Game info: RemyWiki
Listening: soundtrack
Info
Alright we’re bemaniposting again. This time we’re listening to the soundtrack for the previous pop’n music title, which just got released last month. pop’n music is the most diverse bemani series, which isn’t to say that there isn’t a lot of variety in other series because there definitely is, but while generally the other series can be summed up as “electronica,” “rock/metal/jazz fusion,” “piano music,” or something like that, the pop’n ethos is more like “well hey if we can chart it then we’ll put it into the video game.” So you’ll get electronica, rock, metal, jazz fusion, and piano music, as well as pop, orchestra, chiptunes, all just kinda hanging out. To the extent that pop’n does have stylistic tendencies, it’d be toward pop vocals and more upbeat kinda music.
The first two discs of the soundtrack are original tracks for Kaimei Riddles, and then the last two discs are mostly either tracks that were part of a crossover event with multiple games or were from an earlier bemani game and were included here too (both of these things happen a lot). As is tradition, the album also includes a few extended versions of songs, only three this time which is a bit low, but one of them was for a track I enjoyed so that’s swell. They also did something which they did in their last pop’n soundtrack album, which is include some “brand new tracks” at the very end which would be added to the current pop’n game (UniLab) shortly after the soundtrack was released.
I didn’t like this collection quite as much as I have some other pop’n releases, but only just slightly, and it has three entire tracks by prog world music jazz fusion queen m@sumi so it can’t possibly be all bad. The selected returning & crossover tracks are also pretty solid, some good stuff by some of my favorite artists in there.
Recommended tracks:
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“Alia Dimensiva” (Akhuta Works) is some violin metal
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“ΔΟΓΜΑ” (m@sumi as iereas) has a really cool scattered intro
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“On dish or maindish?” (red glasses feat. mami) is some cute jazz rock
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“↑↑↓↓←→←→BA” (meiyo) debuted in SOUND VOLTEX EXCEED GEAR but was added to Kaimei Riddles less than a month later; all the lyrics of the song are just different pronunciations the Konami Code, which I find really funny
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“Neo-saiko-ro-izm (Full Ver.)” (T-HEY and TANEKO with Takuto Kudo) messes around with weird rhythms as T-HEY songs tend to do, before just dropping into 4/4 for the chorus
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“Head Scratcher” (yonawosunawo x Shoya Kitagawa) is one of the UniLab advance tracks so it’s not actually from the game this post is about, but it’s got some guitar by Kitagawa so beastly that I’m posting it anyway
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