Mainly checking if there's any interest in this sort of thing here. Home computers only, not other platforms.

Consider creativity, sound chip limitations and technical achievement, composition (melody or hook, progression, complexity), dynamics (range between quiet and loud, soft/diminuendo and hard/crescendo), pitch range, punch, instrument and instrument envelope variety and quality, and so on. We're going by original release dates.

Try to say something about your favorite(s), it's more fun to read!

Poll:
https://linkto.run/p/0XR9VQXO

Music links:
https://minirevver.weebly.com/vgm-1987.html

SID chip and the Megadrives FM > NES

We're only doing PC-based OSTs here.

Oh... I was just going to say that the proposed Afterburner II arcade music is probably my pick for 1987 specifically.

I still remember it as a kid, seeing that game (along with OutRun) the first time in the arcades, just after getting my Amiga 500 home computer. Until then I had thought NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING, touches the graphics and audio capabilities of my brand new Amiga 500... so it was a shock to play those games with so much better graphics and music.

Shit, I still haven't fully recovered from that shock.

As for PC games... as far as I am concerned, PC game music didn't exist before 1988 or so when Adlib etc. became more commonplace, and especially Roland MT-32! (and later Roland SCC-1). Oh the lovely Roland, showing its middle-finger to those who still remained with Amiga claiming it has the best music.

1987 was the year the MT-32 came out. Is that legal to account for?
Because if so, I'd basically have to say, "Blank the table and try again."

What was the first PC game supporting it though?

The earliest I remember was King's Quest IV which apparently came out in 1988. (I didn't have a PC at that point, but I was a proud Amiga 500 owner.)

Yeah the yearly lists on my site cover every platform (that I've covered so far anyway), sorry if that was confusing.

This seems like the place to talk about PC retro games so I thought a PC specific poll series could work here. I'm doing a general one over at gamefaqs already. The PC games don't get any votes and everyone just votes for the popular Nintendo/Sega and JRPG games. The first games using it are from 1988. Unless there's some obscure japanese PC game that did it.

I'm including all home computers here, not just IBM PC/PC DOS & Windows.

It existed as either PC Speaker or PSG music (similar to master system). PC Speaker could also be used for PWM, sample-based streaming. There are various examples in the lists.

The only notable Adlib/OPL2 one on PC I've found from 1987 is the one in the poll, Dragonriders of Pern. Actually that port might be from later on, I'm not sure.