Jul 8, 2018
Dance-y. Synth-y. This is what nostalgia sounds like. Anyone who grew up in the 1980s knows that there’s a great deal of that era’s music echoed in video games. This episode looks at one style of ’80s music in particular — italo disco — and how it overlaps with video game music. And no worries if you’ve never heard of italo disco, I’ll explain it. And if you don’t care? Well, I made it easy to skip my explanation and just get to the goods.
Track listing:
0:19: Disco Train / Donkey Kong
Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest / David Wise
4:10: Jimmy T’s Big Tipper / WareWare: Twisted! / Kenichi
Nishimaki, Masanobu Matsunaga and Yasuhisa Baba
7:17: Polaris / Cyber People
8:35: I Wanna Fly Away / Blue Russell
10:03: Love Spy / Mike Mareen
11:21: Track 1 / Top Gear / Barry Leitch
16:23: Basement Melodies / Haunted Castle / Kenichi Matsubara and
Masahiro Ikariko
19:38: Master of Water / Lagoon / Hideki Suzuki
23:29: Unbreakable Determination / Ninja Gaiden / Keiji Yamagishi
and Ryuichi Nitta
25:44: Duke / Battle Arena Toshinden / Yasuhiro Nakano
29:47: Special Levels / Batman (Genesis) / Naoki Kodaka
33:29: Trade / Romancing Saga 3 / Kenji Ito
36:42: Dynamite Plant ~ Try Again (Bean’s Theme) / Sonic the
Fighters / Maki Morrow and Takenobu Mitsuyoshi
40:44: BGM 1 / Shinobi (Arcade) / Yasuhiro Kawakami
41:53: Long Distance / The Revenge of Shinobi / Yuzo Koshiro
43:32: Idaten / Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master / Hirofumi
Murasaki, Morihiko Akiyama and Masayuki Nagao
46:35: Love Will Never Die / Twinkle Star Sprites / Takao
Oshima
50:02: Gorgonzola Goblins / Pocky & Rocky / Hiroyuki Iwatsuki
53:00: Under / Phantasy Star II / Tokuhiko Uwabo
55:31: DIsco / Shin Megami Tensei II / Tsukasa Masuko
58:34: Altered Beast / Altered Beast (Arcade) / Tohru
Nakabayashi
62:45: Levels 5 & 6 / Dance Aerobics / Unknown Composer
65:23: Theme of Adol / Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished / Yuzo Koshiro
68:18: Morrigan / Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo / Takayuki Iwai
(a.k.a. Anarchy Takapon)
70:05: 604800sec / Breath of Fire 3 / Yoshino Aoki and Akari
Kaida
72:20: Wario Dance Company (Wii Dance) / WarioWare: Smooth Moves /
Naoko Mitome, Masanobu Matsunaga and Yasuhisa Baba
74:40: Sentimental Solder / Valis II (PC-88) / Masahiro
Kajihara