Score 100 G's Every Time I Play Atari

When I was dead broke, man I couldn't picture this

Burning Rangers: I Just Smile (English version) ft. Pamela Driggs
from Burning Rangers OST (Marvelous Entertainment 1998)

Yukari Fresh: Chant This Charm (Theme of Giant Egg)
from Music Popped Out Of the Egg - Giant Egg OST (Wave Master 2003)

Masaya Matsuura: Funny Love
from PaRappa The Rapper OST (Sony Music 1996)


I've been a video game fanatic for as long as I can remember, well actually since about 1979 when the Atari 2600 came into the Filthy Choice household (back when it still had the woodgrain face panel) and through all the different iterations of video game systems, I've pretty much let the damn things take up way too much of my time. The sad thing is that for the most part, the games tend to be frivolous, trite and a mind numbing lesson in rote memorization and yet I still find them appealing, which is either indicative of how empty and dull my life is or how cunningly designed and marketed games and the game industry has become. But this isn't about all that, rather it's about Video Game music and in particular about the three tracks provided for this post.

The first song is from Burning Rangers, a game that didn't get much attention when it came out because it was released about the same time that the console it appeared on was dying out. Sung by Pamela Driggs, a Jazz and Boss Nova vocalist, the song has a light, airy almost ephemeral feeling to it and like the game it appeared on it fades quickly from memory if not listened to enough and yet despite this non-praise I find myself often listening to this song and enjoying it because of all the aforementioned traits. Her voice, singing what is an obviously mangled engrish translation of the original lyrics, fits the tune nicely with it's jazz inclinations and laid back instrumentation.

The second tune, Chant This Charm is typical J-pop fluff but distinguishes itself because of the hilarious chorus, where the singer warbles the lines "coo-coo, coo-coo doodle doo/ chant this charm you'll feel so good." Unfortunately this song is so grippingly saccharine that if your not careful it lodges in your head and sits there like a thick chunk of caramel lodged in between your teeth. The song, as sung by Japanese artists Yukari Fresh is fun, lighthearted and vacuous and has perplexing lyrics that matches an even more perplexing premise of a game.

The third song is from the game Parappa The Rapper and is sung so horribly that it could easily be mistaken for an American Idol audition reel. Funny Love was not included in the game as far as I know, and it's easy to hear why. The singer strains his voice so hard to reach a range that it has no right going to, that you can't help but wince at his attempts to hit the high notes. Why include it in this post you might be asking? Honestly I don't know, I just happen to enjoy it's melody and the game it comes from.

In the end, the selections I chose are not indicative of the quality of Video Game Music. It actually does the genre an egregious injustice because there have been some very good musical pieces created by Video Game composers, but ultimately, the bad ones are so much more entertaining. To prove it, just listen to the song The Jet Baby. It doesn't get better than that.