Awesome Music / Other Composers

Angelo Badalamenti

• Yes, THAT Angelo Badalamenti. He composed the soundtrack for Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy, and true to Badalamenti form it's one of the most haunting, nuanced, and emotional soundtracks of its generation (that being PS2/Xbox/GC). The "Action/Danger/Chase" theme that plays during Lucas' escape from the police on the streets of NYC, Lucas' apartment falling apart and attacking him, and his fights with the Oracle is one of the best examples, but it's often the music you don't consciously notice that has the greatest effect. Badalamenti KNOWS how to do subtle.

Barry Leitch

• Since some of his songs are already on other pages, let's go for something that even has Benzaie rockin' out. Yes, we're referring to Lotus Turbo Challenge 2. Watch VGMusicoftheday's video here for proof.
• Impossamole on the Amiga and TurboGrafx-16, particularly the latter.
• If you ever played Top Gear Rally on the Nintendo 64, you would know the entire game has a stunning soundtrack to listen to, regardless of whether you're playing on the NTSC or PAL/NTSCJ versions of the game. If you don't believe us, check this playlist of all the songs here to find out yourself.

Jonathan Dunn / Ocean

Jon Dunn was one of the in-house composers for Ocean Software, developers of an awful lot of awful licensed games. The interesting thing is, in spite of the quality of Ocean's actual games, Dunn's tunes were quite outstanding. For example...

• RoboCop (Game Boy and home computers). It sounds nothing like any theme heard in the movie. And it was licensed for use in a TV ad for home appliances, of all things.
• Jurassic Park (NES and Game Boy). Oddly enough, the overworld theme (2nd in the YouTube link) is an adaptation of Martin Galway's theme from Comic Bakery on C64. It's still a catchy arrangement.
  • Also, the SNES version. There are good songs, such as this one, also this one. And what about this one, too? Oh, man, the SNES version is filled with Awesome Music.
  • And meanwhile, in the waiting time, listen to these ones.
• The SNES soundtrack for the adaptation for The Shadow film released in 1994. A perfect mix of dark, suspenseful orchestral music and electronica. Real shame that the game was never released because it is one of the best Super Nintendo OSTs out there,
• Platoon (NES and home computers). So awesome, it was sampled by DJ Diplo in "Diplo Rhythm"
• The Flintstones (SNES). Based on the John Goodman-starring live-action movie. So, naturally, the soundtrack is chilled-out electronica.
• Hudson Hawk may have been a notoriously bad movie adapted into an obscurely mediocre NES game by an absolutely terrible developer... but it sure had some kickass tunes.

Alberto José González

Alberto González, a.k.a. "Joe McAlby", is a Spaniard who composed music for a good number of Infogrames' NES and Game Boy titles. They all have a distinctive demoscene quality to them; not surprising, as he actually composed the tunes using self-programmed software for the ZX Spectrum (see this interview). Highlights include:

• Bomb Jack for Game Boy. See also the in-game music. Those are the only two tunes in the game, but they're both epic.
• The Smurfs' Nightmare for Game Boy. Let's just put it this way: the entire playlist is worth listening to. (Incidentally, this game was also hacked into the bootleg Pokemon platformer Pocket Monsters Go Go Go, if it sounds vaguely familiar from somewhere.)
• While we're at it, the first Smurfs game also had some awesome music.
• Asterix for NES. The Rome level theme is particularly epic. (Alas, this one was never released in North America, and won't even run on an NTSC system. A shame, because the music is that awesome.)
• Asterix & Obelix for SNES. This was the only Super Nintendo game that Gonzalez had ever done, but it still has that "Gonzalez style" to it, with a more orchestral sound that makes it sound more varied and epic. (Like the NES game, this was only released in the PAL regions.) The Game Boy version of Asterix & Obelix, which has a completely different soundtrack, is great too.
• Looney Tunes Collector for Game Boy. The intro theme is particularly funky.
• Turok: Battle of the Bionosaurs for Game Boy, its two sequels, and to top it off, its Gaiden Game Turok: Rage Wars, whose most awesome tune is, alas, not on YouTube anymore.
• His rejected demo tracks for Wacky Races, which, despite using only 2 stereo tracks to accommodate the proposed engine sound effects, still sound amazing.

Yoshitaka Hirota

• The Shadow Hearts series has incredible music. It might be best described as the result of putting the emotive and situationally-iconic music of traditional JRPG soundtracks into a blender along with the hellish noise horror of Silent Hill, turning it to "Liquify," and pushing the "On" button. Examples: one of many versions of Icaro, very much The Fate, Hardcore to the Brain (boss music!), Alice (you'll especially think so after playing Shadow Hearts: Covenant), and so much more.
  • Ladder to Heaven.
    • Imbroglio.
  • Final Battle (Lady Tears II) is nothing short of brilliant.
  • From the New World gives us Sabbath Demon Banquet

Chris Huelsbeck

• Of course, this list isn't complete without the music to the awesome Turrican trilogy on the Commodore 64 and Amiga, including Mega Turrican for the Mega Drive.
• The Great Giana Sisters has the intro theme and the title theme.
• Oxxonian's title theme is quite catchy.
• R-Type's received some impressive music when it got ported to the Commodore 64. Most of the tracks used only two of the three SID chip channels, the remaining channel used for sound effects.
• Rogue Squadron's Rogue Theme, which is now iconic to the series, as it reappears in each installment: Rogue Squadron, Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike.
• The background score Chris composed for Tunnel B1 is surprisingly memorable and catchy.
• Huelsbeck was given an entire concert dedicated to his music. It sold out in six days.
• More recently, Huelsbeck launched a Kickstarter project for a remix album of his Turrican tunes. He needed to raise $75000 for it to happen. He made it in two weeks, and as of the end of the fundraising has double that amount. Not bad for game music that is two decades old!
• The demo track "Shades", which also has an awesome remix by Mind.in.a.Box.

Kenji Ito

• Kenji Ito, one of the composers for Super Smash Bros. Brawl (he only did three songs), created some pretty badass tunes for a few lost gems of video games past. Check out the music in these videos.

Hideki Naganuma

• Hideki Naganuma deserves some more attention as the chief musician for both Jet Set Radio games. Start your education with the original's title theme, the pulse-pounding "Sneakman", the almost-rock Rock it On, and "Grace and Glory", which manages to mix Ominous Latin Chanting and technorap. Successfully.
• Many people feel that Let Mom Sleep is Hideki Naganuma's best song. Some prefer the remix.
  • Also...
    UNDERSTAND, UNDERSTAND! UNDERSTAND, UNDERSTAND!
    UNDERSTAND, UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF LOVE!
  • And Funky Dealer.
• Have some Jeh Jeh Rocket, some Vela Nova, and exactly What U Need. Then from Ollie King, we have Boarder 70, Funk to the Top, Brother Goes Away, my personal favorite Let it Go, and... You know what? Just type "Hideki Naganuma" into youtube. Or any of the three games mentioned here. You won't go wrong.
• He also did the Smooth Sherbet theme from Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz.
• ROCKIN COMMANDER, VENDOR POP, and SOLIDNESS almost feel out of place in Super Monkey Ball's cheery atmosphere.

Masafumi Takada

• God Hand, Killer7, and No More Heroes have already been mentioned, but most of Masafumi Takada's back catalog belongs here.
• Vanquish, in which he collaborated with Erina Niwa.

Tim Wright (a.k.a. CoLD SToRAGE)

• Tim has made impressive contributions in terms of video game compositions, but his best work can be heard throughout the entire Wipeout franchise, from its earliest game on the PS1 to the current titles on PS3 and PSP.
  • Some examples include Messij, Onyx and Doh-t.
• He also wrote the original tunes— and arranged the ones that weren't— in Lemmings.
• The music from Leander for Amiga was also written by him— with the exception of the title theme, which was Matt Simmonds' work. Matt Furniss then covered these tunes excellently on the Mega Drive under the title Galahad.
• The title theme from Psygnosis' Agony.
• The main theme of Psygnosis/Reflections' appropriately titled Awesome, part of which was used in the Lemmings tribute level "What an AWESOME level".

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