Why isn’t there a dubstep remix of the Fraggle Rock Theme?

I’m dis­ap­pointed in you, Inter­net. There’s dub­step remixes for prac­ti­cally every song in exis­tence except, evi­dently, the Frag­gle Rock Theme , for which my Google search turned up zero results.

The Wub Machine to the rescue:

The Wub Machine is a free app that lets you eas­ily cre­ate dub­step (or Elec­tro House or Drum & Bass) style remixes of any song just by drag­ging and drop­ping an MP3 into the interface.

It’s no Skrillex , but it gets the job done.

Fur­ther Listening:

• Pinky and The Brain Dub­step
• Tetris Dub­step
• Thriller Dub­step
• Mor­tal Kom­bat Dub­step
• Super Mario Dub­step

The ‘Game of Thrones’ Theme As Performed by Floppy Disk Drives

It was just a mat­ter of time before the Game of Thrones theme got the singing floppy disk drive treat­ment, which is a YouTube trend where groups of these oth­er­wise dis­pos­able old com­puter parts are painstak­ingly cal­i­brated to per­form famil­iar pieces of music, like ” Impe­r­ial March (of the Flop­pies) “ and ” Phan­tom of the Flop­pera .”

The Game of Thrones theme actu­ally sounds pretty damn good ren­dered as a series of elec­tronic burps and buzzes (even though I still main­tain it was made for metal ). Have a listen:

It was cre­ated by MrSolidSnake745 (clearly a video game fan) who has a whole series of singing floppy disk drive videos that are just as awe­some, so you should visit his chan­nel right now and check ‘em out!

He-Man, Skeletor & Friends Sing Bohemian Rhapsody

There’s been a lot of Bohemian Rhap­sody mashups on YouTube, but at least He-Man has the cor­rect hair for it. This clip really needs no other introduction.

Beautiful Bass Guitar Covers of ‘Gray Matter’ & ‘Gabriel Knight’ Themes

Music is one of the most mem­o­rable things about Jane Jensen’s dark and mys­te­ri­ous adven­ture games, espe­cially the music in Gray Mat­ter and Gabriel Knight . Both games’ musi­cal scores were com­posed by the extra­or­di­nar­ily tal­ented Robert Holmes, who also hap­pens to be Jane’s husband.

Cur­rently the pair are wrap­ping up the final three days of their Kick­Starter project for Pinker­ton Road –Jane Jensen’s new community-supported game stu­dio that will soon be bring­ing us the all new meta­phys­i­cal sci-fi adven­ture game thriller,  Moe­bius .

To help gen­er­ate extra buzz dur­ing these last few days of the cam­paign, Pinker­ton Road sup­porter Ale­jan­dro Tis­cor­nia , a very tal­ented musi­cian, released these sim­ply gor­geous bass gui­tar cov­ers of songs from Gray Mat­ter and Gabriel Knight .

Gray Mat­ter “David’s Theme”

An ethe­real, haunt­ingly beau­ti­ful ren­di­tion of “David’s Theme,” which can be heard dur­ing Gray Matter’s title screen as well as echoed as a recur­ring theme through­out the game:

Gabriel Knight “Lake Pontchartrain”

A groovy, edgy (and dare I say sexy?) ver­sion of “Lake Pontchar­train,” the theme you hear when Gabriel is inves­ti­gat­ing the crime scene around the lake of the same name:

Although the Pinker­ton Road Kick­Starter has already sur­passed its orig­i­nal $300,000 goal, Jane has promised some amaz­ing extras if pledges reach $400,000 and beyond:

• If we get to $400K: We’ll add a longer, fully cin­e­matic open­ing sequence / trailer that will blow you away and help us get peo­ple lin­ing up to buy the game, set­ting the tone for this new Pinker­ton Road series. PLUS Moe­bius on LINUX!
• If we get to $450K: All the above, plus an extra 1000 lines of dia­logue to flush out the game and we’ll record the main theme with a live orches­tra (Bob is drool­ing over that one).

If you’re a fan of Jane Jensen’s games, or a fan of clas­sic point-and-click adven­ture games in gen­eral and are hear­ing about this project for the first time, please con­sider pledg­ing ! For only $16 you’ll get a copy of what’s shap­ing up to be one of the best adven­ture games ever made.

The Skrillex Boardgame I Wish Was Real

I was just say­ing yes­ter­day how I’ve (mostly) been try­ing to ignore the dub­step ear rape more com­monly known as Skrillex and the peo­ple who crank that shit up to 11.

But that was before I dis­cov­ered the sick­ness that is  Ban­garang  which I’ve been lis­ten­ing to on repeat the past few days and no doubt have been annoy­ing the shit out of every­one around me.

Then today this hilar­i­ous video by Sal­ad­step arrives that com­pletely sums up my new­found feel­ings of affec­tion toward Skrillex:

Basi­cally, I’m the black guy. Oh how I wish that Skrillex but­ton really existed! I won­der if any­one has ever suc­cess­fully mod­ded a Taboo buzzer…

15 Dope Sega & Nintendo Rap Lyrics from Back in the Day

(By the way, are white girls allowed to say “dope”?)

Rap’s love affair with video games is noth­ing new . Rap­pers have been drop­ping video game ref­er­ences since back in the day, which for me began in the late ‘80s and lasted through 1999, the year I grad­u­ated high school. Dur­ing that time I was raised on a steady diet of Sega and Nin­tendo, and when my par­ents weren’t pay­ing atten­tion (which was often) I lis­tened to a whole hell of a lot of explicit rap and hip hop. (I think I turned out OK.)

Back then it wasn’t nearly as cool to be a “gamer” as it is today–especially if you were a girl. It was amaz­ing how quickly the pop­u­lar kids would scat­ter when you said things like “I’m really into RPGs.”  That’s why I always found it inter­est­ing (or per­haps it secretly made me feel a lit­tle cooler) when­ever I heard video game ref­er­ences pop up in my favorite rap and hip hop songs.

That was the era of Nin­tendo vs. Sega–much like the East Coast/West Coast feud –where kids had to choose their alliances care­fully. It’s no sur­prise, then, that Nin­tendo and Sega made fre­quent appear­ances in rap lyrics.  With­out them, rap­pers wouldn’t have any­thing cool to rhyme with “innu­endo” and “Schwarzenegger.”

Here are fif­teen of my favorite Nin­tendo and Sega lyrics from rap & hip hop songs back in the day:

Warn­ing — Most of these audio/MP3 clips are NSFW!

House of Pain “Jump Around”

Year: 1992
Album: House of Pain

This song, par­tic­u­larly this ver­sion of this song, never fails to get me up off my ass to dance like a total idiot while rap­ping along. And I nerd­crush a lit­tle every time Ever­last drops the Sega reference.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Sega/Nintendo Lyric:

I’m the cream of the crop, I rise to the top
I never eat a pig ’cause a pig is a cop
Or bet­ter yet a Ter­mi­na­tor, like Arnold Schwarzeneg­ger
Try’n to play me out like as if my name was Sega

Kool G Rap & DJ Polo “Bad to the Bone”

Year:  1990
Album:  Wanted: Dead or Alive

Man Schwarzeneg­ger was a pop­u­lar rap lyric. That, or House of Pain totally ripped off this rhyme.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Sega/Nintendo Lyric:

I run the game like Sega
Go to war like Nore­aga, hit like  Schwarzeneg­ger
Excitin’ when I’m fightin I’m fright­enin’
Stick chicks slick in quick like greased light­ning

K7 “Come Baby Come”

Year:  1993
Album:  Swing Batta Swing

This is one dirty, dirty song. And you know some­thing? It’s fuck­ing great. I don’t know what­ever hap­pened to K7, but before he faded into obscu­rity he at least gave the world one hell of a sex anthem–and a new pickup line for gamers everywhere.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Sega/Nintendo Lyric:

Come and get some of this
Don’t for­get the innu­endo
Play me like Nin­tendo
Never ever let go

Noto­ri­ous B.I.G. feat. 2Pac “Juicy”

Year: 1994
Album: Ready to Die

Big­gie had so much money he owned both sys­tems AND played them on a 50″ screen. Prob­a­bly pretty impres­sive for back then. Too bad he didn’t live long enough to see the next gen.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Sega/Nintendo Lyric:

Super Nin­tendo, Sega Gen­e­sis 
When I was dead broke, man I couldn’t pic­ture this 
50 inch screen, money green leather sofa 
Got two rides, a lim­ou­sine with a chauf­feur 

2Pac “Fake Ass Bitches”

Year: 1997
Album:   R U Still Down? (Remem­ber Me)

Find­ing this pic­ture of Tupac play­ing Sonic the Hedge­hog was worth the effort of this blog post alone.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Sega/Nintendo Lyric:

Fly how I fade her
Played her like a game of Sega
Fuckin’ with the player that done made her

Ras Kass & Coo­lio “Drama”

Year: 1996
Album: Soul on Ice

This song is already awe­some, but it’s made even more so because Ras Kass admits to lik­ing Sega CD . I keep telling peo­ple there was once a time when Sega CD was awe­some, but nobody believes me.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Sega/Nintendo Lyric:

On a three story house, drive a four door Ac
Favorite song of all time Mobb Deep’s “Hit it from the Back”
Then jet, I turn a bitch into my favorite
She know my name cause I got more game than Sega CD

Das EFX “Some­body Told Me”

Year: 1998
Album: Gen­er­a­tion EFX

From the group who gave us the sage advice “Chiggedy-check yo self before you wriggedy-wreck yo self.”

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Sega/Nintendo Lyric:

In the crib I bought the leather, plus a movie screen
So my team can play Sega 

Dr. Dre “Shit­tin on the World”

Year: 1996
Album: Dr. Dre Presents the Aftermath

Dr. Dre is totally an old school gamer. He doesn’t need no mutha­phukkin 32-bits.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Sega/Nintendo Lyric:

Eat me, freak me, take your hand and leave me
All I wanna say is I don’t really give a fuck
‘Cause most he be mega
Copped the PlaySta­tion but still play the Sega

Jer­maine Dupri “Get Your Shit Right”

Year: 1998
Album: Life in 1472

Or, the demise of Sega as told by rappers.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Sega/Nintendo Lyric:

Goin once, goin twice, every­day, livin nice
In the grey wit the ice, makin money rollin dice
Livin the life, that y’all dream of
Puttin niggaz outta busi­ness like Sony did to Sega

LL Cool J “Clap Your Hands”

Year: 1989
Album:  Walk­ing with a Panther

Or, the demise of Sega as PREDICTED by rappers.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Sega/Nintendo Lyric:

LL Cool J, and the J is for Jeremy
So BUFF ME, James Todd the earth­quaker
That’s right my brother, you’re goin out like Sega 

Method Man “Ele­ments”

Year: 1998
Album: Tical 2000: Judge­ment Day

Well that’s def­i­nitely an N64 ref­er­ence, but what Sega con­sole is Method Man refer­ring to? Sat­urn? Dream­cast? THIS IS IMPORTANT INFORMATION I NEED TO KNOW.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Sega/Nintendo Lyric:

Ya’ll broth­ers laugh now and cry later
I rap from Alpha to Omega, sixty four to Sega
Whoopin’ that ass, walk you dogs through the lookin’ glass
Been burnin’ MC’s since cookin’ class

Ice Cube “Fri­day”

Year: 1995
Album: Fri­day (Orig­i­nal Motion Pic­ture Sountrack)

Oh yeah–Super Nin­tendo also rhymes great with “smokin indo.” Leave it to Ice Cube. (Sadly I couldn’t get the explicit ver­sion for this MP3 snip­pet so you’ll have to make do with “like a Pinto.”)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Sega/Nintendo Lyric:

Smokin indo
Playin dat Super Nin­tendo
Hear a rat tat tat on my win­dow

DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince “Then She Bit Me”

Year: 1989
Album: And in This Corner…

Remem­ber when Will Smith made good music?

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Sega/Nintendo Lyric:

No, really I saw him. 
He was play­ing check­ers. 
No, Nin­tendo. 
Ok, I’m lying. 

Pub­lic Enemy “Bed­lam 13:13″

Year: 1994
Album: Muse Sick-n-Hour Mess Age

Hid­ing weed inside a Super Nin­tendo? GENIUS!

Sega/Nintendo Lyric:

Good e nuff to know no indo
Threw it out tha win­dow
Along wit tha Super Nin­tendo

Eazy-E “Sorry Louie”

Year:  1996
Album:  Str8 off tha Streetz of Mutha­phukkin Compton

I got noth­ing inter­est­ing to say about this lyric, so I’ll just leave you with a pub­lic ser­vice announce­ment in Eazy-E’s honor:

Wear con­doms, kids.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Sega/Nintendo Lyric:

I grabbed my bat and ran around the back yo
He’s at my win­dow, thinkin I’m playin Nin­tendo

Why I’m Sad Today: Beastie Boys Co-Founder Adam Yauch Dead at 48

via  Scoop.it — ShezCrafti

It’s a sad day for Beastie Boys fans.  Rolling Stone reports:

Adam Yauch, one-third of the pio­neer­ing hip-hop group the Beastie Boys, has died at the age of 48, Rolling Stone has learned. Yauch, also known as MCA, had been in treat­ment for can­cer since 2009. The rap­per was diag­nosed in 2009 after dis­cov­er­ing a tumor in his sali­vary gland.

Yauch sat out the Beastie Boys’ induc­tion to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April, and his treat­ments delayed the release of the group’s most recent album, Hot Sauce Com­mit­tee, Pt. 2. The Beastie Boys had not per­formed live since the sum­mer of 2009, and Yauch’s ill­ness pre­vented the group from appear­ing in music videos for Hot Sauce Com­mit­tee, Pt. 2.

Yauch co-founded the Beastie Boys with Mike “Mike D” Dia­mond and Adam “Ad-Rock” Horowitz in 1979. The band started off as a hard­core punk group, but soon began exper­i­ment­ing with hip-hop. The band broke big with their first proper album, Licensed to Ill, in 1986, and fur­ther albums Paul’s Bou­tique, Check Your Head and Ill Com­mu­ni­ca­tion cemented the band as a true super­star act.

In addi­tion to his career with the Beastie Boys, Yauch was heav­ily involved in the move­ment to free Tibet and co-organized the Tibetan Free­dom Con­certs of the late Nineties. In 2002, he launched the film pro­duc­tion com­pany Oscil­lo­scope Laboratories.

In case it’s not already obvi­ous, ShezCrafti is a nod to my favorite song by the Beastie Boys, a group that I’ve grown up lis­ten­ing to since Licensed to Ill arrived on the scene and blew my young, impres­sion­able mind.

The Beastie Boys have cranked out so much amaz­ing, rel­e­vant music over the years, much of which fea­tures promi­nently on the sound­track to my life experience.

Adam Yauch was an essen­tial part of the group that has con­tributed so much joy to people’s lives. He will be missed.

The ‘Game of Thrones’ Theme Was Made for Metal

I’m of the gen­eral opin­ion that heavy metal can improve most theme songs, but I’m absolutely con­vinced that the theme song from HBO’s  Game of Thrones was made for it.

YouTube user  331Erock , clearly a tal­ented gui­tarist (with awe­some hair by the way), has just proven it with his metal Game of Thrones cover:

I also highly rec­om­mend check­ing out the rest of 331Erock’s videos, which include metal cov­ers of the Skyrim music, the Dr. Who theme, and my per­sonal favorite–a metal cover of the clas­sic Teenage Mutant Ninja Tur­tles ‘80s toon theme song (with a Ninja Rap sur­prise inside!).

Downton Abbey vs. The X-Files Theme Music? Yes please.

If I never ran­domly lis­tened to the  Nerds on the Rocks pod­cast I may never have dis­cov­ered this bril­liant musi­cal mashup that com­bines Down­town Abbey with The X-Files,  two shows that have sur­pris­ingly com­pat­i­ble theme songs.

It was cre­ated by YouTube user Alt­Delete , who says he plans to make a longer ver­sion soon. That’s really my only complaint–it’s too short!

Have a listen:

Maybe in Sea­son 3 some­one from Down­ton will get abducted. Fin­gers crossed it’ll be Lady Mary.

Reggie Watts Re-Scores Fantasy Film ‘Legend’ and it’s Amazing

SXSW came and went last month, so I’m unfash­ion­ably late post­ing about this , but it is no less amazing:

For fans every­where, Reg­gie cre­ated an orig­i­nal sound­track for the Rid­ley Scott cult clas­sic “Leg­end,” now avail­able for free down­load. The 1:31 long sound­track was cre­ated on the fly by Reg­gie using his voice, loop­ing devices, three syn­the­siz­ers and var­i­ous effects to make a strangely beau­ti­ful and humor­ous orig­i­nal score as the film silently rolled at The Roxie dur­ing SF Sketch­fest. The sound­track made its world pre­miere at SXSW to a sold out house.

(via Brook­lyn Vegan )

For those unfa­mil­iar with Reg­gie Watts ’ work, I should prob­a­bly explain what this is all about.

Reg­gie is a come­dian, beat­boxer and live per­for­mance artist known for his incred­i­bly unique and unpre­dictable style. He makes songs up on the fly, and per­forms using only his own voice, occa­sional instru­ments, and a loop­ing machine. And yeah, he’s pretty weird. But awe­somely so!

His Leg­end score is meant to serve as replace­ment sound­track for the entire movie. That means turn­ing the sound all the way down (sorry Tan­ger­ine Dream –or Jerry Gold­smith , if you pre­fer the Director’s Cut) while you watch the film and lis­ten­ing to Reggie’s inter­pre­ta­tion instead.  And if you’ve never seen Leg­end , well then you should just be ashamed of yourself.

Reggie’s score is dark, syn­thy and a lit­tle crazy, but at other times beau­ti­ful and ethe­real. It’s actu­ally quite funny in a lot of parts as well as Watts lends his own voice to the char­ac­ters and makes up humor­ous dia­logue as he goes along. It really must be seen with the film to be appreciated.

All right, I’ll shut up now and let you get to the good part:

Down­load it Free!

You can down­load Reg­gie Watts’ entire Leg­end score for free right here –all you need is a valid email address. The MP3 down­load link will be emailed to you.

My Top 10 Favorite Nintendo Game Soundtracks

Some­one asked me on Twit­ter today what one of my favorite Nin­tendo game sound­tracks is. And true to form, I couldn’t really make up my mind. My favorite NES game sound­track?! You might as well ask me what my favorite episode of Dark Shad­ows is (Answer: all of them .)

Any­way, it got me think­ing. If some­one were about to cut my heart out with a spoon and I HAD to make a list of my all-time, absolute favorite NES sound­tracks, which games would make the cut?

It was a tough series of deci­sions, but here’s what I’m going with:

#10 — Batman

And “The Sound­track is Bet­ter than the Game Award” goes to… Bat­man. Not that Bat­man  was a ter­ri­ble game, though. It was actu­ally quite good for a NES game based on a pop­u­lar fran­chise (see also: #1 on this list), even if it was some­times frus­trat­ing as hell.

I never actu­ally owned Bat­man  until I was an adult and started col­lect­ing NES games, but when I was young there was a boy who lived a few doors down from me who had this game. We spent count­less hours in his base­ment play­ing this and Dr. Chaos  (which also has awe­some music ). That story didn’t really have a point, sorry.  So anway, yeah…  Bat­man . The music is really good.

#9 — Shadowgate

Ahhh good ‘ol  Shad­ow­gate , the first adven­ture game I ever played! This game is full of mem­o­rable music–dark, mys­te­ri­ous and dis­turb­ing music–but memorable.

Con­fes­sion time: When I was a lit­tle girl, Shad­ow­gate used to scare the hell out of me. Espe­cially when your last torch is burn­ing low and the “OH SHIT!” music starts play­ing. To be hon­est, Shadowgate’s music  still gives me the creeps a lit­tle bit. Espe­cially this theme , which is a piece of music I’ve heard more times than I care to admit.

#8 — Dragon Warrior

The music of Dragon War­rior is actu­ally pretty good, but any music gets annoy­ing after you’ve had to lis­ten to it a few thou­sand times–and if you played this game you undoubt­edly did. Once that repet­i­tive over­world theme bur­rows into your brain you might as well go kill your­self.  But the rest of the themes are really quite enjoy­able, espe­cially the Town music. Hast thou seen Nester?

#7 — Lit­tle Nemo: The Dream Master

Bet you didn’t expect to see this game on the list. You may not have even heard of it. Back when video rental stores were around,  Lit­tle Nemo: The Dream Mas­ter was one of my top Nin­tendo game rentals. It’s not the great­est game, but it’s super cute, fun to play and has really won­der­ful, whim­si­cal music.

#6 — Metroid

The Metroid music gets under your skin the moment you power on the Nin­tendo and hear those unmis­tak­able low-frequency tones that sound like a dis­tress sig­nal from deep space.  The entire game is full of weird, spacey music that really makes you feel iso­lated and uncomfortable–even more uncom­fort­able than when you found out you were play­ing as a girl the whole time.  It’s dark, deranged and com­pletely awesome.

#5 — Gauntlet

I don’t know what it is about Gaunt­let ‘s music that makes it so great, but man is it fuck­ing great. Maybe it’s the light clas­si­cal, faux-harpsichord ditty that’s starts off all prim and proper but out of nowhere goes totally fuck­ing bananas , laps­ing into an arpeg­gio of rapid fire bleeps and blips before com­pletely com­pos­ing itself and car­ry­ing on as if noth­ing ever hap­pened. It may be repet­i­tive, but it’s catchy as hell. Just ask MC Chris .

#4 — Blaster Master

Two facts:  1) Blaster Mas­ter is an amaz­ing NES game.  2) Blaster Mas­ter has truly awe­some music. It would have ranked higher on my list for just the music alone, but I have to fac­tor in things like nos­tal­gia and num­ber of times played (accord­ing to mean­ing­less rules I just made up), and the games in my Top 3 have this one beat–but not by much.

Every­thing about Blaster Mas­ter is cool, from its non­sen­si­cal premise (I lost my pet frog down a hole and now I’m dri­ving this badass tank around bat­tling mutants! LOLWUT?) to its curi­ous com­bi­na­tion of sidescrolling and top-down 2D action.  It is one of the most mem­o­rable gam­ing expe­ri­ences I’ve ever had on my NES and its music holds a spe­cial place in my heart.

#3 — The Leg­end of Zelda

It was unavoid­able. The Leg­end of Zelda’ s music, along­side that of Super Mario. Bros ., pretty much defines Nin­tendo to me, as I’m sure it does for every­one else. It’s an instantly rec­og­niz­able clas­sic and thus deserves a high spot on my list.  Just hear­ing the Hyrule over­world theme brings me back to child­hood and puts a huge smile on my face.  It’s also the great­est mobile ring­tone in the world, espe­cially when paired with the “Secret!” noise for incom­ing text messages.

It’s a secret to every­body.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

#2 — Mega Man 2

True story: I had a boyfriend once who was really obsessed with Mega Man 2 . Like, I mean really obsessed . He played it all the time and forced me to lis­ten to  enthu­si­as­ti­cally extolled the virtues of the game’s sound­track.  I remem­ber he was par­tic­u­larly fond of the Bub­ble Man theme, which still plays in my head when­ever I think of him.

The funny thing is, I actu­ally suck at Mega Man 2 . In fact I suck at most Mega Man games. With­out hav­ing wit­nessed said boyfriend beat the game over and over again, I might not have ever devel­oped the fond appre­ci­a­tion I have for the music of Mega Man 2 , which is really quite fantastic–even after it’s been drilled into your brain sev­eral hun­dred times.

#1 — Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

An odd choice? Per­haps; but I’ll attempt to explain. Aside from the fact that I was obsessed with all things Ninja Tur­tles as a kid (and still am), Teenage Mutant Ninja Tur­tles  on NES was one of those rare games based on pop­u­lar fran­chises that didn’t suck.  No, it wasn’t a GREAT game, but it was decent and the music kicks ass. It was also unrea­son­ably hard–as if the devel­op­ers were pur­pose­fully stick­ing it to all the crazed lit­tle kids who loved TMNT. “Haha you dumb shits will NEVER be able to beat this!” And to this day, I never have.*

So why does this game deserve the #1 spot? Because for me, Teenage Mutant Ninja Tur­tles (the NES game, not the actual Teenage Mutant Ninja Tur­tles) rep­re­sents the ultimate–but ulti­mately elusive–victory. It is the game I would play over and over and over again just try­ing not to get my ass kicked. And when you’ve played a Nin­tendo game that many times, the music does things to your head. And in my head ,  this game’s music plays relent­lessly on repeat, even today, over 20 years later.

*But I sure beat the shit out of Teenage Mutant Ninja Tur­tles II: The Arcade Game!

Extra Boss Stage!!!

Super Castl­e­va­nia IV

Yeah I know, this is tech­ni­cally cheat­ing because it’s a Super Nin­tendo game.  But the music of Super Castl­e­va­nia IV kicks so much ass, if I didn’t some­how include it I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.

Straight Outta Console: Nintendo-infused Nerdcore Hip Hop

Straight Outta Con­sole: The Nin­tendo Thumb Mix­tape is a fresh as hell nerd­core album by rap­per Heath McNease that sounds like what was born after your Nin­tendo banged a hip hop CD.

No, really–it does!  Have a listen:

“I did it all for Tanuki?” Come on now, that’s some clever shit.

Actu­ally, the whole album is full of nerd­tas­tic Nin­tendo word­play and McNease raps the hell out of it.  The rhymes come at you fast and furi­ous and are ridicu­lously smart and witty. What’s also strik­ing is how sur­pris­ingly clean they are–you know, for hip hop.  In fact I’m pretty sure there’s more pro­fan­ity in this para­graph than there is in the entire album.

And of course, because its nerd­core there’s plenty of gamer in-jokes ( Kon­ami Kode! ) and pop cul­ture ref­er­ences ( The Wiz­ard! ) lay­ered over those famil­iar 8-bit themes from your favorite Nin­tendo games ( Castl­e­va­nia! Mega Man! Paper­boy! ).

Among the 19 (yes, 19!) tight tracks you’ll hear:

• Sick hip hop beats by  For­Beat­sSake
• Sound bytes from the movie The Wiz­ard 
• Tur­tle Van Damme , a whole song ded­i­cated to Teenage Mutant Ninja Tur­tles com­plete with Ninja Rap sam­ples and nods to the ‘80s car­toon theme song
• Lots of famil­iar Nin­tendo sound effects

Though the album was released back in July of last year, it some­how man­aged to escape my ever expand­ing web of awe­some* ’till I ran­domly saw this post over at Ghetto Manga.

McNease is pretty fly for a white guy and clearly a gifted rap­per and lyri­cist.  I was sur­prised to learn from his bio page that he’s also an emphatic live per­former who does over 250 shows a year.

Besides rap, his eclec­tic back­ground includes musi­cal the­ater, improv, and folk music, which sounds like it would make for quite an enter­tain­ing evening. If he ever comes to my neck of the woods I’ll def­i­nitely be buy­ing tickets.

*Yes, I’m well aware of the fact that I overuse the word “awe­some.” I’ll try to work on that.

Who wants to hear Pinky and The Brain drop F-bombs?

Here’re  Pinky and The Brain  as you’ve never heard them before:

No, this isn’t a belated April Fool’s joke. This past week­end, supern­erd Chris Hard­wick hosted one of the best Nerdist pod­casts  ever because his guests were leg­endary voice actors Rob Paulsen and Mau­rice Lamarche–whom many of you will surely rec­og­nize from your child­hood as Pinky and The Brain. 

Between them,  Rob Paulsen and Mau­rice LaMarche  have lent their voice tal­ents and per­son­al­i­ties to hun­dreds of dif­fer­ent ani­mated char­ac­ters in movies, video games, com­mer­cials and TV shows, includ­ing Ani­ma­ni­acs (no shit), Teenage Mutant Ninja Tur­tles , The Simp­sons , Jus­tice League , and Futu­rama just to name a few . Chances are you’re already very famil­iar with both of their voices, even if you don’t know who they are by name.

Rob and Mau­rice are absolutely hys­ter­i­cal together in the pod­cast, and they play off each other so well. The impres­sions, jokes and improvs come at you like rapid fire. I found myself rewind­ing (is it still proper to say “rewind­ing”?) the audio just to keep up and catch all the funny shit they said.

And because this is a pod­cast on the inter­webz and not an actual kid’s show, Rob and Mau­rice are free to vio­late your favorite car­toon char­ac­ters with pro­fan­ity, sex jokes, and bath­room humor which they glee­fully deliver.

Here are some of my other favorite bits:

• Learn­ing that Jes­sica Simp­son is ready to “front poop” a baby out.
• Paulsen jok­ing about mas­tur­bat­ing while voic­ing Raphael on Teenage Mutant Ninja Tur­tles . (Really.)
• Har­wick puts Paulsen on the spot and asks if he can still remem­ber the Nations of the World song from Ani­ma­ni­acs . Not only does Paulsen remem­ber it, he SINGS THE ENTIRE FUCKING THING in char­ac­ter as Yakko.
• LaMarche doing Inspec­tor Gadget.
• Paulsen’s Mel Brooks story about how Mel Brooks is kind of a dick.
• LaMarche talk­ing about “fuck­ing people’s brains” with comedy.

Lis­ten to this god­damn pod­cast already.

Seri­ously, there is SO MUCH WIN in this pod­cast.   Click here to lis­ten to the whole thing. It’s kinda long, but I promise it’ll be one of the most fun times you ever have lis­ten­ing to a pod­cast! Your twelve year old self will thank you.

‘Adventures in Pixels’ is an Illustrated Album of Chiptunes Music

If you enjoy chip­tunes music–and ever spent hours on end crawl­ing dun­geons and slay­ing 8-bit dragons–then you’ll want to check out Adven­tures in Pix­els  by song­writer and musi­cian Ben Lan­dis .

It’s an album full of delight­ful chip­tunes accom­pa­nied by a comic of orig­i­nal art­work that illus­trates each song with added humor that only gamers can appreciate.

Here’s a sam­pling of just one of the 20 tracks:

With song titles like “Ter­ri­ble Taran­tu­loid” and “May­hem in the Vil­lage” , Adven­tures in Pix­els  harkens back to sim­pler times when we spent our days tra­vers­ing vast pixel maps and gain­ing XP one ran­domly gen­er­ated encounter at a time.

Many of the tracks sound like they could have come straight out of your favorite old school RPG.  For exam­ple, “Voices of Expe­ri­ence” is one of my favorites.  With its arrange­ment of  sooth­ing strings and whim­si­cal flute, the first half reminds me of the For­est music from Zelda: A Link to the Past .

Adven­tures in Pix­els is avail­able to down­load for free from Ben Lan­dis’ web­site through April 9.  If you enjoy Ben’s music and want to sup­port his work, you can also name your price to pur­chase the album.  The full album is also avail­able on Spotify.

The Cure’s ‘Just Like Heaven’ Meets Mario Paint

Feast your eyes and ears on this delight­ful ver­sion of The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” made with Mario Paint.

Yeah, I know there are tons of Mario Paint videos out there, but this is one of my favorite songs and I’m a lit­tle dis­ap­pointed that it has less than a thou­sand views.

It was cre­ated by YouTube user The­Bat­dorTrog­man  (awe­some name, btw) who says it took “over the course of about five days, on and off.” I think we can all agree it was a wor­thy and pro­duc­tive use of his time.

Want to make your own Mario Paint com­po­si­tion but don’t have a work­ing Super Nin­tendo lay­ing around? You can down­load this free Mario Paint Com­poser soft­ware by UnFun Games and cre­ate your 16-bit wave­form masterpiece.

Now will some­one please go and make me a Mario Paint ver­sion of “Push It” by Salt-n-Pepa?

Top 10 Gloriously Cheesy 80s Songs to Get You Motivated

It’s been a while since I’ve done a music post, and this is one of those fun top­ics that has been lurk­ing in my sub­con­scious for quite some time, because:

A)  I’m on a diet.
B)  I want to start to work out more.
C)  Lately I need some extra moti­va­tion to power through my workday.

My cri­te­ria for putting this list together was to skip the really obvi­ous choices (e.g. “Eye of the Tiger,” which is a song so ter­ri­ble that it’s become iron­i­cally cool to like it) and focus more on those under­rated or lesser-known 80’s gems you’re embar­rassed you actu­ally still enjoy lis­ten­ing to.

Time to put on your leg­warm­ers and come with me on a mag­i­cal jour­ney back to the 80’s where we’ll review ten of the most glo­ri­ously cheesy but damn moti­va­tional songs ever made.

#10 — “I Can Fly” by Rainey

Remem­ber when Sarah Jes­sica Parker was really hot? Before the huge wart on her chin was was all you can focus on when you look at her face?  Well that was back in 1985 when she starred oppo­site Lee Mont­gomery in the clas­sic teen dance flick  Girls Just Want to Have Fun  (which is sorely under­rated, in this 80s queen’s opinion).

One of the most essen­tial com­po­nents of any dance film worth its salt is “The Prac­tice Mon­tage” and the one in this film hap­pens to be excep­tion­ally great because  it’s set to “I Can Fly,” a dancey, upbeat leg warmer anthem by Rainey Haynes.

Lis­ten to the full track below and step into Jainey and Jeff’s world as they prac­tice for the big D-TV dance-off by doing The Lift—the sig­na­ture move that Dirty Danc­ing  totally stole a few years later.

Moti­va­tional Power Lyric:

Now I’m stronger than ever; I’m gonna reach for the sky!

Most Appro­pri­ate For:

•  Train­ing for your next Olympics.
• Over­com­ing your fear of flying.

#9 — “Far From Over” by Frank Stallone

Who likes to strut? Tony Manero. Who rocks a head band like it’s nobody busi­ness? Tony Manero.  Who doesn’t take any shit from any­body? Tony fuck­ing Manero.

In Stay­ing Alive , the 1983 sequel to Sat­ur­day Night Fever,  John Tra­volta returns as Tony Manero to do what Tony Manero does best: dance his sweet, everlov­ing ass off.  Frank Stallone’s disco-infused “Far From Over” per­fectly scores the inten­sity that defines Tony Manero’s strug­gle as a no-name dancer try­ing to make it on Broadway.

Watch out for the breath­tak­ing key­board solo at 2:35:

Moti­va­tional Power Lyric:

Back in the race, I’m movin’ in ’cause I am get­ting closer.

Most Appro­pri­ate For:

• Win­ning back your con­fi­dence after you get fired.
• Get­ting kicked out of your parent’s basement.

#8 — “Free” by Kenny Loggins

Also known as the Kenny Log­gins song that isn’t “Foot­loose” or “Dan­ger Zone.”

With tracks like “Hold­ing Out for a Hero” and “Let’s Hear it for The Boy,” 1984’s Foot­loose is already a gold­mine of moti­va­tional music, but “Free” is the stand­out track that cements Ren McCormack’s vic­tory over the small, God-fearing town of Elmore City, Oklahoma.

I mean, who in their right mind wouldn’t allow this?

It’s also the song that Kenny Log­gins made this delight­ful video for:

Who knew he was such a tremen­dous actor?

 Moti­va­tional Power Lyric:

Heaven helps the man who fights his fear.   Fuck­ing A, Kenny Log­gins. Fuck­ing A.

Most Appro­pri­ate For:

• Rid­ing your dirt bike through the mid­dle of town while high-fiving every per­son you pass.
• Telling your boss to go fuck himself/herself.

#7 — “I Still Believe” by Tim Cappello

If an oiled-up, well-muscled man play­ing the sax while sen­su­ally thrust­ing his pelvis doesn’t moti­vate you, I don’t know what will.

Dur­ing the con­cert scene in 1987’s The Lost Boys , Tim Cappello’s “I Still Believe” helped an infat­u­ated Michael work up the con­fi­dence he needed to chase after the beau­ti­ful but mys­te­ri­ous Star, as seen in the clip below:

But I much pre­fer  this re-edited con­cert scene  that reveals the true source of Michael’s infatuation.

Moti­va­tional Power Lyric:

I’ll march this road, I’ll climb this hill; upon my knees if I have to.

Most Appro­pri­ate For:

• Work­ing up the nerve to call the guy/girl you’ve been crush­ing on, or per­haps mak­ing a booty call to an ex.
• Pol­ish­ing your sax, if you know what I mean.

#4 — “St. Elmos Fire” by John Parr

St. Elmo’s Fire wasn’t just the quin­tes­sen­tial col­lege movie of the 1980’s, it was also the name of this incred­i­bly inspi­ra­tional rock power bal­lad by John Parr writ­ten for the film.

Moti­va­tional Power Lyric:

You know you can’t quit until it’s won
Sol­dier on
Only you can do what must be done

Most Appro­pri­ate For:

• Fig­ur­ing out your life after flunk­ing out of college.
• Yup­pie ver­sion: Fig­ur­ing out your life after not being accepted to an Ivy League school.
• That drunken moment right before you do some­thing incred­i­bly stupid.

#3 — “The Moment of Truth” by Survivor

As the end­ing song to 1984’s  Karate Kid , “The Moment of Truth” by Sur­vivor teaches us that you can do any­thing you set your mind to (espe­cially if Mr. Myi­agi is your bitch) and also that adding syn­the­siz­ers to rock songs is always a good idea.  Not quite on the same level as Joe Esposito’s “You’re The Best”  but it gets the job done.

Here’s some horribly-edited Karate Kid fan video so you can hear it in all its glory:

Moti­va­tional Power Lyric:

If you really believe you can make it, then the power is in your own hands.

Most Appro­pri­ate For:

• Cel­e­brat­ing your foot­ball team’s victories.
• Juic­ing up before the big game.

#2 — “Glo­ria” by Laura Branigan

If the lyrics don’t move you, the power vocals and those sweet, sweet synth beats will. “Glo­ria” is Laura Branigan’s pow­er­ful early 80’s opus that never fails to make me feel like I can go out into the world and grab it by the balls.  Sadly Brani­gan passed away in 2004, but her moti­va­tional musi­cal legacy lives on.

Watch Laura do her best impres­sion of a disco ball:

Moti­va­tional Power Lyric:

Glo­ria, you’re always on the run now
Run­ning after some­body, you gotta get him some­how.

Most Appro­pri­ate For:

• Sin­gle, unat­trac­tive women who con­stantly get rejected.
• Work­ing out with your Thigh-Master.

#1 — “Flashdance…What a Feel­ing” by Irene Cara

Is it bad form to use two songs from the Flash­dance sound­track in the same list? Oh what the hell, I don’t care.  It’s the song that prac­ti­cally defines the dance movie genre and, if you’re lucky, wins over stuffy, blasé judges.  You can’t do a list about moti­va­tional 80’s songs with­out includ­ing “Flashdance…What a Feel­ing” by Irene Cara, and that’s why it gets my #1 spot.

Watch Jen­nifer Beals dance her heart and soul out in the film’s ending:

Inter­est­ing fac­toid: The song was orig­i­nally intended for Joe Esposito.

Moti­va­tional Power Lyric:

Take your pas­sion and make it hap­pen.

Most Appro­pri­ate For:

• Get­ting ready for the big audition.
• Strip­pers with lofty aspirations.

FRACT is an Adventure Game Inspired By Synthesizers

Via Scoop.it — Shezcrafti

If there was ever a game con­sid­ered right up my alley, this might be it.  This awesome-looking game from indie devel­oper Phos­fiend Sys­tems fuses sweet synth music with clas­sic point-and-click style adven­ture gam­ing.  As if this didn’t already sound amaz­ing enough, lead devel­oper Richard Flana­gan describes it as “Rez meets TRON.”

FRACT is a first per­son adven­ture game for Win­dows & Mac much in the vein of the Myst titles, but with an elec­tro twist. Game­play boils down to three core activ­i­ties: Explore, Rebuild, Cre­ate. The player is let loose into an abstract world built on sound and struc­tures inspired by elec­tronic music. It’s left to the player to explore the envi­ron­ment to find clues to res­ur­rect and revive the long-forgotten machin­ery of this musi­cal world, in order to unlock its’ inner work­ings. Draw­ing inspi­ra­tion from Myst, Rez and Tron, the game is also influ­enced by graphic design, data visu­al­iza­tion, elec­tronic music and ana­log culture.

Via www.sonicstate.com

Check out this demo video:

The game is being fur­ther devel­oped for release some­time in 2012.  An older, playable pro­to­type of FRACT is avail­able for down­load for both Win and Mac; you can get it here .

5 Reasons to Ditch iTunes and Get Spotify Premium

Spo­tify is the wildly pop­u­lar music stream­ing ser­vice that took Europe by storm with its “any track, any time, any­where” con­cept, and just recently launched here in the States.  I was beyond thrilled when I heard Spo­tify was com­ing to the U.S. and even more so when the invite code showed up in my inbox (cur­rently the ser­vice is invite-only).  Spotify’s library cur­rently con­sists of 15 mil­lion tracks, and is grow­ing by approx­i­mately 10,000 tracks per day.

As a heavy con­sumer of dig­i­tal music who said “good­bye” to phys­i­cal media a long time ago, I’m always on the look­out for the best solu­tion to man­age and access my ever-growing music col­lec­tion.  Until I dis­cov­ered Spo­tify, iTunes was such a solu­tion for me (and I’m not even a Mac user).  Now, I real­ize com­par­ing Spo­tify to iTunes is rather like com­par­ing apples to oranges because iTunes is not a stream­ing music ser­vice, nor does iTunes only deliver music.  The two ser­vices can cer­tainly co-exist peace­fully as there is a strong demand for what both plat­forms do.  How­ever, for my needs and the way I con­sume music, I’ve decided that the bet­ter solu­tion is Spotify.

Here are five rea­sons why:

1. It’s Super Affordable

Spo­tify Pre­mium only costs $9.99/month and is essen­tially an all-access pass to all the music and fea­tures Spo­tify offers, with zero adver­tise­ments and streamed in pre­mium qual­ity.  If that still sounds too expen­sive, Spo­tify also has an Unlim­ited account for $4.99/month which gets you unlim­ited stream­ing music with no ads.  A basic Spo­tify account is 100% free, but you’ll be served both audio and ban­ner ads while using the ser­vice, plus the song library is lim­ited and you won’t have access to all the fea­tures that make Spo­tify so great, like mobile streaming.

Spo­tify Pre­mium is the only level of the ser­vice that really com­pares to iTunes, so that’s what I’m focus­ing on for the pur­pose of this blog post.  It boils down to this:  For $9.99/month you could have unlim­ited instant access to all of the music in Spotify’s library (as well as your own) from any­where, or, for the same amount, you could down­load 10 songs from iTunes to keep for good.

2. A Netflix-Like Expe­ri­ence for Music

Spotify’s inter­face is clean, sim­ple and fast —the ben­e­fit of a native appli­ca­tion ver­sus a web-based one.  The music tracks are pre­sented along­side album art, track infor­ma­tion, artist biogra­phies, a pop­u­lar­ity meter (based on num­ber of plays), and related artists.  Load­ing up a new song is as sim­ple as double-clicking on any track you see, and in my expe­ri­ence, it all hap­pens light­ning fast.  It’s easy to search for music by artist, song, or album name and sort the results by the same para­me­ters (as well as oth­ers).  The Related Artists fea­ture is a great dis­cov­ery tool that serves up music sim­i­lar to the artist you’re cur­rently viewing/listening to.  The over­all Spo­tify expe­ri­ence is stream­lined and incred­i­bly easy to use, mak­ing it a breeze to hop around from artist to artist, track to track and play any­thing you want on a whim.

3. Lis­ten From Anywhere

Lis­ten­ing on mul­ti­ple com­put­ers and devices is easy, as Spotify’s light­weight client is avail­able for Win­dows and Mac , with a Linux ver­sion in the works (cur­rently avail­able as a pre­view).  Spo­tify Pre­mium users gain access to the Spo­tify mobile app that’s avail­able for iPhone, Android, Win­dows phones, Palms, and Sym­bians.  There is no com­pli­cated sync­ing, import­ing, or other non­sense to deal with because all of the music lives within Spo­tify. It’s sim­ply there, ready to be played from any device.

4. Effort­lessly Man­age Your Per­sonal Music Library

If, like me, you have hun­dreds of gigs of music files liv­ing on your PC or an exter­nal hard­drive, Spo­tify can man­age and play them as part of your music library as well—all with­out any effort on your part.  Even with­out doing any­thing, Spo­tify auto­mat­i­cally finds music files on your PC and makes them avail­able in your library.  If you have an exter­nal har­rdrive or some other USB device, you can point Spo­tify to those sources to import your music files, which are inte­grated seam­lessly into Spo­tify and made avail­able for stream­ing (even while offline), search­ing, incor­po­rat­ing into your playlists, and social shar­ing.  You can even import your iTunes library.  Spo­tify is even nice enough to auto­mat­i­cally fill in any miss­ing music file info with Gra­cenote.  (By the way, Spo­tify imported my entire 150GB+ music col­lec­tion in about 2 min­utes flat, com­pared to the lit­er­ally HOURS of wait time I’ve expe­ri­enced with iTunes.)  In short, Spo­tify makes your entire music library—not just the Spo­tify library—easily acces­si­ble from anywhere.

5. Built-In Social Sharing

Unlike iTunes, Spo­tify doesn’t try to re-invent the wheel when it comes to socially shar­ing your music.  With built-in shar­ing fea­tures, you’ll never have to leave Spo­tify to tell your friends what you’re lis­ten­ing to.  Shar­ing your music is as easy as con­nect­ing your Face­book and Twit­ter accounts.  From then on, you can right-click on any track (or an entire playlist) within Spo­tify and choose “Share To…” for a sim­ple pop-up menu of options.  Are any of your friends using Spo­tify? Add them to your Peo­ple list and you’ll be able to see their pub­lished playlists, Top Artists, and Top Tracks (based on num­ber of plays).  You can even sub­scribe to other people’s playlists so you’ll always have access to their lat­est addi­tions and favorites.

Conclusion

If you’re mar­ried to the con­cept of own­ing your music out­right by indi­vid­u­ally pay­ing for every track you want to lis­ten to a la iTunes, Spo­tify prob­a­bly won’t be your cup of tea.  Spo­tify Pre­mium deliv­ers more of a Netflix-like expe­ri­ence where you’re essen­tially pay­ing a small monthly fee for unlim­ited access to mil­lions of songs, with the added ben­e­fit of being able to man­age your entire per­sonal music library and lis­ten to it from any­where.  As a ser­vice, Spo­tify doesn’t try to be all things to all peo­ple, but this is one of its strengths; for exam­ple, there are far bet­ter ser­vices out there for dis­cov­er­ing new music or noti­fy­ing you of new releases.  By focus­ing mainly on one thing and doing it really well—that is, giv­ing you fast, sim­ple, and afford­able access to as much music as possible—Spotify, quite frankly, kicks the asses of most other online music services.

Like 8-Bit Music? You’ll ♥ Leeni

She’s got two Game­boys and a microphone.

A girl after my own heart, Leeni is a 26-year old who spent much of her child­hood firmly planted in front of the Nin­tendo.  Influ­enced by 8-bit artists on MySpace as well as clas­sics like The Bea­t­les and Elias Smith, Leeni’s music is an enjoy­able  blend of the Gameboy’s famil­iar square synth sounds, her own voice and instru­men­ta­tion, and clever song­writ­ing.  With youth­ful, har­monic vocals lay­ered on top of those unmis­tak­able 8-bit bleeps and blops, Leeni’s music sounds rather like your Game­boy had a lovechild with that nerdy cho­rus girl you knew back in high school.

I dis­cov­ered Leeni’s music quite by acci­dent, brows­ing through ran­dom J-Pop selec­tions on Spo­tify, and some­how link-hopping my way to Leeni’s page via “Related Artists” links.  (By the way, if you’re not using Spo­tify yet, you’re miss­ing out on a truly amaz­ing music expe­ri­ence.   Per­haps I’ll write a sep­a­rate post about it soon. You can read my thoughts on Spo­tify here.)  “Head­phones On Your Heart” was the first track I lis­tened to, and imme­di­ately fell in love.

Have a listen:

Leeni already has two albums under her belt, each with a dis­tinct sound.  The first,  8 Bit Heart, is like an upbeat, happy-go-lucky romp through a bright, col­or­ful Nin­tendo game.  Her sec­ond album, Labyrinth is much darker and more down­tempo (think Super Mario Bros. under­world or Leg­end of Zelda dun­geon music) but still an enjoy­able listen.

Sure, there’s lots of other 8-bit artists out there, but Leeni has a unique musi­cal and lyri­cal style all her own. Most of the 8-bit music I’ve heard ranges from juve­nile to obnox­ious; fun but for­get­table retro-tunes that pan­der to your Nin­ten­dostal­gia. Leeni is dif­fer­ent and def­i­nitely worth a listen.