ReMix:Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors' Dreams "Street Fighter or Streetest Fighter?" 5:11

Good mix title... or best mix title? I hope you're ready for a beating... Once upon a time, in a thinly-veiled effort to poke fun at those SNK Art of Fighting guys, Capcom created Dan Hibiki. And they saw that it was good. Nicholas "BONKERS" Perry hits us up with some much-needed Street Fighter Alpha love, giving the pink wonder some TLC (sounds SO wrong) with this crunked out rock/funk take on his theme:

"Before making this, I had never heard a Dan ReMix. And then I discovered there were a bunch (like Joshua Morse's). I WAS SAD YO. BUT FEAR NOT. I only listened to the original CPS2 version and the CPS1 conversion of the music for inspiration! I wanted to express how funny, loveable, sometimes serious, and how passionate Dan can be in one song while retaining the original funky fast paced style of the original tune! Basically: his personality. Maybe I achieved that! Maybe I didn't. But I sure as hell tried!

I took a different approach to this song in general, as you will hear. It's a lot more like your average song in terms of repetition. I literally had to restrain myself from wanting to completely make every section different rather than use repetition in moderation for the listener's sake. I've made the discovery over the last year that my urge to not be reptetitive when I make songs is due to the fact that I spent tens to hundreds of hours working on a single song and thus I get all that repetition already from working on it. It's a terrible disconnect between creation and listening that I'm definitely going to try and keep in mind in the future.

That said, I did try to mix things up and put different focus or do things a little bit differently when stuff repeats. Like when the chorus with the solo, the original accomp lines were interesting sure. But I took them and completely rewrote 99% of it for existing instruments in my version to be more realistic, or more dynamic in performance. Or maybe to just give it more life! So much so that to me they stand out on their own fairly well. Which is why in the second chorus, I gave focus to the mallets, hammond, beat/drums and bass. I also wrote an entirely new section to help try and convey the dynamics of Dan's personality. I hope everyone likes it!"

I love how Nick's own words are every bit as enthusiastic & passionate as the very persona he is trying to musically evoke. I'm not 100% sure I agree that trying too hard NOT to be repetitive is the WORST thing in the world, but I get what he's trying to say about overthinking things and getting too close/familiar with the music. I really dig that he was able to retain so much of the original smooth swagger & mallet grooviness in this decided more aggressive, almost RHCP-style setting... and of course glad that ANYONE is mixing ANYTHING from the Alpha/Zero trinity, which need more love. I'm also STILL waiting patiently for SFA4, because I like dreamin' and hopin' too much to stop. From the hard-hitting, just-talkin-bout-shaft wah guitar of the intro, which pairs quickly with some mallets, to the brutally funky synth solos & DAT ORGAN, to the drums that stay fresh & energetic throughout, Dan never sounded so good. THIS is Saikyo power; great stuff from BONKERS that, while remaining pretty close to the original, completely & thoroughly ROCKS IT OUT!