Game Music for Depression

Sorry for the prolonged absence this month. You see, what had happened was, after I put up three posts in one week, I was planning on taking a week off from writing. After that, I got ridiculously sick and could barely sit up in front of a computer, let alone compose rational thoughts about obscure music. So there went another week. Then just this week I was planning on getting something together when…well, some bad things happened that made writing a complete impossibility. To be totally honest, said things are still on my brain quite a bit, so tonight’s post is more of a forced attempt to get back into writing something, anything, than it is an attempt to put something cohesive and well-researched together. Sorry about that.

One downside (for me anyways) regarding my blog’s slow shift to even more obscure music is that it requires a hell of a lot more research. Gone are the days of me just throwing a bunch of Depeche Mode remixes up and saying some variation of “yo Depeche Mode is dope so check these out!” Gotta plan this shit out now. I mean, usually I do. Sometimes I can just dig out some random video game remixes from a CD no one has ever even heard of and call it a night. I knew I was holding onto these tracks for a reason!

 

Namco
Xevious (Beat Mix)
Xevious (Tekno Mix)
Namco In The 80’s (You’re The One For Me)

These three mixes are from a remix album that I bought a few months ago called 765 Mega-Mix. Why the numerical designation? I have no idea.

The album features six remixes of game music from Namco titles. About half of them are from games I’ve never heard of (if you’re curious as to what those titles are, click here). I bought it for the two remixes to the Xevious theme. Game music fanatics reading this probably know that Xevious is an important title in the history of game music, as a remix of the game’s theme by Hosono Haruomi of YMO was one of the first prominent game music releases in Japan.

These are not additional mixes by Hosono. Instead they are done by one Koji Orihara, who is best known for…well…nothing. Absolutely nothing. Dude’s Discogs page is a near-blank. He’s on a couple of other compilations and that’s it. I dunno, maybe his uncle worked at Namco or something. His mixes are good though, Orihara knew that it was best to leave well-enough along, so on both of his takes on the track he lets that memorable melody play over and over, and instead of replacing it, augments it with game effects and some good beats. Gimme more remixes to the theme from Xevious, gimme 2 LPs worth. I want them all.

Even more fun is “Namco In The 80’s.” As the title suggests, this track is a medley of music from 80s Namco titles. Specifically, it features (in order) Galaga, Pac-Man, Rally-X, Dig Dug, Mappy, and Galpus. Sometimes the remixes are bare-bones (the Galaga remix is literally just the game’s music with a beat tacked on behind it) but others rework and remake the songs more. The Pac-Man section is pretty rad. It’s not “Pac-Man Fever” rad, but hey, what is?

Again, apologies for the bare-bones slap-dash post tonight. Hopefully I’ll be up to writing more soon. And even if I’m not, I’ll be sharing the final volume of that Bleachers set the millisecond I get it. So I guess that’ll motivate me if nothing else will. Yinz take care of each other and hug your loved ones if you haven’t already, okay?

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