Television

Film, Television

Getting out of the CD BUSINESS SALE at COLOSSEUM Music

December 15, 2015 | Ryan Paquet | Comments Off on Getting out of the CD BUSINESS SALE at COLOSSEUM Music Share this

Colosseum Music Entertainment is based in Germany, and has been selling soundtrack CDs for years. As of December 31, 2015 they will no longer be selling CDs and they have over 700 Soundtracks from many films and television series priced at 4.99 EURO (About $5.50USD). Shipping is free to German residents for orders over 25 EURO.

For USA and Canadian buyers, shipping for the first 7 CDs works is around 12.50 EURO. Once you get up to 8CDs the shipping cost doubles. There are many great soundtracks still available including some that are out of print. For myself I ordered a few including: Michael Kamen’s score to The Iron Giant, and Kung Fu Hustle by Raymond Wong and a few CDs with the music from the Lost TV series by Michael Giacchino.

Snag yourself a deal at Colosseum Music Entertainment before the end of the year! Did you find any good deals?
Game Music, Music Production, Television

Adventure Time in VR has a Fun Theme Song Music Video

September 29, 2015 | Shawn Sackenheim | Comments Off on Adventure Time in VR has a Fun Theme Song Music Video Share this

You may have already seen the reveal of Cartoon Network and Turbo Button’s VR action game, Adventure Time: Magic Man’s Head Games, but did you hear it? Like a good VR camera system that doesn’t nauseate everyone who sees it, music is one of those under-appreciated elements of game design. For Magic Man’s Head Games award-winning composer, Erik Desiderio (SMS Racing, This Means War!), was given free reign to take the franchise in new directions. That’s resulted in a quirky and organic theme song with players on banjo, horns, fretless electric bass, harmonica, accordion, and more. Oh, and there’s lots of whistling.

“I was a huge fan of the show before being contacted about this project,” notes composer Erik Desiderio. “I especially enjoyed the first episode with Magic Man, who acts as the primary antagonist for this game. The playful nature of the Adventure Time universe afforded me the opportunity to work with some of my frequent collaborators and incorporate lots of fun instruments. Somehow, though, despite their various talents, everyone insisted that they be able to whistle on the soundtrack. I had no choice but to comply and join in myself!”

The results can be seen and heard above in a new music video featuring the theme song to the game. The video is a live action mosaic of the performers alongside footage from the game which is available for free on the Samsung Gear VR store. The game itself takes inspiration from classic 3D platformers like Banjo-Kazooie with Jake even riding in Finn’s backpack. The player observes the action through the VR headset from a third-person perspective where Jake’s stretchy limbs help ease some of the jerky, nauseating camera movements that VR users frequently run into.

Check it out!
Film, Game Music, Television

ONE WEEK ONLY! – La La Land Records Buy Two, Get One Free Sale!

September 10, 2015 | Ryan Paquet | Comments Off on ONE WEEK ONLY! – La La Land Records Buy Two, Get One Free Sale! Share this

It’s not often that soundtrack labels have sales, but La La Land Records for one week only is offering a buy two, get one free sale on all of their titles. La La Land Records has produced some excellent video game soundtracks which include: Flower, God of War: Ascension, Lair, Sorcery, Star Hawk, Socom 3/Socom Combined Assault, and Socom 4. As well as a ton of great Film and Television music.

ONE WEEK ONLY!: BUY TWO GET ONE FREE SPECTACULAR!

STARTS 9/8 at 12noon (PST). For every two CD TITLES you purchase online at lalalandrecords.com, get another CD TITLE of your choice absolutely FREE! We won’t even charge you additional shipping for the free CD title! Your free CD TITLE must be equal to, or less than, the price of the lowest cost CD TITLE you purchased. For instance, if you purchased one CD title that was $24.98 and another that was $15.98, the free CD title you choose must be priced on our site as $15.98 or LESS. This offer is good thru 9/14 and applies only to CD titles that are currently in stock.

La La Land Records

I personally own the Lair by John Debney and Flower by Vincent Diamante, both soundtracks are phenomenal. If you’re a CD lover, this is a sale you don’t want to miss!
Film, Game Music, Music Production, Television

Barn Fire Music: A Look At Kevin Manthei’s Music Library

September 1, 2015 | Ryan Paquet | Comments Off on Barn Fire Music: A Look At Kevin Manthei’s Music Library Share this

If you’re not familiar with Kevin Manthei, you have probably heard his music at some point in a video game, television series, or movie trailer.

I recently revisited some Kevin Manthei’s music, specifically the soundtrack he composed for the animated series Invader Zim. This was not a coincidence, Invader Zim has recently returned in comic book form and with it all my great memories of the show and its excellent music. Kevin Manthei has also worked on DC animated features Batman Gotham Knight, Justice League: New Frontier and has written the music for the highly entertaining Ultimate Spiderman TV series. But he actually began his composing career in the gaming industry composing the music for titles including Panzer General II, Vampire: The Masquerade, Twisted Metal Black, Starcraft: Ghost and Star Trek Online.

In the process of looking back at Invader Zim‘s music I discovered that Kevin Manthei also recently founded a music library company called Barn Fire Music. The company is described as a boutique production music library providing music in any style to film and television production companies, television networks, game developers and anybody else who needs it.

The music Library itself is huge, boasting over 1900 tracks spread across just over 200 unique albums. Kevin Manthei has contributed over 800 tracks himself, but has collected music from various composers to build the library’s content, which you can sample above. What I appreciated was that the library even had an album titled “8-Bit Adventures,” offering 11 tracks of chip tune goodness. I am still exploring a lot of the albums in the library and so far really enjoy “Apocalyptic Trailers vol.2“, “Heroic Legends” and “Galactic Adventures Vol.1“.

They are always on the lookout for talented composers as well, so if you’re looking to have your music heard check them out. And, if you’re looking for music for your next project, you might find what you need in Barn Fire Music’s Library. Take some time to explore and let me know what you think!
Game Music, Television

GROOVY! The Music of the Earthworm Jim Cartoon

May 19, 2015 | Ryan Paquet | Comments Off on GROOVY! The Music of the Earthworm Jim Cartoon Share this

As many of you may know, the music for the Earthworm Jim video game was composed by Tommy Tallarico, as was it’s sequel Earthworm Jim 2. The music for the cartoon series however contained completely new and original music by composer William Anderson. The theme song, according to Mr. Anderson’s website is his personal favorite and part of the reason is that he wrote and PERFORMED the piece himself. The song itself is brilliant, fun, and reveals the very simple origin story of the character. Watching it again and seeing Psy-crow use a conductor’s baton just made me want to sing along. The opening was uploaded to YouTube by user Sjahut.

William Anderson has also composed the music for some classic animated series including the second seasons of the 1990’s Marvel Fantastic Four/Iron Man cartoons series, Biker Mice From Mars, X-Men Evolution, and My Little Pony which has become hugely successful. The score of the Earthworm Jim cartoon was light symphonic melodies, and regularly featured instrumental versions of the theme song when Jim took action against the episode’s protagonist of the week including his green evil twin, Evil The Cat, Professor with a Monkey for a Head, and the Evil Queen (with her extended title changing almost every episode).

So have yourself a little Earthworm Jim sing a long, and you can also do Karaoke with a lyric free version of the theme by listening to the End Credits thanks to YouTube user James Smith.

The series is available for purchase on Amazon, and if you’ve never seen it you can sample the wonderful hilarity of it in this compilation EAT DIRT! catchphrases assembled by YouTube user brokensoul 8930. I think the show captured the essence of the character, thanks to Dan Castellaneta’s voice talent (Homer Simpson). This brief article ends my examination of the music in cartoons based on video games for the time being. Now EAT DIRT! You gigantic fans of video game music!
Game Music, Television

The Fastest Thing Alive: The Music of the Sonic The Hedgehog Cartoon

May 14, 2015 | Ryan Paquet | Comments Off on The Fastest Thing Alive: The Music of the Sonic The Hedgehog Cartoon Share this

There have been a few Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons over the years, and according to many Sonic fans the best series was the Sonic SatAM series. SatAM is a reference to Saturday Morning on ABC where the show ran for two seasons totalling 26 episodes.

The music for the series was written by Michael Tavera, and features original score and an incredibly catchy theme song. Michael Tavera also composed the music for the second and third seasons of Captain N: The Game Master, The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario World. I am not going to discuss the series music in detail but I wanted to make sure you knew about the excellent promotional soundtrack available for the series. A fan of the series wrote Michael Tavera asking if any music of the series was available and he provided the fan with a promotional CD containing some cues from the series, and some unreleased tracks one which was featured in Captain N: The Gamemaster. It’s old news, but you can read about and grab a copy of this promotional album over at Saturday Morning Sonic’s website.

The entire series including the theme song was uploaded to YouTube by user TheRealSonicFan, and it can also be purchased on DVD from Amazon.
Game Music, Television

The N Team – The Music of Captain N: The Game Master Cartoon

May 1, 2015 | Ryan Paquet | Comments Off on The N Team – The Music of Captain N: The Game Master Cartoon Share this

Captain N: The Game Master was another animated series that featured arrangements of classic video game music. The music for the series was composed by Shuki levy, and Michael Tavera who music I’ve covered in articles about The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Brothers Super Show!, and The Adventures of Super Mario Brothers 3 cartoons.

The show ran for three seasons with Shuki Levy acting as composer for the first season, and Michael Tavera taking over for the remaining two seasons. In this article I discuss the musical arrangements featured in the game, and provide you with some YouTube examples that you can listen to. Read on to find out more about the video game music of this Nintendo cartoon.

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