ReMix:Final Fantasy VII "BadAzz" 5:25

Hot on the heels of 25YEARLEGEND, we're proud to announce the release of our 30th arrangement album, BadAss: Boss Themes!!

Check out the whole thing @ http://badass.ocremix.org, viddy the sinister trailer, grab & help seed the torrent, and as always, please help up spread the news! Director David L. Puga (The Joker) writes:

"BadAss. Hardcore. Asskickery, if you're dirty. These are the words I used when I officially announced BadAss back in March of 2009. The origins of BadAss begin a few years earlier. It was 2006, and a guy named Pi_R_[]ed decided he wanted to make a project that was nothing but boss themes... "Crescendo to Chaos" eventually went defunct. Where many saw a loss, I saw a glimmer of awesomeness. With the encouragement of Kyle Crouse (KyleJCrb) and the support of my assistant director, pu_freak, I re-launched the project with new guidelines: "Everything must be BadAss! Can you hear me, damn you?" The album needed to encapsulate the idea of Bosses by featuring dark, visceral, and aggressive tracks. The name was changed to BadAss for obvious reasons, and here we are today. I'd be remiss not to thank KyleJCrb, evktalo (Eino Keskitalo), and everyone else at the KNGI boards for all their contributions, so thank you guys! To every artist, ReMixer and graphic artist alike, I salute you! You all indeed are BadAsses."

Co-director Pieter van Os (pu_freak) adds:

"I became assistant director shortly after BadAss was started, and together we searched the planet for the most BadAss of artists to contribute. I have grown enormously in rearranging music since the end of Crescendo to Chaos. In that time, the entire project has become much more cohesive and professional. BadAss, as an album, is really something to be proud of. I think everyone with a taste for BadAss music will love the result of our effort!"

So there you have it - from the ashes of one project dating all the way back to 2006, BadAss has traveled a long temporal distance to get here, but it's picked up some great artists along the way. Of course, it bears mentioning that Heroes vs. Villains, released ALL THE WAY back in February of this year, had a similar but not identical concept, but the two albums are quite distinct and also developed on their own trajectories, both to worthwhile destinations. David & Pieter have focused not only specifically on boss themes & foregone any chivalry or do-goodery, but also on a generally rough, dark aesthetic that wouldn't have worked as well with tracks like the (amazing) 'Voodoo, Roots 'n Grog', for example - not a bad thing, just citing the differentiation. The album features faces both familiar & new, and also includes arrangements from some lesser-known soundtracks.

This isn't one of those.

When you think badass, and boss theme, at some point you probably think 'One-Winged Angel' - whether you've seen Tommy Tallarico gesticulate wildly on his guitar solo when the theme is played at Video Games Live or heard numerous renditions on individual mixes or albums, it's hard to miss. Gratuitous, shmatuitous, I say - I'm glad BadAss has another rendition of the venerable classic, and I'm glad it's from PrototypeRaptor. Jonathan writes:

"Here's a french-electro mix very much in the style of Justice/sebastiAn that I've finished up to commemorate the release of my first album (woo)! This is significantly edgier than anything I've submitted before - it's loud and proud, standing right at the front of the loudness wars armed with the BFG. or something like that.

In essence, I wanted to create a track that a DJ would throw down right before a VIP showed up - in this case, that VIP is Sephiroth. And he's not going to be walking in to no electro-pop sissy cloud stuff...he's going to hit the floor harder than a meteor. The track itself took several weeks to finish due to all the microediting that had to be done to make it sound "authentic" - nothing you hear is actually a direct output from a synth or drum machine, it's all been sampled, resampled, processed, and then processed again. and then probably resampled again. twice. Definitely fun to listen to, and the bass lines were especially interesting to finally put together from this crazy hodgepodge of single note wav files..."

Absolutely crazy... but completely worth it, for the end result. OWA calls for dramatic measures like these, lest one put forth something that is either too similar to an existing arrangement, or that fails to capture the quintessential malice & force of the source. PR's captured all the good bits but added a lil' smidge of funk to the ballgame - this Seph still hits hard, but isn't ALL about the evil, and takes the time to dance a bit. Good for him, says I. The Joker writes:

"With the exception of one letter, we present you our title track. I first heard this track on Soundcloud and instantly knew we needed it on the project. Raptor agreed, and so it was done. Some said "One-Winged Angel" was a track that was untouchable. Well, we touched it! Raptor gives it that high energy, dirty, gritty electro he's known for, and the end result speaks for itself."

It does indeed; enjoy it, and enjoy the rest of the all-villain lineup of malevolent mischief @ badass.ocremix.org!!