Game music worth putting on your iPod

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Not all game music sucks. Check out these beauties

Hikari / Simple & Clean (Kingdom Hearts, 2002)
"Simple and clean is the way that you're making me feel" - a wonderfully innocent line from Utada Hikaru's introductory song from Kingdom Hearts on PS2. The song was originally called 'Hikari' on its Japanese release (and actually got to number one in the Japanese charts as a proper single), but the English language version fits the game perfectly on these shores. Musically, the up-tempo mix used in the game is a dance track with Chemical Bros-like synth swells, while the female vocals and compressed bass kicks work well in an All Saints' Black Coffee kind of way.

KingdomHearts_SimpleAndClean.mp3

But while that's definitely worthy of the list, during our research for this feature we stumbled upon a live version, sung in English at Hikaru's original intended tempo... and it's simply beautiful. The proof of a good song is that it works acoustically - and this, despite a few slight imperfections, struck us as being something rather special. Watch and enjoy.

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Justin Towell
Justin Towell
Freelance Writer

Justin was a GamesRadar+ staffer for 10 years but is now a freelance writer, musician and videographer. He's big on retro, Sega and racing games (especially retro Sega racing games) and currently also writes for Play Magazine, Traxion.gg, PC Gamer and TopTenReviews, as well as running his own YouTube channel. Having learned to love all platforms equally after Sega left the hardware industry (sniff), his favourite games include Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams, Zelda BotW, Sea of Thieves, Sega Rally Championship and Treasure Island Dizzy.