Tuesday Tunes

SEGA Tunes: Jet Set Radio’s ‘Bout the City

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Over the ‘hood, through the streets, and right into your braaaaain!!!!!

Savor the sweet sounds of Reps, because it’s Jet Set Radio month on Tuesday Tunes! Over the course of the next few weeks you’ll be powering through the wave of nostalgia, energy, and the sheer, absolute, unmistakable musical sexiness that we know of as the soundtrack to Jet Set Radio and its sequel, with a little branching out for good measure.

This week’s chosen song is none other than ‘Bout the City, an infectiously catchy track coming from British artist Reps. Though Kogane-Cho is undoubtedly my least favoite of Jet Set Radio’s three main districts, I can’t help but crack a smile when I drop into the level and this is the first track that plays. To me it embodies everything that makes Jet Set Radio what it is; it was a free spirit in an industry that was growing more gritty and “mainstream” by the year. The punk-flavored ‘Bout the City seems to want nothing more than for the listener to have a total blast, and that to me is everything that Jet Set Radio stood for; Poison Jam may have kidnapped the dog, the Noise Tanks may have flooded the Garage with frogs, and they were constantly pursued by a batshit crazy police captain…yet, you never got the feeling that the GGs weren’t enjoying just about every minute of it all.

Their world was always colorful, the funky melodies were beamed directly into their heads, and the streets of Tokyo-to sure looked beautiful when blasted through on rocket-powered skates. For another upbeat but very different tune, hit the jump for Toronto’s Electric Toothbrush, which pretty much sums up everything awesome about not just SEGA, but hell, the year 2000 as well.

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SEGA Tunes: Bayonetta’s Fly Me to the Moon

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Bayonetta had a great soundtrack, but it’s clear the game’s director had an obsession with one, All-American classic: Fly Me to the Moon, one of my favorite songs from the great American songbook. Originally written by Bart Howard in 1954, it’s been performed by all the greats, including Frank Sinatra.

Perhaps the most notable part about this song’s inclusion in Bayonetta is the fact that it was integrated so deeply into the game. It wasn’t just a once used track, or something used in the end credits, but a song heard constantly throughout the game. Bayonetta herself even whispered the song in a scene.

This version, performed by Belgian singer Helena Noguerra, gives this age old classic a nice little SEGA twist. The background music sounds like something that would be perfectly at home in a multitude of SEGA arcade titles. All that said, I must admit I do prefer the version in the end credits, a 1963 by Brenda Lee. That will be getting its own Tuesday Tunes one day.

Below is my favorite version of this song, sung by Frank Sinatra

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SEGA Tunes: Outrun 2’s Magical Sound Shower

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http://youtu.be/39L1f6CKaoo

You know what’s the mark of a good soundtrack? When you can’t remember which one of the tracks was your favorite. Was it Splash Wave? Maybe Risky Ride? In the end, I just went with Magical Sound Shower!

Beyond being a really fun arcade game, Outrun 2 also had one of the best SEGA soundtracks of the last decade. Almost every single track had a unique personality and a really great beat. It sounded like a track right out of SEGA’s mid 90s arcade library. Magical Sound Shower is probably the richest tracks. It mixes drum beats and electrical instruments with a really superb saxophone, all set to a nice tropical island theme. A gorgeous track for a gorgeous game!

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SEGA Tunes: Sky Sanctuary

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So, I thought I’d give us all a break from orchestrations this week, to post up an oldie but a goodie: Sky Sanctuary Zone. I loved this song back in the day, and it’s still the classic Sonic theme I best remember. I still remember when I first loaded up Sky Sanctuary and was greeted with this tune. It was so…different from anything else I had ever heard in a Sonic game before, and it instantly gave Sky Sanctuary this huge breathtaking feel that went perfectly together with it’s scope. This theme is one of the primary reasons why I wanted the level to be included in Generations.

Speaking of which, I am including two very awesome remixes of this song below the fold, one put together by Kanjika and the other from Sonic Generations. I HIGHLY encourage you listen to both. It’s really surprising what Kanjika is able to do with this.

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SEGA Tunes: Anu Orta Veniya from Panzer Dragoon Orta

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I love Panzer Dragoon. Panzer Dragoon Orta though? My favorite game of all time. Rail shooting gameplay honed to perfection. Graphics that to this day stand the test of time. Unique and varied locations ranging from epic air battles to lonely snow covered landscapes. Finally, its soundtrack never, ever misses a beat. I fell in love with Anu Orta Veniya the moment the credits began to roll after one of the most surprising and heart breaking endings I had seen in a video game at the time. Its amazing orchestration and beautiful vocals perfectly ended the most impressive gaming experience of my life.

An amazing end to an amazing series. Another song that stuck in my head was “Gigantic Fleet”. As usual, it’s after the break!

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SEGA Tunes: Sona Mi Areru Ec Sancitu

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Panzer Dragoon Saga was the epic finale to SEGA’s Panzer Dragoon trilogy, and what a finale it was! Switching from the more limiting rail shooter format to a fully 3D RPG, it mixed elements from the rail shooters with RPGs in a way that is still unique even to this day. The Saturn’s magnum opus, Panzer Dragoon Saga, had a beautiful soundtrack to match its scope, the crown jewel being Sona Mi Areru Ec Sancitu. In my humble opinion this stands as one of SEGA’s best songs, period.

Another great track from this game is “Atolm Dragon”, the theme for the boss fight with said dragon, which you can listen to after the break.

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SEGA Tunes: Panzer Dragoon Zwei “Forest of Taboo”

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You know you’re listening to a great theme when your moving your dragon to it. The jungle level was one of my favorite areas in Zwei. Enemies coming at you from every direction, as you fly under a forest canopy, and one of the first really good themes of the game playing the background. I was really tempted to go with the stellar menu theme here, but I really wanted to go with something from inside the actual game.

It was in Zwei that we really began to get the Panzer Dragoon music DNA that would permeate the rest of the series. In place of the epic,  westernized orchestrations of the original Panzer Dragoon was instead a soundtrack that relied heavily on music that sounded tribal in nature.  This music helped define the series as something unique and all together different from other games, and helped give Panzer’s unique world some additional, cultural flavor.

Another great example of this is “Ruins”, which you can hear below the fold.

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SEGA Tunes: Panzer Dragoon “Flight”

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Panzer Dragoon is my favorite video game series of all time, thanks in no small part to the consistently awesome musical score. For the first game, I had some major difficulties deciding between the full version of the main menu theme, or Flight. They are both superb pieces, and an interesting look at Panzer Dragoon’s musical style before it settled on a specific style in Zwei. The theme here is a bit more typical kind of orchestration, with horns, violins, and flutes, with some tambourines keeping a nice beat in the background. Not quite what the rest of the series sounds like.

Below the fold you’ll find the full version of the menu theme.

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SEGA Tunes: Sonic Heroes “What I’m Made Of”

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This week was a contest between Shenmue and a Sonic song. Since I’ve already shown a load of orchestral pieces over the last month, I decided I needed to go in a different direction….and expose my weakness to Crush40’s brand of rock n’ roll.

Yes, I love Crush40, and I won’t apologize for it. Yes, their lyrics make no god damned sense and can be cheesy as hell, but the beats. I love the rhythm and sheer auditory awesomeness of their songs, and What I’m Made Of is easily my absolute favorite song out of them. It never misses a beat, it never slows down, and it just sounds like something huge is going down, which was very fitting considering this was the final boss theme. The song even has a proper ending, with all the instruments stopping just before the final verse is uttered. Sure, he’s daring someone to reach inside of him….and gain his energy…but if you stop trying to actual give the lyrics context they aren’t so bad!

Perhaps most importantly, this theme makes up for the absolutely atrocious main theme of Sonic Heroes. It’s as if Crush40 knew how horrible it was and made something new just for the boss battle so it wouldn’t be so lame!

Next month is Panzer Dragoon month, so be ready for something completely different!

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SEGA Tunes: NiGHTS into Dream’s Orchestrated Main Theme

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Say what you will about Dreams Dreams (I personally love it) NiGHTS has one of the most surprisingly epic orchestrated themes I’ve heard. Unlike the last two themes I’ve posted up, this one is a four minute long musical adventure. Also unlike the last two games, this song was never included in the game in its entirety, but instead used in the much shorter CGI opening. It was included in full on original soundtrack however. Go take a listen!

NiGHTS is not really a game I typically associate this sort of music with. I remember it more for “Message from Nightopia” and Twin Seed’s “Growing Wings” which sounded nothing like the orchestral theme we’ve got here. The most surprising part to me was when the music suddenly became a lot darker in the middle of the piece. You get a real sense that SOMETHING bad is happening. This song is almost like several different songs in one as it moves through several different themes before ending on the epic notes all of us NiGHTS fans remember from the opening!

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SEGA Tunes: Skies of Arcadia’s Opening Theme

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When I was taking Appreciation for Music a few years ago, and was asked to send in a modern day example of an orchestration, Skies of Arcadia’s opening theme was the first thing to come to mind. There’s a reason for that. It’s a sweeping, epic track that moves quickly and perfectly exemplifies everything Skies of Arcadia is in a single track. Epic one moment, adventurous the next and a little romantic after that, this song covers a lot of ground in less than two minutes. The use of horns, flutes, and percussion make for a very flavorful song that not only perfectly shows off a beautiful RPG, but also stands on its own as one of SEGA’s best pieces of orchestration ever. I only wish it were a little longer so I could enjoy it a little more, but for the time it does take up, it is an absolute joy to listen to, and the perfect way to introduce one of best JRPGs ever made.

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SEGA Tunes: Phantasy Star Online’s “Whole New World”

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Welcome to the return of Tuesday Tunes, everyone! Changing focus away from remixes and original music, we’ll be focusing more on SEGA’s own music. Boy does SEGA have some great stuff! We’ll be starting this feature back up with a song that inspired me to write up a few of these and restart the feature: PSO’s “Whole New World”, a song that recently saw a remix in the latest PSO2 video. Now, I love SEGA’s orchestrations, especially from the Dreamcast and early third party period. To me, this music represents some of the most beautiful original orchestrations ever done in gaming. One of the first SEGA songs to ever land on my mix CD was this beauty of a track. Very different from the cheesy rock I was used to hearing from the Sonic Adventure games.

This is one of those songs that I think would be really neat to hear in a real live orchestra. SEGA really needs to do something equivolent to the Zelda tour for their series. Come on SEGA, just have Crush 40 pop in at the end to play Live and Learn after the orchestra plays all your other masterpieces. People will go!

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SEGA Tunes Vol.4 “Making Arcades Friendly”

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Before we start playing the tunes we’ve prepped for you this week, here is a quote from the Suzuki Sama

“The bad kids would be hanging around the game center, playing games.

Video games were a mother’s enemy. That was the image then — “mother’s enemy” — because kids would stop studying.

I wanted to eradicate that.

 I wanted to change the dark, underground image of kids smoking and gathering in dark rooms playing games. I wanted to give it a lively image, bringing gaming to a brighter place — from inside to outside, darker to lighter place. But, you have to change the consumer. The people who play games in dark places will always play games in dark places.

So we had to attract people who would play games in bright places. In other words, I wanted to make games for a new market.

Here I thought Blue Skies in Games Started With Sonic.

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SEGA Tunes Vol.3 “End of the Millennium”

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The long, long struggle of ancient times finally ended…
The victor sacrificed the vanquished to the heavens.
Four bells tolled. Four torches were lit.
And the world continued for thousands of years…

Phantasy Star: End of the Millennium is an epic journey of Self Discovery and finding purpose in life and most importantly, learning the value of love and friendship. Arguably one of the most memorable games from the Genesis in terms of Graphics and Gameplay was your typical JRPG, featuring the usual dungeons and the old school 2D top down camera angle. What elevated the game to the next level was the deep and fleshed out story, complete with the finest character development in video game history.

This tale of epic proportions was paired with some classic tunes that, nearly 2 decades later, fans fondly remember and remix. While there literary are thousands of remixes and arrangements out there, we share some of our favorites with you today.

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