Music Monday: A Hint of The Blue Bomber
If you’re a fan of Mega Man games, in any sense of the word, then you must come to love the music the games provide. No other series has come out with such consistently good music for its various titles. The soundtrack for Mega Man 2, as an example, is required listening for lovers of videogame music. Some of the best known game tunes I know of come from Mega Man titles.
Mega Man 9’s soundtrack is no different. Many of the songs in the soundtrack are a treat to behold, especially the Dr. Wily stage themes. The musicians over at OCRemix apparently agree with that sentiment, as last weekend Back in Blue, a remix album composed of remixes of MM9 tunes, was released.
This album has any piece of music you can think of from the great downloadable title. Yes, even the shop theme and end credits music get some love here. And the styles present on the album are rather varied. The remixers jump around from synth-filled electronic to trance to Spanish-influenced guitar to metal. As is customary for Music Monday, below are some of the best bits from the album. Be sure to check out the entire album, as these tracks are just the tip of the Ice Man.
“Splash Waltz” – Corran
“The Skull Fortress – Sixto Sounds
“Origami Robots” – k-wix
“Family Jewels” – The Kilgores
[Header artwork: Dark Depths - by Catherine Kolasky]
Megaman music, specifically that number 2 you mentioned must be the single biggest influence on the chiptunes I make. You can hear the influence on both the intro and the end music to the podcast I put up on the weekend, as well as a lot of the music in March of the Rorgers. About the only thing I don’t tend to use is the triangle toms that are so prevalent in Capcom NES tunes. I just prefer to use the triangle wave channel for other things, and put most of the drumming in noise and 8-bit sample channels.
Good stuff. Fans of the Mega Man 8-bit tunes should definitely check out the Duck Tales soundtrack, too, not just the Moon Music (which is great, but only one of many great tunes in that game).