Retrospectus On Jet Grind Radio

1up.com has a feature up looking back at the stylized wonder that was Jet Grind Radio. From the article: "Besides the relatively basic, and surprisingly challenging "collect spray cans, tag buildings and run away from the cops" premise, another thing that elevated the Jet Grind Radio experience was its exceptional soundtrack. Brassy, and brash as hell, the vibrant beats and future funk of the game's OST rests comfortably alongside Sega's equally cutting-edge soundtracks for games like Rez and Space Channel 5."

Jet Grind Radio soundtrack

[Anonymous Coward]

The game's soundtrack has one a track which has to be among those most annoying, yet strangely attractive songs, ever; I am obviously referring to Birthday Cake, whose singers -- if you can call them that -- erect your hair all over with their screeching, nails on polystyrene, fork on tiles, cat in shower voice -- added to that, the lyrics are totally nonsensical ("Shut up and eat, you know my love is sweet"); yet, I, at least, feel compelled to listen to the song in its entirety.

I disagree- sorta.

[Doomstalk]

I'd have to disagree with the article on one point: I don't think JSRF had better controls than the original. Some of it was improved, they got rid of the horrendous problems that arose from having camera center and spray on the same button (imagine spontaneously stopping to spraypaint while you're trying to run like hell); but a couple new issues arose. They made the phone/power lines "stickier" - if you landed within a fairly wide radius of a power line, you were automatically drawn towards it - which turned out to be a very mixed blessing. If you weren't moving fast enough, it was literally impossible to get off. They also got rid of the "swirl" control scheme for paining tags, which made the game faster, but less involved. Both games are still fantastic, though.

Re:Original Soundtrack?

[Doomstalk]

The real meat of both soundtracks- I own them both on CD, where the licensed content was largely omitted -was composed by Hideki Naganuma. None of it is available anywhere except in the game or on the OST, so I think it qualifies as original. Hell, I can't even find anything by him in CDDB or FreeDB. While some of the soundtrack may be licensed, enough of it isn't that I think it counts as original.

Re:Jet Grind Radio soundtrack

[badasscat]

The game's soundtrack has one a track which has to be among those most annoying, yet strangely attractive songs, ever; I am obviously referring to Birthday Cake,

Birthday Cake by Cibo Matto is not on the Jet Grind Radio soundtrack. It's on the Jet Set Radio Future soundtrack. These are two different games with two different soundtracks. It's a matter of taste which you like better, but most people put the original soundtrack up there with the best ever... JSRF's soundtrack is usually not spoken of with quite the same reverence.

btw, here is Wikipedia's page [wikipedia.org] on Cibo Matto. I actually saw them live before they even put an album out at a Lush concert in NYC (where they were based). They were an interesting band... really just two girls with a Casio keyboard at the time I saw them. Their ideas really came out more in the studio.

Re:Original Soundtrack?

[DeadScreenSky]

It is original. Hideki Naganuma works at Wavemaster, which is Sega's music (and sound?) development team. He's a Sega employee. And I have to agree that his songs were the meat of the soundtracks, especially for Future (which was kind of uneven, really in every area).