Orchestra Hit Techno Battle

"Change the scheme, alter the mood! Electrify the boys and girls, if you'd be so kind."

—Castor, TRON: Legacy

Rave music is generally regarded as background music to pop drugs to and dance. The songs are uplifting, entrancing and quite often promote the ideas of peace, love and happiness. People who enjoy House Music, Techno and Speedy Techno Remakes generally dance to it to get lost in the music, like a form of well deserved escapism from Real Life.

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But sometimes, said "Rave music" can go the other way, into the realm of aggression and rage. Mostly a trope confined to fiction, The Orchestra Hit Techno Battle is when high energy rave music is used as BGM for a Fight Scene or an epic battle, rather than a peaceful dance party.

Named for the orchestra hit synth that is frequently used in early 90's techno groups such as 2 Unlimited and of course The Immortals and their Mortal Kombat remix. The film adaption of Mortal Kombat is probably the most notable example of utilizing this trope as well as being the Trope Codifier.

In some cases, the song itself only has to be about fighting as in the case of the aforementioned Mortal Kombat remix.

Since the decline of rave culture, many of these songs such as 2 Unlimited's 'Get Ready For This' are frequently played at hockey games to amp the testosterone levels in the crowds Up to Eleven.

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May overlap with Ballroom Blitz if the battle actually is taking place at a dance club and the music is actually playing in universe.

In video games, this is a type of Battle Theme Music, mostly reserved for Boss Battles.

Examples:

Fan Works

• Many videos of MMORPG boss kills (most prevalent in regards to World of Warcraft) actually invoke this, by layering techno or electronic music on top of the boss battle footage. This video (the 25 man world first kill of Algalon the Observer, by the guild Ensidia) is one such example.

Film

• In the film adaption of Mortal Kombat, the track "Techno Syndrome" from The Immortals underscores the first phase of the final showdown between Liu Kang and Shang Tsung.
  • The fight scene between Liu Kang and Reptile features an instrumental remix of Traci Lords' 'Control.'
• A particularly brutal and gritty version exists in True Romance during the fight scene between Clarence and Drexl, Nymphomania's 'I Want Your Body' is playing in the background. The music in the scene is pretty loud, which almost drowns out Gary Oldman's dialog.
• TRON: Legacy had a cameo from Daft Punk as the dj's inside a virtual club while a Ballroom Blitz broke out, thanks to Clu's forces.
• The Terminator used an electronic soundtrack with synthesized orchestra hits for many of the chase scenes, notably the Tunnel Chase and Factory Chase. Long before the days of techno but the idea is the same. Arguably, movies like Terminator retroactively helped inspire techno's dystopian aesthetic to begin with.
• The Matrix series was fond of this, and would often mix pumping techno from Juno Reactor and others with more orchestral fare by Don Davis and crew.
• Scott Pilgrim vs. The World features a rave soundtrack during the fight with Roxxy. Understandable, since it takes place in a nightclub.
• The nihilists from The Big Lebowski actually brought a ghetto blaster playing techno music to a battle with the Dude and his posse.
• Pretty much the entirety of the soundtrack from The Raid is a pumping selection of breaks and dubstep.

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Music

• Reggae singer Frankie Paul's 'Worries In The Dance' invokes this trope.
• Surprisingly, Vanessa Mae, in a departure from her usual neoclassical techno-pop, covered Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" in this style in 1997, well after the use of of orchestra hit samples in techno had fallen out of favor.

Professional Wrestling

• WHAT DOES EVERYBODY WANT?! Unce Unce Unce Unce. WHAT DOES EVERYBODY NEED?!
• Too Cool was an interesting subverison. They would have a dance number to a techno / hip hop beat in a environment that is normally reserved for fighting and aggression.
• WWE has been using electro house inspired pop songs more and more with their P Pv's such as Wrestlemania.

Video Games

• Recca had techno music for the entire soundtrack. Note that Recca is a NES game...
• Bio Metal had "Get Ready For This" and "Twilight Zone" by 2 Unlimited for its boss music. Or at least in the US version.
• The Boss music from Plok.
• Seven Force's theme from Gunstar Heroes and Alien Soldier.
• Ridley's music from Super Metroid sounds similar to 'Twilight Zone' from 2 Unlimited, just in a different time signature. The arrangement used for Meta-Ridley in Metroid Prime fits this trope even better.
• A majority of Devil May Cry's soundtrack.
• Many tracks from the Streets of Rage series.
• Shudder, one of the boss themes from Einhänder.
• Galba-Roa's and Ernst's battle themes from Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim.
• In Arcana Heart's story mode, should you be defeated by Mildred Avalon's first form, her boss theme becomes one of these. It's much more intense than her normal battle theme, and because she starts with a full Super Meter when you lose the first round, it serves to underline how badly you're screwed.
• Mortal Kombat 3 notably uses this trope in the main title, Streets, and Belltower themes.
• Laguna's theme song in Final Fantasy VIII.
• Chaotic Dance from Baten Kaitos, The Dragon and the Quirky Mini Boss Squad's theme.
• Some of the boss battle music from both Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2, especially the music played during the final boss battle with Bowser at the end of the first game.
• When the battle really starts to heat up in the Half-Life series, expect it to be underscored by some beats! Even more notable in that the game has no BGM except for dramatic events.
• Space Channel 5 Part 2 has Desperate Dance Showdown for Dancing Purge's battle. It certainly fits the atmosphere of the battle at the time.
• Chapter 3 and the Final Boss battle in House of the Dead.
• Teased in Kingdom Hearts II and onwards with the high energy remix of Simple and Clean; it's in most of the games but despite fan outcry it has yet to be used as battle music.
  • "Another Side, Another Story" originally plays during a fight scene at Memory's Skyscraper. It's been used several times since as a battle theme.
• The TurboGrafx-16 CD arrangement of "Termination" from Ys II.
• Multiplayer in Bomberman 64.
• Subverted by Sensory Overload, which uses techno orchestra hits in the Game Over music, but not in any of the in-game themes, which have a more EBM-type sound.
• Pokémon Black and White use this during the battles with legendary Pokémon.
• Originating between the 80's and 90's, the Mega Man series always had this as part of its famous background music. Mega Man X even has the orchestral hit in many of its tunes.
• The Adventures of Batman and Robin for the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive ignores the whimsical, orchestral score of its source material for 90s acid house. The intro score is 9 minutes long!
• Tekken 1 has the Chicago and Stadium themes. The arcade soundtrack to Tekken 2 (not so much the arranged PlayStation soundtrack) has several examples as well, notably for Heihachi, Michelle Chang, Lei Wu-Long, and the Sub-Bosses.
• The Genesis game Combat Cars has a techno soundtrack, and the Character Select and Downtown themes are soundalikes of Haddaway's "What Is Love?" and 2 Unlimited's "Tribal Dance", respectively.
• The Contra series had this as far back as the second game, both versions of which used PCM orchestra hit samples. Contra Hard Corps exhibits this trope the most, notably in "Locked and Loaded", "Zephyr", the appropriately named "R.A.V.E.", "A Spirit of Bushi", "Format X", "The Dawn", and "The Hard Corps". Contra Shattered Soldier has a Nostalgia Level with a techno remix of the original game's Stage 1 theme, as well as techno battle themes for Yokozuna Jr., Jinmen-gyo, and Mr. Heli-Robo.
• The first two Syphon Filter games have many orchestral techno battle themes, notably Main Subway Line, Pharcom Expo Center,] Rhoemer's Military Base,Missile Silo, the second game's intro, United Pacific Train 101, C-130 Crash Site, Club 32 (bonus points for the mission being set in a dance club), Moscow Streets, Agency Biolab Escape, and New York Slums.
• WinBack has this during boss battles.
• In Bejeweled, the Time Trial mode invokes this with the techno track "Data Jack" by Skaven of the Future Crew. Likewise, Max Payne's Ragna Rock Club stage uses the break section of Skaven's "Corruptor".
• The Power Plant theme in One Must Fall 2097 sounds like a stereotypical 2 Unlimited track.
• GoldenEye (1997) has orchestra hit-based arrangements of the James Bond theme in a few levels, e.g. the Silo, Frigate, and Train.
• Action 52, released in 1991(predating Recca by a year), has the iconic and often-remixed Cheetahmen theme.
• In Super Mario RPG, the first phase of the fight against Smithy combines this with an Ominous Pipe Organ.
• Super Mario World's final battle theme, which was reused for Bowser's Castle in Super Mario Kart.
• Star Fox for the SNES has Corneria's stage theme. Considering the rest of the game (and series) tends to use Orchestral Bombing, it stands out.
• The Dance Dance Revolution series features this trope in many of its boss songs, notably the "PARANOiA" and "MAX" series.
• Impossamole, in its TurboGrafx-16 incarnation, has the chiptune equivalent of this in much of its background music, but oddly not the boss theme.
• Descent has this in Io Sulfur Mine from the DOS version, and Venus Atmospheric Lab from the Macintosh version.
• Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon has Combat II, an homage to the aforementioned Terminator Tunnel Chase theme.
• Undertale has Death By Glamour, Mettaton's battle theme.
• Double Dragon Neon uses this trope for the first fight with Skullmageddon, Mecha Biker, and the Giant Tank.
• Ikaruga, has the main theme "Ideal", which is remixed as "The Stone Like" for the Final Boss battle, the main boss theme "Butsutekkai", and the part of "Reality" heard during the Bullet Hell maelstrom in Chapter 4.
• The Metal Slug series has the Assault theme for the recurring boss Allen O'Neil, which sounds like a pastiche of "Techno Syndrome" and the Mission: Impossible theme. Notably, it was given a Drum and Bass arrangement in the seventh installment.
• In Duke Nukem 3D the Red Light District strip club music is a soundalike of the Mortal Kombat theme.

Web Original

• RWBY has Speedy Techno Remakes of the show's main themes playing during the fight in Junior's night club in the Yellow Trailer
• Future Crew's legendary Second Reality demo has this music style during the part scored by Purple Motion.