Album Pairings
Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
Shane Kimberlin - Featured Columnist
The concept of “pairing,” where one identifies flavors that go well together, commonly applies to food and drink. Music is just the same, working with whatever is going on in front of you, like singing “Just the Two of Us” while eating an entire pizza by yourself at a Chuck-E-Cheese.
In Album Pairings, I note the charms of a great album, then recommend particular activities to pair such albums to. All album pairings have been tested first-hand by the author, but that does not necessarily promise the same level of joy for the reader.
Also included are hypothetical bad pairings, because no album or song works in every context and, if paired poorly, can ruin both song(s) and event at hand. Such well-known examples include crooning “I’ve Got the World on a String” at the dual String/ Globe Store (they’ve heard it all before!), shouting the lyrics to “Pump at the Jam” at Knott’s Berry Farm, and singing “Ain’t No Sunshine” in Valdez, Alaska during late Summer 2022 (She must have been gone for at least six weeks by then.)
JET SET RADIO (OST) - VARIOUS ARTISTS
Before our modern era’s seemingly limitless processing power and memory, video game music consisted of songs that could be repeated many times without causing the player to throw their controller at the television or punch the arcade machine screen.
In the mid-to-late 90’s, widely commercially available home consoles were able to play CD-quality songs at ease, but nothing much changed. The song needed to remain the same: catchy and resistant to multiple listens.
Thankfully, certain musical genres have artful and hypnotic repetition built into its bones, and therefore can serve the same function as earlier video game music.
“Before our modern era’s seemingly limitless processing power and memory, video game music consisted of songs that could be repeated many times without causing the player to throw their controller at the television or punch the arcade machine screen. ”
Jet Set Radio, released in 2000 (and called “Jet Grind Radio” in the first US edition) by SEGA, is a game about cool cartoon teenage rollerbladers. There’s more. You control one of these, ahem, cool rollerbladers and skate around, graffitiing walls while avoiding the increasingly dangerous authorities. Sometimes the cops send in a chopper. Excessive.
The graphics are cel-shaded, meaning they pop like an anime cartoon and hold up better than most everything else looks-wise after two decades. The game mechanics range from good to frustrating. The story is less a narrative and more a series of poses, its characters less living and breathing agents than mimetic constructs.
The game’s got a cult following. The key reasons, I’d argue, people are still talking about Jet Set Radio, still running fan clubs and crafting fan art and developing commercial fan games/ spiritual successors is because of its look and, most importantly, it’s music.
Jet Set Radio used the full power of the Dreamcast to bring an original cornucopia of grooves and beats to its players and, in the process, created one of the most beloved and critically acclaimed video game soundtracks of all time.
Featuring J-pop, rock, acid jazz, hip-hop, trip-hop, and electronic dance music created primarily by DJ Hideki Naganuma and film & game composer Richard Jacques, JSR is a smorgasbord of positive excitement and driving motion. It is designed to make a player move.
It is also very much of its time, right before the internet took over, and the 90’s junkyard sampling ethos (explored by figures such as Beck in Odelay) was in full swing. Songs contain fusions of seventies funk and film music with exciting drum beats and classic hip- hop vocal samples (caught a few from “Paid in Full” by Eric B and Rakim!) It all still sounds fresh.
Some highlights include “Everybody Jump Around” by Jacques, a funky, mostly instrumental song with some fun sampled singing. “Sneakman” by Naganuma is lovely, a car chase of a track that, if heard while driving, will cause the gas pedal to inadvertently lower and speed to heighten. There are also tracks by then-contemporary artists like Jurassic 5, Rob Zombie and Mixmaster Mike, like a few familiar tastes in a stew of the strange and new.
“Jet Set Radio used the full power of the Dreamcast to bring an original cornucopia of grooves and beats to its players and, in the process, created one of the most beloved and critically acclaimed video game soundtracks of all time. ”
Jet Set Radio had one true sequel two years later with Jet Set Radio Future for the original Xbox. It contained another jewel of a soundtrack, this type looking more towards the future (Jet Set Radio Future OST (2002). There was one more re-release of the JSR in 2012.
The whole enterprise is, for the most part, beloved but underfed, a franchise that always could use more. This only strengthens its cult status. In a world of overexposure, where every single intellectual property gets a Netflix series, there’s something charming about not getting everything you want.
Some disagree. In our shared future of 2023, a game called Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is set to release. In previews of its art style, ideas, gameplay, and sheer look, we see blatant, loving theft of Jet Set Radio, so much so that SEGA could sue the developers for all their worth. But they won’t. Because SEGA knows the people want more Jet Set Radio, and if they’re not going to develop one, then why not let the true fans?
And who’s doing the soundtrack to Bomb Rush Cyberfunk? Why, Hideki Naganuma. Of course.
PAIRS WELL WITH - Playing Jet Set Radio, Driving, Snowboarding, Skateboarding, Running, Roller, uh, blading, Cooking
PAIRS POORLY WITH - Doing Taxes, Having a Se- rious Conversation, Wearing All Black and Looking Moody.
