James Eldred
Game Music Revue: iam8bit Vinyl Review Roundup
Late last year, iam8bit jumped into the video game vinyl ring with their release of the soundtrack to Hohokum, a quirky indie title available on PSN. They followed that up big with their release of the soundtrack to Hotline Miami 2, a massive affair that came with the soundtrack spread across three colored discs as well as download codes to both the soundtrack and the game itself. It was a huge success, leading to three printings that have all sold out.
Now iam8bit is following that up with a new slate of releases. Three, Banjo Kazooie, Battletoads and Perfect Dark, are culled from the Rare back catalog, while the fourth, Journey, is the score to a relatively new game that was first released for the PS3 and later updated for the PS4. It’s really good by the way, you should buy it.
It’s ambitious for a company new to the vinyl game to ramp up their production so quickly, and with such big name titles. But thankfully it seems that they’ve done each title justice from an audio standpoint, albeit with a few notable presentation caveats and concerns that hopefully will get addressed with future releases. Continue reading
Tokyo Travelogue: Sagamiko Illumination
Last week my boyfriend and I made an excursion to the outer limits of Tokyo, Sagamiko to be exact, for a trip to the Sagamiko Resort Pleasure Forest. Disregard the slighty lewd name, the area is actually a massive entertainment complex, none of which (to my knowledge at least) is the least bit X-rated.
There’s an a nice onsen (hot spring resort) on site, as well as a Paddington Bear branded camping ground, but the park is most well-known for it’s largely children’s themed amusement park. In the winter though, the park’s showcase is its nighttime illumination event, where the entirety of the grounds are decked out in what must be a few million lights. The theme for this year’s festival was the UK, and as my boyfriend is a total UK oktau (U-taku?) it was decided that we absolutely had to take the trip.
It was well worth it, even if it was more UK inspired than themed. Continue reading
The Complete Guide to Madonna Remixes – Part 2
Part one of this guide was difficult because of the multitude of rarities and exceptions. Some mixes were only on the LP version of an album, others were exclusive to digital and CD releases. And of course some were on original pressings of records only to be replaced later on with different versions. Keeping track of all of it was incredibly confusing. It was a difficulty due to complexity.
Part two proved to be difficult due to scale. Madonna was active during the entirety of the 90s, which means more songs. Not only that, the 90s were the golden age of the dance remix. In the 80s, most of her songs got half a dozen remixes at most. In the 90s, some got well over a dozen, and sometimes those mixes themselves were remixed into single edits, many of which were exclusive to radio promos and test pressings.
Basically what I’m saying is that this list was hella hard. So if I missed something I wouldn’t be surprise. As always, let me know (kindly) in the comments!
Part three will cover the 2000s. But don’t expect it until December.
“Keep It Together” (1990)
Album Version [5:03] – Available on Like A Prayer.
12″ Remix [7:50] – On most 12″ and CD singles.
12″ Extended Mix [7:20] – On most 12″ and CD singles.
12″ Mix [6:50] – On most 12″ and CD singles.
Bonus Beats [3:27] – On most 12″ singles and the Australian and Japanese maxi-singles.
Dub version [7:00] – On most 12″ singles and the Australian and Japanese maxi-singles.
Instrumental [5:52] – On most 12″ and CD singles.
Single Remix [4:32] – On nearly all 7″ singles and most 12″ and CD singles. Continue reading
YMO 101: The Live Albums
This is part two of my guide to Yellow Magic Orchestra.
Part 1: The Studio Albums
Part 3: The Compilations and Remix Records
Part 4: The Solo Records
Part 5: The Pre-Cursors and Side Projects
Part 6: The Protégés, Associates and Etc.
While YMO’s general discography is relatively unknown in the Western world, advising potential fans as to what albums to get, and in which order, is relatively easy. The group’s studio output was relatively scant, with just six proper albums and one mini-LP/EP to their name. Sure, I did write an entire album-by-album guide to their core studio releases, to be honest that entire piece could’ve been summarized by simply saying “buy Solid State Survivor and if you like it get the first album and then rest.”
But covering YMO’s live discography is far more intimidating. First of all, their number of live releases outnumber their studio releases by a ratio of two to one, and many of their live records are out of print and go for a hefty sum online. Buying a YMO live album blind, only to be unsatisfied with it, that can hurt. And while finding information on their studio releases can be as easy as a quick check to Wikipedia, articles and reviews of many of their live releases are nonexistent online (at least in English).
If only there was some madman out there who spent the countless hours and dollars hunting down nearly all of the group’s live output in an effort to write a guide for newcomers to the group who might not know where to begin.
Why, this sounds like a job for…me, an obsessive music geek living in Tokyo and with apparently far too much free time.
It took some time, over a year in fact, but I have finally tracked down every single official YMO live album that I’m aware of. This was largely for my own pleasure, but also to write this guide because, as much as I love YMO, I have to be honest; there’s a lot in their live discography that is inconsequential and non-essential. So I hope this helps some fans out there avoid the pitfalls I jumped into while collecting it all. Continue reading
Scrunged: Silverchair’s Frogstomp
Scrunge (second-rate rip-off grunge) is a largely forgotten genre, and every few weeks I’m going to examine a scrunge act or two and see if they deserve a second chance. Today’s band: Silverchair.
In my very first “Scrunged” post I made a dismissive comment regarding Silverchair’s “Open Fire (Ana’s Song),” calling it “decent but dour.” A commenter misunderstood what I was trying to say (shocking, I know) and claimed that I “owed them a revisit.”
And he may have been right, but I hope he wasn’t thinking I should start with Frogstomp. Continue reading
Game Music Revue: Streets Of Rage (2015 Data Discs Edition)
- Credited Composer: Yuzo Koshiro
- Released September 2015
- Label: Data Discs
- VGMdb Information Page
A few years ago Death Waltz Records opened up shop and promptly took the the record geek community by storm with its high quality vinyl re-issues of classic horror soundtracks, presented with heavy duty sleeves and pressed on creatively-colored vinyl.
Since then, we seemingly become lousy with labels looking to cash in on this sudden re-issue trend. Some, like One Way Static and Invada, have done good by releasing quality soundtracks that sound great and feature amazing art. Others, like the atrocious Waxworks and the flipper-friendly Mondo (who bought Death Waltz rather than compete with them) have often sacrificed audio quality and consumer friendliness in efforts to put out ultra-limited edition items that not only sound horrid, but become impossible to find thanks to their finitely small print runs.
So I was a little skeptical at first when I found out about Data Discs, a new label dedicated to releasing classic game music on vinyl. With the vinyl craze continuing to reach new heights, I feared they were just in it for the money, hoping to snag a quick buck off of hipsters who put presentation and nostalgia over actual audio quality. Still, when I saw that they were releasing the soundtrack to Streets of Rage on vinyl, I had to take the bait and grab a copy.
I was hoping for the best and fearing for the worst – but thankfully I was pleasantly surprised. Continue reading
Bemusings (Bemoanings) Of A Failed Writer
I was talking to one of my students last weekend (I teach adults English in Japan) and he was telling me that he wanted to set up a blog to make some extra money on the side. Knowing that there is no money in writing but wanting to be nice, I chuckled and asked him how he expected to monetize it.
In broken yet understandable English he explained to me that he was going to set up a free blog, get a Google AdSense account and write about whatever topics were most popular at the time. Having had a Google AdSense account at one point (and never making money from it) I wished him luck.
Yesterday the student came back and I asked him how his blog was doing.
“Oh, not bad” he said without looking up from his notes, “I got a few thousand hits the first few days.” Continue reading
Game Music Revue: The 30th Anniversary Super Mario Bros. Music
- Credited Composer: Nintendo (Koji Kondo, Hirokazu Tanaka, Kazumi Totaka, Shinobu Tanaka, Mahito Yokota, Ryo Nagamatsu, Asuka Hayazaki)
- Released September 13, 2015
- Label: Columbia/Sony
- VGMdb Information Page
Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary Festival
Here in Japan there have been various promotions all year celebrating this, the 30th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. We’ve had special promotions at Tower Records, exclusive merchandise for sale at various Otaku stores, and of course the release of Super Mario Maker for the Nintendo Wii U. But things hit a crescendo this past Sunday, the actual anniversary date, with Nintendo’s official Super Mario Brothers Anniversary Celebration Festival, held at Duo Exchange in Shibuya, Tokyo. Continue reading
YMO 101: The Albums
This is part one of my guide to Yellow Magic Orchestra.
Part 2: The Live Albums
Part 3: The Compilations and Remix Records
Part 4: The Solo Records
Part 5: The Pre-Cursors and Side Projects
Part 6: The Protégés, Associates and Etc.
I’ve long championed bands that very few people have heard of. This used to bug me a great deal, but by now I’ve gotten used to the fact that my musical tastes and what most people are interested in just don’t jive. But there’s one band whose complete lack of respect or notoriety in the states continues to drive me up a all; that band is Yellow Magic Orchestra.
Yellow Magic Orchestra are the greatest electronic act of all-time, and the fact that more people don’t know this is a damn shame. Continue reading