See I've been looking for a genre to learn about and I've been having some trouble deciding, so I took to some of my early influence, Sonic's music. Sonic's music has always been pretty good. No matter how bad the game was, the soundtrack was at least good. Originally I intended to make a thread based on asking for the genre of Sonic CD's OST. However, I realized that would be just a question and would be a waste of a topic. So why not bring in every game's OST? I've always thought CD's Japanese influence comes from Disco and Funk. Sonic Rush was just full of samples, but I could never figure out what to call it. Honestly, some games with multiple playable characters have multiple genres depending on the levels and characters they correlate to. Anyone else have any idea what they would be?
You can call Sonic Rush's soundtrack a form of Hiphop because alot of those samples used in songs are popular samples DJ's regularly have on tap, but it's presented in a Electronic way so technically it's EDM. The guy who did it also did the soundtrack for Jet Set Radio, I personally prefer Sonic to be set to Hip-Hop/Techno music, the energy it gives is more exhilarating than Rock, far better for the series in my opinion.
I won't lie, the Hip-Hop is great, but I wouldn't want it to replace Rock. Or Jazz for that matter. I can see why you wouldn't like Rock because of Adventure 2's OST, but I think it was used very well in Adventure's OST. Especially in songs like Be Cool, Be Wild, and Be Groovy where they fused Rock and Jazz together to make one of the best songs in the franchise. Edit: I didn't mention how much I liked Rush's soundtrack either. Hideki Naganuma is one of the best musical talent Sega has had, it's a shame to see him no longer working there anymore.
Falk pretty much nailed it. As for Sonic Rush, I remember some of its tracks would easily fit in Ska. Sonic's done everything short of piano rags at this point, so there's a lot of variety, as far as genres go.
Part of why I love Sonic music is its sheer variety. Heck, look at Metal Harbor. It's got brass, it's got electric guitar. Where else are you gonna get a song like that? (I'm not really a big music buff besides game music, so people are probably going to throw all kinds of other songs at me that fit that category.)
Pretty much what Falk said. Ever since it's inception, the series has had musical influences from J-Pop, EDM, New Jack Swing/Hip-hop/R&B, Rock, Jazz, Ska, Orchestral, and virtually everything else you could possibly think of. On top of that Sega has tapped famous pop musicians like Masato Nakamura and Michael Jackson to work on their OSTs, not to mention much of their own amazing in house talent. You're literally bound to find any genre in the series.
>tfw JB Conspiracy are the first song on this holy fuck I saw them live in a tiny little place in Brighton like, 5 years ago And then Sonic Boom Six! Oh gosh golly. Metal Harbor doesn't feel too 'ska' to me though, just rock-y with brass. :v:
Classic era Sonic had a pretty versatile mix of - Jazz / Funk - Hip-Hop - Rock - Techno / Dance - Drum & Bass / Jungle
Metal Harbor essentially continues the tradition of taking the concept of Ska Punk (adding the big band section to Ska) and applying it to other genres of rock. A shit ton of SA1 tracks did that, most notably Be Cool Be Wild Be Groovy which was a mashup of that fundamental idea with Satch Boogie.
Ska punk never completely left Sonic, either: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dFDF3SXFLc I'd totally be down for a Sonic game composed by Reel Big Fish, Suburban Legends, or Mad Caddies. Then go right back to string-section heavy rockestrals because god damn that shit is goooood.
Sonic CD actually took quite a bit of influence from House Music, mainly being a backing style for most of the tracks but really pushed to the front for some tracks, like Wacky Workbench Past for example, and that style has stuck with Sonic games over the years, creeping up again in every other game, being mixed with other styles, one of the best and most recent being Dragon Road Day, which mixes some Drum n Bass elements in there and a dash of Jazz, which is a weird combination on paper but hey, it can sound good and it always seems to be Sonic games which arn't afraid of experimenting and mixing styles.
And here I was expecting a Dumb Running Sonic GIF playing to Maple Leaf. :specialed:/> I used to listen to Tom Brier's Gumball Rag for hours at a time when I came across it last year. It made me feel bad for not appreciating the bonus stage as a teenager. The music's adorable and happy, even better as a rag time. This one's used in Sonic Dash too. The "boss" sections bore me to tears, then hearing that playing during Zazz's appearance more than makes up for it. Now the song's stuck in my head again.
Sonic CD JP/EU soundtrack is amazing! It's heavily influenced by the sound of early 90's late 80's techno & rave music, which was big in Europe at that time. You can hear the influences in stuff like 808 State & UK rave. Sonic CD pouring out of this... And this... Big do-it-all keyboard workstations where starting to gain popularity too. Workstations like the Korg M1 and the Roland D50 where big news in the music world. I can imagine most of the Sonic CD soundtrack been written on something like an M1. Throw in a couple of random samples from an early sample CD and you're good to go. Edit: YouTube embeds (thanks Jay T)
Falk said it perfectly. The music of Sonic has had so many distinct genres and styles and each of them bring a different kind of auditory goodness to the table (you know, besides that kind). Whether it's hard rock, smooth jazz or something in between, Wavemaster and the other teams that have worked on Sonic have generally done amazing jobs. People make fun of me a lot for having video game music on my phone as opposed to "actual music" (which as a matter of fact I am a huge fan of classic rock and I also enjoy jazz as well. I like everything except pop music from 2006-present, really), but with Sonic it's not just bleeps and bloops and I wish people would get that misconception out of their heads. + - It'd be very easy for me to write several pages on the music of Sonic, but rather than waste the entire rest of my evening and night I think I'll stick with this
Wow, I wasn't expecting this thread to kick off, but hey I'm not complaining! Thank you all by the way, you've helped me with narrowing my options down. I gotta agree, Falk is pretty right. Which is why it's so interesting that the series can just mix musical genre's and just work so well. Heck, Sonic BTS/ATS isn't even an official game and yet with the music in that game seems to just fit right in. Funk Fiction even managed to make Dubstep work in Sonic. Though with the mixtures of genres some are harder to notice like Metallic Madness JP I would guess a little of house and drum and bass, but I'm not confident with that choice. Oh and Chaos Angel from Sonic Advanced 3, this one just I can't think of anything other than just something that would fit a scifi movie.
