Update: I just noticed that an old friend of mine, Ben Schweitzer, translated the liner notes for this album over at SEMO. If you want some great insight from Koshiro himself, this is a great resource. Koshiro’s self-aware choice of using “club music” is very interesting, and that’s only the first paragraph!
Yuzo Koshiro’s older soundtracks are very hard to come by. All those G.M.O. / Alfa Records releases (catalog prefix ALCA-) would cost you hundreds of dollars to collect.
Fortunately, the three separate soundtracks for Bare Knuckle I, II, and III (known as Streets of Rage in North America) have been compiled into one handy-dandy set thanks to publisher Wave Master (catalog number WM-0691~4). It’s four discs: the three OSTs (with a whole bunch of previously unreleased tracks) take up the first three discs. In fact, the second half of each of the first two discs have the Game Gear versions of their soundtracks (II first, then I).
And then, on disc four, a recording of a live set of music DJ’d by Koshiro back in 2002 that runs over 40 minutes in length. WOW! Talk about rare. Wave Master went well out of their way to give us the definitive Bare Knuckle / Streets of Rage album.
After the jump, I’ll be giving you my take on the album. I’m new to the franchise (GASP!) but I’m a long-time Koshiro fan. Let’s see how it turns out… (more…)
