

Spoiler: My list

1. 7 AM - Animal Crossing (GameCube)
2. 5 PM - Animal Crossing
3. 3 AM - Animal Crossing: New Leaf
4. 1 PM - Animal Crossing: Wild World
5. 11 AM - Animal Crossing
6. 10 AM - Animal Crossing: Wild World
7. 8 PM - Animal Crossing: Wild World
8. 6 PM - Animal Crossing: Wild World
9. 4 PM - Animal Crossing
10. 2 AM - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
11. 1 AM - Animal Crossing: Wild World
12. 12 PM - Animal Crossing: New Leaf
13. 6 PM - Animal Crossing
14. 1 AM - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
15. 12 AM - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
16. 7 PM - Animal Crossing
17. 7 PM - Animal Crossing: New Leaf
18. 6 AM - Animal Crossing: New Leaf
19. 7 AM - Animal Crossing: Wild World
20. 9 AM - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
21. 3 PM - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
22. 8 PM - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
23. 8 PM - Animal Crossing
24. 6 AM - Animal Crossing
25. 3 PM - Animal Crossing: New Leaf
26. 4 AM - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
27. 6 AM - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
28. 5 PM - Animal Crossing: New Leaf
29. 6 PM - Animal Crossing: New Leaf
30. 4 PM - Animal Crossing: Wild World
31. 1 PM - Animal Crossing
32. 2 PM - Animal Crossing: New Leaf
33. 1 PM - Animal Crossing: New Leaf
34. 12 PM - Animal Crossing: Wild World
35. 12 PM - Animal Crossing
36. 10 PM - Animal Crossing
37. 9 PM - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
38. 9 PM - Animal Crossing: Wild World
39. 9 PM - Animal Crossing: New Leaf
40. 9 PM - Animal Crossing
41. 8 AM - Animal Crossing: Wild World
42. 5 AM - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
43. 5 AM - Animal Crossing: Wild World
44. 9 AM - Animal Crossing: New Leaf
45. 3 AM - Animal Crossing: Wild World
46. 11 AM - Animal Crossing: New Leaf
47. 10 PM - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
48. 2 AM - Animal Crossing: New Leaf
49. 9 AM - Animal Crossing: Wild World
50. 8 AM - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
51. 9 AM - Animal Crossing
52. 11 AM - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
53. 7 AM - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
54. 4 AM - Animal Crossing: Wild World
55. 12 AM - Animal Crossing: Wild World
56. 8 PM - Animal Crossing: New Leaf
57. 8 AM - Animal Crossing: New Leaf
58. 5 PM - Animal Crossing: Wild World
59. 7 PM - Animal Crossing: Wild World
60. 7 AM - Animal Crossing: New Leaf
61. 5 AM - Animal Crossing: New Leaf
62. 10 AM - Animal Crossing: New Leaf
63. 4 PM - Animal Crossing: New Leaf
64. 10 AM - Animal Crossing
65. 11 PM - Animal Crossing
66. 12 AM - Animal Crossing
67. 8 AM - Animal Crossing
68. 5 AM - Animal Crossing
69. 4 AM - Animal Crossing: New Leaf
70. 7 PM - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
71. 10 PM - Animal Crossing: Wild World
72. 11 PM - Animal Crossing: Wild World
73. 11 PM - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
74. 3 PM - Animal Crossing
75. 2 PM - Animal Crossing
76. 1 AM - Animal Crossing
77. 6 AM - Animal Crossing: Wild World
78. 11 AM - Animal Crossing: Wild World
79. 2 PM - Animal Crossing: Wild World
80. 3 PM - Animal Crossing: Wild World
81. 10 AM - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
82. 4 PM - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
83. 5 PM - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
84. 12 PM - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
85. 2 AM - Animal Crossing
86. 1 PM - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
87. 10 AM - Animal Crossing: New Leaf
88. 6 PM - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
89. 3 AM - Animal Crossing
90. 2 PM - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
91. 3 AM - Animal Crossing: New Horizons
92. 11 PM - Animal Crossing: New Leaf
93. 12 AM - Animal Crossing: New Leaf
94. 4 AM - Animal Crossing
95. 1 AM - Animal Crossing: New Leaf
96. 2 AM - Animal Crossing: Wild World

 

[rass]

I'm "biased" as it's my favorite entry in the series lol but:

1. 5pm ACNL (lots of good memories)
2. 1am ACNL (just very relaxing)
3. 8pm ACNL (similar to 1)
4. 8am ACNL (nice start to the day)
5. 5am ACNL (just so unique, especially the first time you hear it)

I don't really have a worst 5 that I can pin point but if I had to choose it'd probably be mostly from NH, they just didn't feel quite the same to me and nothing really stood out

 

[oath2order]

Anything from midnight to 6AM in New Horizons is absolutely the worst. Missed the vibe entirely.

 

[Hunter_Gr33n]

I can't speak for the entire franchise, but I feel a lot of nostalgia towards the 9 am and 7 am hourly songs in NL.

 

[Yoshi155]

It’s going to be pretty interesting seeing other people’s opinions. This is my tier list. While the tier placement is obviously based on how much I like a song, the inside of the tiers is just random placement besides F and S tier, because it would be much harder to think deeply about each placement. Plus I wanted to get off that site as soon as possible because if I didn’t my phone wouldn’t be on this planet anymore. I just took a screenshot and cropped it because actually downloading the picture was giving me issues.

 

[Alolan_Apples]

Anything from midnight to 6AM in New Horizons is absolutely the worst. Missed the vibe entirely.

I’m actually the opposite on this. In most Animal Crossing games, the worst hourly songs usually pop up at night, especially in New Leaf. But New Horizons is the only game where the night music is, overall, better than the day music. The only exception is the 3 AM music in ACNH, and it’s because it sounds too out-of-place and weird. Ironically, 3 AM has the best hourly music in ACNL, in my opinion. Another irony was that 2 AM in Wild World was the worst in ACWW, but it was the best in ACNH, despite having the same scale (which is A-Major, my least favorite musical scale).

 

[Alolan_Apples]

Well, I finally written the full ranked list. I updated the OP to include the full list in a spoiler.

If that’s too long, I’ll discuss some details. The 7 AM and 5 PM soundtracks from the first game are the strongest in terms of how they match their hours, which is why I ranked them at the top. Since I’ve been rambling about how bad 1 AM from ACNL and 2 AM from ACWW are, don’t be too surprised to see them at the bottom. And all four 9 PM tracks are closer to the middle, and are consecutive.

 

[TN4U]

I'll keep mine simple:

Overall:

• The best I'd say is New Leaf 8PM. It's so nostalgic to me. Every time I hear it, I think of simpler times when I played the game through lonely periods when briefly going to college. I subsequently dropped out after 2 1/2 semesters for various reasons. My educational career and social life completely tanked after high school, but at least this song - as well as my villagers - made me feel good about myself.
• The worst is New Horizons 2PM. It sounds very off to me. Just get rid of the you-know-whats in the song and it'll be fine.

Coolness:

• The best is most of City Folk's music. The French vibe it gives off is pretty cool. Combine it with a French-NH-themed island and it's simply amazing.
• The most bleh is New Horizons 6PM music. That was the earliest time I could play the game after work, and hearing it over and over made me bored to tears.

Honorable mentions:

• GameCube 2AM. It was the game's way of telling you, "Yo fam, why you still up? Go to bed!"
• New Horizons 5AM. It's too bad I never play the game that early. In my opinion, it's excellent "start the day" music.
• New Leaf 4PM. Pretty good "troll your villagers" music.
• New Leaf 12PM. Much simpler than New Horizon's 12PM, and I like the backing electronic keyboard held-note it has.
• New Horizons 7PM. I used to love this song, but after playing the game so often during this time, I got sick of it fast, and the feeling just isn't there anymore. Kind of a shame, really.

There's probably more I'm forgetting about, but these are the ones that stick out to me the most.

 

[moonz]

I love every hourly song of the Gamecube AC.
One that gives me lots of nostalgia is 7PM from New Leaf.
And the worst is for sure 2PM of New Horizons, this song just makes me mad for some reason, its sooo annoying!

 

[Bui]

One of my favorites is 5pm from the original, but I also like GC 1pm, NL 5pm, NL 2am, and NL 3am as well (honestly, the GC and NL soundtracks are incredible). My least favorite would probably be New Horizons 2pm. It is incredibly jarring and gets annoying really quickly. It's not terrible just once or twice through, but when it plays for a whole hour it doesn't take long at all for it to get old.

 

[liliyoa]

I'm biased and I think New Leaf has the best soundtrack, but I say with my whole heart that the ACNH 9 pm theme is the worst song in any of the games. I makes me actually angry and uncomfortable to listen to. And as a night owl, I usually start trying to play the game at 9 pm and then I have to play muted and stop 20 minutes in even if I wanted to play for an hour or two. MADDENING absolutely maddening.

 

[Xara]

i don’t think i dislike enough of the hourly tracks to do a worst top 5, so i’ll just do one top 5, from best to “worst”.

#1: wild world 5am
wild world’s OST is the most nostalgic to me, and for that reason, is also my favourite in the series. out of every hourly track on it, as well as every hourly track in the series, wild world’s 5am track is my favourite. i don’t think i got to hear it while playing very often as i was rarely up that late, but everything about it is perfect to me. the gentleness of the track, the soft tranquillity, the way it could help put you to sleep or gently encourage you to wake up and start your day. it’s such a good track.

#2: population growing 1pm
i’ve never played the original animal crossing, so i’ve never gotten to listen to its OST that way. however, i listened to it for the first time on youtube this year, and honestly the whole OST is incredible. the music is so unique, but also so upbeat and soothing. i loved it! the 1pm track was one of the ones that stood out to me the most. it reminds me of music you might hear at an amusement park, specifically while riding a carousel or something, and it’s so nice to listen to! the random meows(?) confuse me LOL, but i think it just adds to the charm!

#3: new leaf 4am
new leaf’s OST is my third favourite in the series, and has the best nighttime tracks out of all of them imo! i love all of new leaf’s nighttime tracks, but the 4am track is my favourite. i heard it the most often while visiting the dream address of aika village, which adds to my love and nostalgia for it. it’s such a pretty track, while also being slightly eerie (especially when visiting aika village, haha).

#4: population growing 7am
another one of the standout tracks from the original animal crossing’s OST! i love how upbeat it is, while also being gentle enough for an early morning track. it’s upbeat enough to energize you and get you pumped for the day ahead, while not being so upbeat that it’s irritating at 7am, lol.

#5: new horizons 3am
i know not many people are a fan of new horizons’ OST, but i’ve never been one of them. it’s not my favourite OST in the series, but i don’t dislike it. a lot of the tracks are nice, and fit the tropical island vibe well imo. that being said, the 3am track is my least favourite track from the entire series. it’s not that it’s bad, per-say, it’s just… very annoying to me, lol. i don’t vibe with it at all.

i did a pretty big jump between my last two rankings, lol. i don’t dislike the original animal crossing’s 7am track at all, whereas i don’t like new horizons’ 3am track at all. my list is pretty much my top 4 hourly tracks from the series + the one track that i don’t like anything about.