Software info: Wikipedia
Listening: collection release (disc 2, tracks 34-37), emulated audio, YouTube
Credits
While this software has no listed credits anywhere, Tadahiko Inoue has claimed to have written music for it.
Info
So, there’s been an interesting development on the VGMdb forums in the last couple of days. You may or may not recall that, two months ago, I listened to the soundtrack of a SEGA Genesis banking software called Mega ANSER. The reason I learned it existed at all and then listened to it was that someone made a thread asking if anyone knew who the composer was, linking a 2018 article by Zach Newcastle for Unwinnable about the music. There was a little discussion about the music over two days, and then the thread died because no one really had any information, and no one would ever have information about this obscure banking software from 1990.
That is, until three days ago, when someone registered for the forums under the name “MegaAnserComposer” and claimed to be the SEGA sound designer “XOR.” And also revealed a few other works that had never been attributed to him before. And also indirectly revealed that his real name is Tadahiko Inoue, under which he later appeared in a couple of SEGA games and contributed three tracks to the OLIO series of original albums by mostly SEGA employees. And also said that at the time he was influenced by Erik Satie’s concept of furniture music, which definitely explains some of the minimalist compositional tendencies in his works. Wild stuff!
One of the previously unknown works he listed in his posts was SEGA Game Library, which I mentioned in my post for MegaMind, so I guess I should explain what that was in a little more detail now. In 1990, SEGA released a modem peripheral for the Genesis called the Mega Modem, which allowed online play for a small number of games and also made other various online services available (you needed this to use the SEGA Mega ANSER, for example). One of these was the SEGA Game Library, which was a subscription game download service; you put in the cartridge that came with the modem and you could download and play a bunch of exclusive games, most of which were never released in any other way.
Being a piece of software for the SEGA Genesis home video game console system, it of course had its own music which played in various screens and menus: four pieces, to be precise. The music here is somewhat similar to Mega ANSER, though a little more upbeat and I’d say a little less interesting.
Recommended track:
- “BGM3” is longer than every other track put together and features a little bit of the minimalist figure writing that’s recognizable in his work
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