Another reminder that I just started a new movie podcast called Cinema Oblivia. Every week, a guest and I take a look at a different old movie that I feel more people need to see, or at the very least is interesting and under-discussed today. The first episode covered Flashdance, while the second was all about Streets of Fire. The next episode will go up Thursday morning, and it will be about William Friedkin’s masterpiece Sorcerer! Don’t miss it!
Now, Nintendo music because no reason.
Nintendo
Overture (Mario’s Jungle Intro)
Yoshi’s Story (Breakbeat Inferno)
Versus (M.I.R. Rampage)
Sound Of Lylat (Hip Hop Hype)
Hyrule (Princess “Z” Trigger)
This should be my last drunken Discogs purchase post in a while. Actually, wait, that might not be true. I have to see if an exceptionally needless eurodance purchase I made earlier this month is currently in print.
Regardless, this will definitely be the last video game related drunken Discogs purchase post I’ll be sharing in the immediate future. Every other weird video game release I want to buy right now is either too expensive or not for sale. And even if they do go on sale and I do buy them – I won’t be drunk! I won’t be drinking for a few months it seems, as alcohol does not play well with a new medication I’m on (nothing serious or worth mentioning, don’t worry).
These tracks are from an album that Nintendo put out in Europe, I assume as part of some sort of promotion or giveaway, in 1998. It’s the kind of thing you find if you go to Discogs and type in “NINTENDO” in the search field, as I am want to do in these trying times.
Most of the CD is just standard game music taken from various Nintendo releases. You got some Yoshi’s Story, Star Fox 64, Mario 64, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It’s all very 1998. All very N64. That’s all good stuff, but they’re not that unique or worth mentioning.
However, the album also features these five remixes, all of which seem to be exclusive to this CD. I have no idea why Nintendo decided to do this. Why release a promo CD in Europe only and fill it out with remixes that can’t be found anywhere else? Nintendo’s gonna Nintendo, as the kid’s say. As you can probably piece together from the song titles, the first track is from Mario 64, the second from Yoshi’s Story, and the last from Zelda. The other two were taken from Star Fox 64.
These are some…weird remixes. They’re very obviously going for a late-90s “electronica” vibe. Lots of breakbeats, drum and bass, vocal samples, and such. Sometimes it works really well, great even. The Yoshi’s Story mix is rad as hell, and I’m not just saying that because I love Yoshi. The beat is bit on the simple side, but it has a good bass groove, and uses the Yoshi vocal samples in a hilarious, and dangerously catchy, way. Good breakdown in the middle too. You could totally sneak this into a club mix and no one would be the wiser.
“Versus (M.I.R. Rampage)” is really great too. That music had a very cinematic feel, much like a lot of the music from the Star Fox games. The beat, not surprisingly, add an intense energy to the track. While the seemingly re-recorded (or at the very least, resampled at a higher bit-rate) orchestral elements make it sound even bigger. The beats are corny, no doubt, but it still works. Big “late-90s action movie” vibes on this one. The same goes with “Hyrule (Princess “Z” Trigger), which uses elements from the main overworld theme of Zelda and adds in gaggles of beats and other electronic wackiness. Again, it’s a bit cheesy, but I love the original melody so much that it’s hard for me to hate on it too much. And they still focus on the melody, played wonderfully on a piano-sounding keyboard, and that’s always going to set off the nostalgia dopamine triggers in my brain no matter what. I can’t judge that music objectively. Nintendo has corrupted me I’m sorry.
However, even with Nintendo owning a large chunk of my childhood hostage, I can’t say that the Mario nor the “Sound of Lylat (Hip Hop Hype)” tracks are particularly good. For some reason, the remixers decide to add very strange vocal samples to each. In the Mario track, the vocals are nothing more than an exceptionally deep voice saying things like “This is the sound of Nintendo” over and over and over again for no reason. It’s exceptionally distracting and just ruins the track.
Ditto for the Star Fox remix at the end. The same vocals are nearly non-stop , and they’re made even worse with the occasional “yeah, uh huh” thrown in for bad measure. It’s just so weird. Again, it’s not like it’s singing, or even rapping, it’s just some dude with an artificially deep voice telling you that you’re in Lylat. Repeatedly. It song is just under four minutes long and it gets old and downright aggravating within the first minute. It’s a real bummer too, cuz the music itself is really good! I suppose it’s too much/too late to ask for an a capella rendition on a 12″ single of something?