Welcome to GamesRadar's daily blast of all things pertaining to the ever-growing field of game music. Each post will introduce new sounds, games, composers and fan-made remixes of gaming's greatest aural achievements.
August 26, 2010
Game: Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!
Song: Training / Credits
Composers: Yukio Kaneoka, Akito Nakatsuka, Kenji Yamamoto
Above: You’re already humming it – now LISTEN!
That’s right, bitches! MIKE TYSON’S Punch-Out!! (
Above: Call it anything else and you’re simple lying to yourself
In addition to Tyson, no grating announcer voice, and fewer racially insensitive characters, here’s another thing the NES version had that the arcades didn’t: MOAR MUSIC! Most sports titles at that time have little more than an anthem and a couple of fanfare jingles. Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!, however, had full blown songsgood-God-damned great, not only wouldthey never be forgotten, even new gamers introduced to the jam years later cannot escape its charm.
Don’t believe me? Check this :45 second clip fromTalkRadar 113’s community segment, where we play your phone calls to the TalkRadar hotline LIVE on the show (CALL NOW! 1-877-404-1337 Ext. 327) What’s clearly a young listener, born loooong after 1987, calls in to find the name of a mysterious song he can’t seem to get out of his head. Oh, what could it be?!?!
Yes, our filthy, stupid podcast can take partial credit, as we play a shit ton of classic game music week in and week out. But more than a little credit also goes to Nintendo itself. I’ve heard several dozen remixes ofPunch-Out!! songs - be they fromprofessional musiciansor about *cough*stolen bikes - but none of them compare to the version Nintendo revamped for2009’s phenomenally overlooked Punch-Out!!
Above: Will make you want to run out and start a montage
That song invokes every bit of reverence and concentrated joy I get from the original and it’s recorded with the utmost competence thanks to what I’m guessing was a sizable budget. I couldn’t stop playing the Wii game’s music on our podcast, due mostly to the fact that each fighter has the tune wonderfully remixed to theirspecificethnicity.You can hear those and more Punch-Out!! SFX reverence inTalkRadar 52.
Try, byJoe Abbati
