It’s hard to believe that it’s been 25 years since a certain blue hedgehog graced the screens of our living rooms and became the flagship title for the Sega Genesis. However, as of tomorrow, that’s exactly what anniversary it is – Sonic the Hedgehog came into being on June 23rd, 1991 and helped change video gaming for a generation. Likewise, the music of Sonic the Hedgehog became as iconic as its contemporaries such as Super Mario Bros., Legend of Zelda and Mega Man.
To celebrate this momentous occasion, the video game record label group Materia Collective have put together a tribute album that spans so much of the Sonic franchise and some of the most well-known music within the series. MOBIUS: Sonic the Hedgehog Remixed features a whopping 58 tracks of arranged Sonic music from a wide variety of musicians and performers within the game music community, such as Stemage (Metroid Metal), DJ Cutman, Videri String Quartet, John Robert Matz (Gunpoint) and a whole lot more!
“Sonic the Hedgehog is quite literally one of the main reasons that I became a musician. It was also one of my earliest musical influences. Now that I have three kids of my own (who are also Sonic fans), and I am actually a working musician for my career, and it’s the 25th Anniversary of Sonic…there was no way I couldn’t do an album like this as an homage to where it all began.” – Stephen Robert Froeber, MOBIUS director and producer
The album has a huge assortment of genres its draws from, as can be heard within the preview clip. Jazz, electronica, orchestral and rock are just a sampling of what you can expect to hear from the 80 contributing artists attached to the project. MOBIUS: Sonic the Hedgehog Remixed launches tomorrow, June 23rd on the Materia Collective website. Speaking as a girl whose first introduction to video gaming (and thus, video game music) was Sonic the Hedgehog on a snowy Christmas Day in 1991, this should be an album worth checking out.
