So while all six previous Splatoon albums have included full track-by-track music credits, the latest album release for the Side Order soundtrack and miscellaneous extra multiplayer and Grand Festival music does not. Instead, it just lists which composers overall were responsible for which in-game artists, which means (1) for three of these artists we don’t have specific individual credits, and (2) for the cutscene tracks and jingles without in-game artists we have literally no attribution whatsoever.
The biggest thing both of these affect, naturally, is the Side Order soundtrack; all of the stage themes, half of the boss themes, and all of the ambient area themes are credited to the artist Free Association, which has five composers credited: Kairi Hamada, Masato Ohashi, Yumi Takahashi, Toshiyuki Sudo, & Asuka Hayazaki. Side Order also has a handful of tracks by two other artists, which are naturally the other two artists with multiple composers listed, and also some artistless tracks which theoretically any of the game’s listed staff of 13 could’ve done. So I believe we don’t have a single known credit for any piece of music in Side Order.
Fucking Nintendo!!! Fucking why did you do this!!!!!
It feels like it might be relevant to connect to this to their last album release: the Tears of the Kingdom soundtrack. The Breath of the Wild soundtrack contained both a full list of reprised series themes with credits and a composer discussion, and Tears of the Kingdom had neither: just the tracklist and staff credits with breakdown. It’s only two releases, but it seems like there could be a trend in them expending less effort on physical releases. Maybe because, now they they have the Nintendo Music app, this’ll be the last time they ever release a physical soundtrack.
Haha, I kid. I make a joke. [tugs at collar extremely nervously]
So anyway, let’s check out the Side Order credits that we do have. I was really, super surprised to see neither Shiho Fujii nor Ryo Nagamatsu listed as a Free Association composer, as I was positive both of them must’ve done at least one of the stage themes. But it looks like I might’ve once again been tricked by the fact that Nintendo hires the most insanely talented composers out there, year after year.
These are my current guesses from the pool of five composers, though I’ll note that I’m extremely, extremely unsure about most of these:
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“demolish” line: Masato Ohashi. Ohashi did the dark electronic themes in Tears of the Kingdom that kind of sound like Octo Expansion music (“Moragia Battle” and “Hyrule Castle Chasm: Battle”), and I can buy him getting djenty.
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“jesting” line: Asuka Hayazaki. She fits the Mario desert level-ness of these pieces, and she does have some odd time works in the Zelda series, though I’m not confident about the erratic/intricate rhythms and FM prog.
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“jitters” line: Kairi Hamada. These are similar in composition and production to “Clashing Colors,” which is credited to Hamada.
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“routines” line: Toshiyuki Sudo. This has been my guess since “rout1nes” was used in the trailer, not super confident about the production but that one in particular feels like his staccato random instrument style, just more percussive.
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“souvenir” line: Toshiyuki Sudo (or maybe Yumi Takahashi?). These also have that staccato random style, though I’m suddenly kind of feeling Takahashi on these for some reason. I still don’t particularly think I have a good grasp on her so maybe disregard that feeling.
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Ambient area themes: Masato Ohashi. Seems kind of a gimme based on his ambient Tears of the Kingdom work.
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Boss themes: Yumi Takahashi? I feel like she’s the most likely to drop full-on breakcore based on the “Gravity Man” arrangement from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, though I’ve been wrong before making comparisons to that remix.
Outside of the Side Order tracks we do have a decent number of specific credits, and of those I want to shout out Kairi Hamada for somehow doing both of these tracks:
who is she
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