28XA-135: The Konamic Game Freaks

[Carl]

Track 2 "Hot Rock" medley contains covers of famous songs by famous artists, but using chiptune renditions of course.

I've only identified a few, and wanted to see if anyone wants to help identify any more of them.

5:23~6:00 ? Petula Clark: A sign of the times ?
6:01~6:57 ??
7:07~7:32 ??
7:38~9:08 The Beatles: Twist and Shout
9:10~10:23 ??
10:25~10:44 Madonna: Like a Virgin
10:46~11:13 ??
11:17~11:53 ?? similar to The Supremes: Baby Love but faster
11:54~12:55 ??
12:57~13:11 Theme from ROCKY
13:12~13:21 ??
13:22~13:38 Bruce Springsteen: Born in the USA
13:39~13:51 The Star Spangled Banner

The original compositions are in the beginning of the medley, so I wonder which Kukeiha Club member wrote the tune for the "Egypt Underground" part, 1:10~2:10 as that's a brilliant piece of pop!!

[Revoc]

Actually, the famous songs are alternated with the original compositions. Thanks to two japanese websites, I could identify the famous tracks. The others are more bit difficult, though.

01 - Hot Rock
02 - Credit ~ Opening
03 - Egypt BGM
04 - Underground Egypt
05 - Magnificent Egypt: "Woman" by John Lennon (2:14~2:33)
06 - United Kingdom BGM
07 - Underground United Kingdom
08 - Greats United
09 - France BGM: "Tout tout pour ma chérie" by Michel Polnareff (5:24~6:01)
10 - Groundwater France
11 - Magnificent France: "La Marseillaise" (06:58~07:05)
12 - Enemy Boss 2
13 - Greece BGM: "Twist And Shout" by The Beatles (composed by Bert Ussel) (7:38~9:08)
14 - Underground Greece: "Rock Me Amadeus" by Falco (9:08~10~20)
15 - Magnificent Greece "Like a Virgin" by Madonna (composed by Tom Kelly) (10:25~10:44)
16 - Enemy Boss 1
17 - American BGM
18 - Underground America
19 - Greats USA 1: "Gonna Fly Now" by Bill Conti (12:57~13:11)
20 - Two American Greats
21 - Magnificent America 3: "Born In The USA" by Bruce Springsteen (13:22~13:38)
22 - American Greats 4: "The Star Spangled Banner" (13:39~13:51)
23 - Demo Clear BGM
24 - Ending
25 - Staff BGM

Source:
http://kosiro.hp.infoseek.co.jp/gmh/id6/6404.htm
http://www.happinet-p.com/jp2/info/r...ode=SCDC-00465

[Carl]

Good Info, thanks Revoc!

(and I totally forgot to look at the reprint for the breakdown, as I had even posted the tracklist for SCDC-00465 back in March, then forgot all about it that most of the info was right there... doh!)

[xanadujin]

Nice attention to detail here. I'll update the album info with this, since no one else seems to have done it yet.

- Justin Pfeiffer

[The Gambler]

is it me or all the releases have a somewhat different tracklist?

Original CD has ten tracks

'80s tape and vinyl have 8 tracks (they miss the Konami Morning Music and the MSX medley)

Scitron CD reprints have 9 tracks (missing WEC Le mans 24)?

[Carl]

Looking at the rear scans for all of them, you are indeed correct.
The reasons why would just be speculation though....

Perhaps the physical formats of the tape & vinyl format had a lower total running time compared to the CD format, forcing the cuts of those 2 segments.

Perhaps there was a rights ownership or licensing issue on the CD reprint which forced a cut of WEC Lemans 24.
And who knows what held up (and eventually cancelled) the first CD Reprint attempt, maybe it was this track which got cut in order to solve the problem...

[Gigablah]

The first reprint attempt was cancelled? I'll update SCDC-00064 to reflect that.

[Liontamer]

I believe it says Motoaki Furukawa composed the ending theme for King Kong 2 for the MSX, or at least that he thinks he may have. Dunno if that theme is on the album, but just FYI for anyone interested in clarifying this.
http://www.ga-core.net/special/sp002_1_1.php

[seanne]

Originally Posted by Liontamer

I believe it says Motoaki Furukawa composed the ending theme for King Kong 2 for the MSX, or at least that he thinks he may have. Dunno if that theme is on the album, but just FYI for anyone interested in clarifying this.
http://www.ga-core.net/special/sp002_1_1.php

A bit of a late answer but this album doesn't have the ending theme for King Kong 2: Yomigaeru Densetsu, instead it features the main theme which plays throughout most of the game and for which the composer is unknown.

In the same interview linked above Motoaki Furukawa also mentions being the arranger & recorder of the Castlevania track on this album.

鴫原：コナミに入社して最初の配属部署、および初めてのお仕事は何だったのか教えてください（作曲以外のお 仕事も含む）。

古川：最初、MSXパソコン用ソフトの作曲部担当となりました。最初の仕事は「コナミック・ゲーム・フリー クス」に収録された、「悪魔城ドラキュラ」のメドレーアレンジとレコーディングだったのではないかと思いま す。

[LuxKiller65]

Originally Posted by Carl

Perhaps there was a rights ownership or licensing issue on the CD reprint which forced a cut of WEC Lemans 24.
And who knows what held up (and eventually cancelled) the first CD Reprint attempt, maybe it was this track which got cut in order to solve the problem...

Any info why WEC Le Mans 24 was cut? Stolen melodies? It was sort of the main point of the disc for me, since the mini CD version is not common, and mini CDs don't fit in car-style CD players that suck up your disc.

What a shame. Reprint the album and cut 10 minutes, whole game gone out of the window.

Did they also cut out Hi no Tori? Just asking since they got rid of its screenshot at the back.
The notes will need to be improved with the games included

[mudkipNDS]

So I've been trying to track down which other tracks in Rock'n Rage are covers. The uploader on VGMRips who made the recent VGM pack was unable to find some of these. Even the tracklist on atwiki.jp is fairly incomplete!

A lot of tracklists for this game mention the Scorpions and Led Zeppelin, but not the actual song titles. I was able to find the Scorpions track along with another one, but I'd appreciate some help for Led Zeppelin and some of the remaining tracks as well.

• The Scorpions - Another Piece of Meat (Boss Enemy 2 - Tutankhamen, Enchantress, Monster Kids)
  This one was pretty easy to find, actually, thanks to a comment on a Japanese blog post. However, it's also listed on some other Japanese sites as well (here and here). The track is immediately distinguishable from the opening riff.
  
• ZZ Top - Stages (Stage 2-2A UK Underground)
  Now here's one track not many people noticed! I was able to find this thanks to a YouTube comment on a gameplay video. Comparing the melodies at 0:14 and 0:39 to the stage BGM, the two are too similar to each other to be a coincidence.

This only leaves the first boss theme (Boss Enemy 1), used for the sorceress and minotaur bosses. This apparently references Led Zeppelin, but I'm unfortunately not familiar enough with their catalog to know exactly which song.

Someone else also left a comment on another video and made the following claims:

• He says the BGM for Stage 6-1 used in the first part of the USA stage is ABBA's "Waterloo", but they don't really sound similar to me at all.
• For the first part of the Egypt stage, he says Stage 1-1 BGM is a mix of Judas Priest's "Green Manalishi" (originally by Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac) and Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman". I don't hear the first one at all, and the second one only sounds vaguely similar in the second half of the BGM, not enough to be a direct copy IMO.