bobandbill
one more time
- 16,920
- Posts
- 16
- Years
- Age 32
- A cape
- Seen today
Points for whoever gets the title of the blog. =p (Does anyone get them on that note? I've been told they've been weird, so I'm keeping them).
Two songs this time around, although one is just a redone version of the former; if anything, two songs in one. Redone with a million awesome vocals and a short but nice guitar solo in it to go with its interesting history as well. Which is especially impressive as the original song has no vocals!
But to begin, it's just a memorable video game tune... that is if you've played enough Megaman 2 anyways to get to the final set of stages.
Alternate link!
Ah, good old chiptunes. Megaman 2 was a rather successful game on the NES (considered the best in the series known for its difficulty and sales agree it seems) and is a platform shooter, and is filled with a lot of pretty good music. This one imo is a cut above the rest though, and judging by the views for that video alone it's quite popular to boot. It's known as Dr Wily's Castle/Dr Wily Stage 1/2.
One aspect that I like about it is that it has for a section of the song two different tunes going on at the same time. I imagine that would have been hard to pull off for the game's musician but he did a pretty good job on it. It also plays a lot with different octaves during the song. My favourite part is the last little segment though then there's added emphasis on two sets of four notes, personally.
Hell to play though for any musician I imagine. I took a look at sheet music a while back and you typically have 12 notes a bar for the left hand, and the same amount for the right hand typically as a minimum. And this is a fast paced song!
But then JAM Project came along. If you haven't heard of the group, it stands for 'Japan Animationsong Makers Project' and is a collection of vocal artists. And if ever you want to hear an upbeat/epic song and don't care much about not understanding the lyrics they're worth a listen (they do sometimes use English lyrics though).
I think the song cover speaks for itself.
Alternate link! (Who likes it with animated videos and spanish subtitles!?)
Lyrics (Japanese):
Lyrics (English, ie translation):
To be fair, the lyrics were not made by JAM Project, but it's a damn good cover. It was done a few years beforehand (link is to the original remix of the tune that spawned the 2nd video here) and titled 'Omoide wa Okkusenman', or '110 million/Countless Memories' with lyrics added later by another youtube user (last I checked nobody knows any sole/main song writer however). The general gist of the song is that the singer is reminiscing about their childhood and friends (complete with pretending to be Ultraman 7), and how that has changed now. Which is interesting when you think about it; a sad song reminiscing about childhood, which is done to the tune of a video game song.
And then the song became famous in Japan to the point of cult/meme status and popular professional bands producing covers that get hundreds of thousands of views with ease. Not bad for a song with no known writer for the lyrics and with (very strong) origins in NES game music!
As for this version of the song itself? Well, I sure like the use of different singers for different parts of the song including the higher octaves going to the female singers, etc. The chorus is pretty darn catchy too, and it even has a very nice bit of guitar solo at the end to lead up to the finish. I could listen to this for a good while, no doubt. =p
I promise the song next entry will have a longer solo to it though given the whole theme thing.
Next entry!
Two songs this time around, although one is just a redone version of the former; if anything, two songs in one. Redone with a million awesome vocals and a short but nice guitar solo in it to go with its interesting history as well. Which is especially impressive as the original song has no vocals!
But to begin, it's just a memorable video game tune... that is if you've played enough Megaman 2 anyways to get to the final set of stages.
Alternate link!
Ah, good old chiptunes. Megaman 2 was a rather successful game on the NES (considered the best in the series known for its difficulty and sales agree it seems) and is a platform shooter, and is filled with a lot of pretty good music. This one imo is a cut above the rest though, and judging by the views for that video alone it's quite popular to boot. It's known as Dr Wily's Castle/Dr Wily Stage 1/2.
One aspect that I like about it is that it has for a section of the song two different tunes going on at the same time. I imagine that would have been hard to pull off for the game's musician but he did a pretty good job on it. It also plays a lot with different octaves during the song. My favourite part is the last little segment though then there's added emphasis on two sets of four notes, personally.
Hell to play though for any musician I imagine. I took a look at sheet music a while back and you typically have 12 notes a bar for the left hand, and the same amount for the right hand typically as a minimum. And this is a fast paced song!
But then JAM Project came along. If you haven't heard of the group, it stands for 'Japan Animationsong Makers Project' and is a collection of vocal artists. And if ever you want to hear an upbeat/epic song and don't care much about not understanding the lyrics they're worth a listen (they do sometimes use English lyrics though).
I think the song cover speaks for itself.
Alternate link! (Who likes it with animated videos and spanish subtitles!?)
Lyrics (Japanese):
Spoiler:
Lyrics (English, ie translation):
Spoiler:
To be fair, the lyrics were not made by JAM Project, but it's a damn good cover. It was done a few years beforehand (link is to the original remix of the tune that spawned the 2nd video here) and titled 'Omoide wa Okkusenman', or '110 million/Countless Memories' with lyrics added later by another youtube user (last I checked nobody knows any sole/main song writer however). The general gist of the song is that the singer is reminiscing about their childhood and friends (complete with pretending to be Ultraman 7), and how that has changed now. Which is interesting when you think about it; a sad song reminiscing about childhood, which is done to the tune of a video game song.
And then the song became famous in Japan to the point of cult/meme status and popular professional bands producing covers that get hundreds of thousands of views with ease. Not bad for a song with no known writer for the lyrics and with (very strong) origins in NES game music!
As for this version of the song itself? Well, I sure like the use of different singers for different parts of the song including the higher octaves going to the female singers, etc. The chorus is pretty darn catchy too, and it even has a very nice bit of guitar solo at the end to lead up to the finish. I could listen to this for a good while, no doubt. =p
I promise the song next entry will have a longer solo to it though given the whole theme thing.
Next entry!
