Rad Racer "Highway Star 20X6" 3:33

Another April Fools' Day is upon us, but the only foolin' going on here is super strong video game music that's also goofin' around! We've got a super sweet treat for y'all, our FIRST ReMix of a Nobuo Uematsu game soundtrack BEFORE Final Fantasy. :-) sevenfortyfour combines two amazing things -- Square's Rad Racer + Homestar Runner's Stinkoman = "Highway Star 20X6"! HOW did sevenfortyfour even embrace this trippy trip down the track? Boy, it's a long, sbemail-worthy story...

"Originally intended to be a straightforward remix of "Sunset Coastline" from the NES game Rad Racer (called Highway Star in Japan), but then it turned into a Homestar Runner-themed thing. Rad Racer was the first video game I ever played. It's kind of mediocre these days, but I remember sitting on the floor playing it at my grandparents' house on the NES there, hooked up to a massive projection TV (this would have been in 1990 or 1991 when I wasn't even old enough to have started attending school) and "the car game" was my favorite one of the games that were there. It was amazing at age three. Essentially, Rad Racer started my lifelong passion for video games, and especially video game music! The three toggle-able tracks in this game have been earworms throughout my entire life. Gameplay-wise, it doesn't hold up all that well anymore, but it's incredibly important to me. It was important to Squaresoft, too, because it was in dire financial straits at the time, and throwing things at the wall to see what stuck; I believe the next game they made after Rad Racer was a little-known RPG called Final Fantasy...

About twelve years later, I was introduced to Homestar Runner. I was obsessed. I sent no less than 30 emails to Strong Bad. I played all the games, I watched all the toons, it was a great time. The sheer amount of one-liners my family, friends, and I still use today that originated from Strong Bad emails... Anyway, Homestar Runner is fantastic even 20 years later, it all still holds up tremendously well, and is still funny while being generally wholesome. In particular, there was a Strong Bad email titled "japanese cartoon" in which Strong Bad envisions an anime version of himself named Stinkoman (the name having originated in a prior sbemail called "island"), essentially fusing himself with the concept of Mega Man, with a hint of Astro Boy, living in future year 20X6. At the end of the cartoon are fake credits (ripped from The Legend of Zelda) over top of a Roland GS MIDI version of the first track theme from Rad Racer, "Sunset Coastline". The Bros. Chaps even added lyrics, which are "Challenge and fighting and fighting the challenge tonight" repeating. So now, this personally important video game to me was inextricably associated in my mind with Stinkoman. A lot of people never realized the song was from anything else.

I have used voice grabs from the following homestarrunner.com Strong Bad email cartoons: "cheat talk," "japanese cartoon," "monument," rampage," "time capsule," "techno," and "your friends" (most sbemails have all-lowercase titles, officially). If you're not familiar, Mike and Matt Chapman (a.k.a. The Brothers Chaps) created h*r and did most of the voicing and animation.

Also, this remix gave me a reason to once again peruse the Homestar Runner wiki (which is reportedly the best wiki on the Internet, according to Cybershell). I spent a few hours getting lost there instead of doing important things I should have been doing instead. I am not Clever Dan.

I deleted like 14 separate other references to Homestar Runner that were taking up space in this description. It was a bit problematic. Do you know the times? Eh, Steve! Obvious exits are NORTH, SOUTH, and DENNIS. You jumped over some of my buses! Hot diggity danish. Fhqwhgads. I freakin' hate Sibbie. Pfargtl. Steve Duncan. A book of matches. Everything is fine, nothing is ruined. Ebil flindas. Douglas. I remember learning that in school. No loafing.

I hope Larry doesn't have to look those all up.

Thanks once again for your consideration. See you later nice time."

Ha, nice lil' pump going on once the source melody came in at :32. Bass also sounds great! Judge prophetik music has somehow never been exposed to Uematsu's pre-Final Fantasy musical glory OR Homestar Runner, so we're evangelizing the spiritually destitute over here:

"this is a great original track! i have never heard of this.

opens with a super chippy fm bass and kick. lots of fun filtered stuff initially until the main body comes in at 0:30. the mix has a ton of space in it - lots of open air, which is a fun reference to the game and original's title - and the super heavy sidechaining into the drums contribute to that as well. the B theme comes in the keys soon after, and gets a little funky with it. there's a transitional section at 1:42 and then a break with some voiceover sfx at 1:52 for a bit.

after the break, the band gets back together for some slap bass and melody at 2:06. there's a neat solo break section on the keys before one more melodic recap and it's done.

this is great! instant head-bobber [...] well-realized and a fun adaptation of a really awesome original. nice work."

Love this piece; sevenfortyfour clearly had fun with it, and there's so much personality added to this rendition of it through the slower tempo, honorific sound design, and copious voice clips. I'm a Homestar Runner fan from way back, so anything with the Brothers Chaps in it has my automagical seal of approval! By the nature of sevenfortyfour's posting pattern, previously doing three pairs of ReMixes from one game each, we fully expect another Rad Racer ReMix of "Grand Canyon" and it BETTER have more Stinkoman. :-P Great change of pace from sevenfortyfour! GET THE NEW #1 JAM!

P.S. http://www.hrwiki.org/wiki/Website_Sightings - add us to the list, baby!