Songs from video games that sound like "real" songs, or vice-versa

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Every time I hear Faith No More's "RV" off of Angel Dust, I always think, JESUS, this sounds like the water levels of Super Mario Brothers! Also, I think "Da Mystery of Chessboxin" by Wu-Tang Clan also reminds me of said theme. What else? Covers don't count.

― King Kobra (King Kobra), Thursday, 12 June 2003 18:31 (twenty years ago) link

Mu-ziq's Royal Astronomy sounds like video-game music.

― jaymc (jaymc), Thursday, 12 June 2003 18:38 (twenty years ago) link

I was at someone's apartment and they put on a record by Jean-Luc Ponty. It sounded a lot like the music from Gradius III, an early SNES game. When I commented on it, I think he took it as an insult.

A whooooole lot of Neptunes productions, and a few recent Just Blaze tracks sound like the music from Sim City and Pilotwings, also early SNES titles. See: "Tape You" by NERD and "Alright" by Freeway.

A lot of Hieroglyphics production (Domino and Del, specifically) sounds like it was lifted directly from a Sega Genesis game. Examples: The entirety of Del's Both Sides of The Brain and a number of tracks off Trilogy by Souls of Mischeif

― Bobby D Gray (bedhead), Thursday, 12 June 2003 18:41 (twenty years ago) link

search Pluxus (anything really)
and the residents have a song on a final fantasy game i think..

― thomas de'aguirre (biteylove), Thursday, 12 June 2003 18:54 (twenty years ago) link

There's an Eno-ish track on the Royksopp record ("In Space," maybe?) that bears an uncanny resemblance to the music from Zora's fountain on Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It goes both ways, actually: neither one sounds particularly "like" or "unlike" a video game, they just dovetail.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 12 June 2003 19:06 (twenty years ago) link

u-ziq's Royal Astronomy sounds like video-game music.

No, I meant literally that a video game song and a "real" song sound similar, not that some electronic artist's latest album sounds like video game music. For example: Someone might say, "the music from Adventures of Lolo sounds like "Outlaw Scumfuc" by GG Allin."

See what I'm getting at?

― King Kobra (King Kobra), Thursday, 12 June 2003 20:16 (twenty years ago) link

When I play a prog album to a non-initiate, they often comment
that it sounds like early game music - because of that bleepy,
bloopy vintage synth sound, no matter how disparate the actual
music is.

― squirl plise, Thursday, 12 June 2003 21:48 (twenty years ago) link

Richard Joseph was a legendary composer of music for 16-bit computer games, adapting Bomb The Bass 'Megablast' for the shoot 'em up 'Xenon 2' and the theme from Robocop he integrated elements of rather charmingly into James Pond 2: Robocod...continued this trend with Betty Boo's 'Doin The Do' used as theme for obscure platform game Magic Pockets and also had his own band Nation 12 whose track 'Into The Wonderful' was used as the theme for Gods - all these games were created by maverick outfit the Bitmap Brothers and i remember it seeming like a fairly big deal at the time that there was this connection being drafted between pop/dance music and computer games of the late 80s/early 90s. of course soon after you electronic artists contributing material to game soundtracks like Wipeout and Tekken. not quite the same thing but worth mentioning.

― stevem (blueski), Thursday, 12 June 2003 22:33 (twenty years ago) link

i was also really impressed by Chris Huelsbeck's music for the Turrican games (esp. on the Amiga), really nicely arranged stuff that seemed far more sophisticated than anything else around at that time - tho of course nothing quite beats the cute little ditties of the likes of Super Mario Bros and Sonic The Hedgehog.

― stevem (blueski), Thursday, 12 June 2003 22:35 (twenty years ago) link

The Minibosses, a novelty rock group from Phoenix, Arizona, do a bitchin' Mega Man 2 medley.

― Famous Athlete, Thursday, 12 June 2003 22:55 (twenty years ago) link

the new mmmfan316 record was entirely composed on a gameboy, it's pretty great actually as good as i hoped the printed circuit album woudld have been.

― keith (keithmcl), Thursday, 12 June 2003 23:38 (twenty years ago) link

I guess with a couple exceptions, no one here actually read my posts. There were two criteria:

1) No covers
2) Two songs have to sound alike, not that a song sounds kind of like a general video game soundtrack.

Almost everything here is disqualified. :(

― King Kobra (King Kobra), Friday, 13 June 2003 00:21 (twenty years ago) link

There's a song off Fugazi's "The Argument" that sounds like one of the themes to the first N64 Zelda game.

― mei (mei), Friday, 13 June 2003 05:37 (twenty years ago) link

hey keith are you confusing the mmfan316 album with the 6955 album? or were they both made that way?

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Friday, 13 June 2003 05:43 (twenty years ago) link

Every time I hear Faith No More's "RV" off of Angel Dust, I always think, JESUS, this sounds like the water levels of Super Mario Brothers!

Pro'lly not a coincidence, since Mr. Bungle (we're talking EARLY early Bungle) covered the Super Mario Bros. theme songs.

― donut bitch (donut), Friday, 13 June 2003 05:53 (twenty years ago) link

his own band Nation 12 whose track 'Into The Wonderful' was used as the theme for Gods

Off-topic, it seems (sorry), but YES! Yessss. Classic. (Will play in winamp once unzipped, though xmplay does it better and the stereo will sound weird)

Carry on.

― Frazer, Friday, 13 June 2003 10:00 (twenty years ago) link

"Goal Scoring Superstar Hero" from Sensible Word of Soccer sounds like any 1994 post-aceeed house music. The vocals on it are terrible, though, possibly because they have to relate to the joys of playing as a second division Venezuelan football team, rather than the carte blance most lyricists have.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 13 June 2003 10:36 (twenty years ago) link

I've said before that the opening music to Marble Madness sounds like the very last part of the opening movement of Debussy's La Mer. Also the music for Level 1 of The Adventures of Dino Riki uses a chord progression very like that of "Solar" by Miles Davis.

― Phil (phil), Friday, 13 June 2003 16:22 (twenty years ago) link

Actually, it's more like a cross between "Tune Up" and "Solar", i.e. never mind...

― Phil (phil), Friday, 13 June 2003 16:23 (twenty years ago) link

There was a piece of segue rock music on NHL 98 (EA Sports...) that sounded JUST like an Aerosmith song.

― jm (jtm), Friday, 13 June 2003 16:30 (twenty years ago) link

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the opening to the theme from the C64 game Deep Strike (written by Rob Hubbard) sounds very similar to Jay-Z's "Big Pimpin'", and the opening to the theme from the C64 game Sanxion (also written by RH) sounds almost exactly like that weird, pulsating opening to the Sweet's "Fox on the Run" !

― King Kobra (King Kobra), Saturday, 14 June 2003 14:41 (twenty years ago) link

On Sonic The Hedgehog 2 on the Sega Master System and Game Gear, the boss on level 1 act 3 (a sort of lobster and balls bouncing around) the music sounds just like "Cubik" by 808 State.

― dog latin (dog latin), Saturday, 14 June 2003 14:45 (twenty years ago) link

Wiley & UKG to thread

― ss, Saturday, 14 June 2003 14:46 (twenty years ago) link

Also I found this really cool thing on slsk called Nullsleep 'The Gameboy Singles'... 7 songs made on what I assume is a Gameboy sound card. Does anyone know of any other music made on console soundcards?

― ss, Saturday, 14 June 2003 15:13 (twenty years ago) link

Nintendo Teenage Robots on DHR. Don't buy it though, it's not very good.

― dog latin (dog latin), Saturday, 14 June 2003 15:37 (twenty years ago) link

three years pass...

Richard Joseph, composer of the theme music to Sensible Soccer, Cannon Fodder, Magic Pockets and Mega-lo-Mania, http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=73696.

― James Mitchell, Monday, 5 March 2007 20:46 (seventeen years ago) link

Gah. Damn my hyperlink: http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=73696

― James Mitchell, Monday, 5 March 2007 20:47 (seventeen years ago) link

Kometenmelodie #2 on "Autobahn" sounds a lot like something that might have been on some early C-64 computer game 10 years later.

Also, the arpeggio chords at the beginning of Orbital's "Out There Somewhere" are very much remiscent of C-64 game music by Rob Hubbard, Ben Daglish, Martin Galway etc.

― Geir Hongro, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 14:24 (seventeen years ago) link

Parts of Driven by Estroe and Drachma by Metope Make me think of playing Sonic.

― mehlt, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 01:23 (seventeen years ago) link

there's a part in the Guardia Castle music in Chrono Trigger that is basically Percy Faith's "Theme From A Summer Place" in 4/4

― Curt1s Stephens, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 01:28 (seventeen years ago) link

"Ace Reject" by the Sugababes has a very video-game sound to it that I just can't place.

― musically, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 01:37 (seventeen years ago) link

I don't know what level or where it was from, but there was one track I heard off the donkey kong soundtrack (why i was listening to it, I don't know) called funy's fugue that was pure acid house, if I remember correctly.

Aparrently Rare, the company behind it, was based in manchester, in the early 90's nonetheless, so it makes perfect sense.

― mehlt, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 02:35 (seventeen years ago) link

the music from all the Donkey Kong Countries is awesome.

― Curt1s Stephens, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 02:39 (seventeen years ago) link

eleven years pass...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXI-_An3yFM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35M7xhA-oVo

― ufo, Friday, 20 July 2018 03:25 (five years ago) link

three years pass...

Let's consider these.

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 18 November 2021 02:06 (two years ago) link

In answer to the original question, Parappa the Rapper's driving test rap takes a riff from Can's 'Turtles Have Short Legs'.

― emil.y, Thursday, 18 November 2021 02:42 (two years ago) link

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