I, as a younger individual, lets say 16 er so, would participate in what we know as “hanging out”. It was the only thing to do I suppose, considering that video games lose their lust, or playing sports was an object of my clicks personal dissatisfaction. “Hanging out”, as we call it can range from loitering at the gas station, hovering over munchies, or walking about, may that be in the neighboring communities or some sort of interesting locale. A safe bet place to be was certainly the mall, it offers room to stroll about, shops to browse, food to eat, not to mention people to gaze upon. Gazing upon diverse groups that make the mall a melding pot of young and old, popular, to not so popular. You have your rapidly paced, short skirt wearing ladies shopping for the latest deals and teasing boys with their lack of eye contact and obvious high ego. On the other hand, there is a consistent group that has seemed to have fallen into most malls reputations. If you were oblivious to the fact that the kid you see at the mall every time you go there has probably worked his way into “mall rat” category.” You know, the kids that never really seem like they have not a thing better to do with their days. Hanging around clothes stores, thriving the food courts, and funneling into the hot spot known as the arcade. Ah the arcade, all of your ill trodden guilts and worries can be flushed away after a couple of dollars and a couple of great games. Well maybe some not so great, considering that some malls don’t even possess an arcade, or the mall obviously hasn’t kept up with the mall rat’s home (arcade). So how is it that besides walking about the malls for hours that these “mall rats” maintain a healthy physical state? DDR of course! The arcade was home to Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) which, I am sure, many are familiar with. If not so familiar, it is a dance simulation game that requires you to step on arrows that go along with the music. I used to walk by the arcade and poke fun at these kids that looked as though they were trying to kill tens of thousands of spiders. I never tried it, and I had not personally known a soul that plays even at home. Besides the sweaty, out of shape kids wearing “The Night Before Christmas” shirts, there was a few occasions where I have strolled by the arcade to find an adept player swaying his or her body about in obtrusive ways. As strange as is may have been in my eyes, I was impressed, especially when the person would not hold onto the back bar that the machine supplies you with (which most would), it was almost like… wait… he was dancing! Yes DDR finally left its reputation for helping obese Yugio playing kids (or men at that), and has actually shown its functionality as a “Dance simulator.” This though did not necessarily inspire me to start playing the game, it was not until probably a year later that me and a few of my friends actually bought some of the at home games. They were, DDR Max 2 (PS2), Ultramix (Xbox), and I personally owned DDR Max (Ps2). We all eventually bought some shitty dance pads that usually lasted no more than a month and smelled like a hospital. Initially we were bad, very bad, jumping about like river dancers in a broken mix of loud stomping, tripping, and heat exhaustion. Years pass and not a soul seems be playing the game anymore, I would play here and there but meh, it was nothing I could stick to, it really died as a fad. I eventually started then to pick up better dance pads, working my way to the “Heavy” difficulty and finally getting that stamina I was striving for. I even go a metal dance pad once, cost me 250 dollars if I recall correctly, it was pretty rad, made me feel like I was at the arcade. This proved weak breaking only after less than a year of use.
So what am I getting at? Well DDR being a “dance simulator”, has dance songs right? Yes, it has a plethora of slow to speedy mostly techno like songs that are made to work well with what the game can provide. I to this day play most of the same songs as I did years ago, and sure there are other knock off dance simulation games that possess many other songs, I had a taste for Konami’s array of techno wonders. Now besides the newest installment to the DDR series, most of the songs were in-game songs, meaning that they were made by Konami. I suppose I shall jump right to it, Naoki Maeda is responsible for most of the tracks heard on DDR. More commonly known as just Naoki, his name is reflected throughout most of the game’s tracks. He is now 48 as I have read, but who knows, japanese people can be hard to extract an age from. Regardless of age, he has done work for Konami, producing many of DDR’s tracks and is currently still doing remixes. Most of his songs are great, while ones being titled after “Naoki” seem to possess a Japanese-pop feel that I can’t seem to catch on to, but what ever your preferance may be, there’s a long varying list of tracks and accompanying aliases from Naoki himself.
After a short while with Konami, Naoki now takes his electro wonders over to Bemani, if you ever want to attempt to browse about his site then HERE IT IS, it happens to be in Japanese.
I wanted to share some of his, and some other tracks from my collection of DDR (well Stepmania realistically) songs that I will dance to on the game. By the way, sorry for the YouTube links, only way I could get the songs that was available.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fr4xSl9YUQ
^This track comes from DDR mix 1, it has seemed to have taken on hundreds of other forms which is the best part about it (will post mixes). Naoki having many aliases is named “180” in this case, other PARANOiA’s also take on the alias of “190” or “290”, usually representing the BPM for the song. This is probably my favorite song, well besides it being a strange and dance inducing beat, I like the steps that go along with it as well. Ranging from spins, to complicated “cross overs” this song has stood the tests of time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn2usIcB6So&feature=related
^Another good sounding track, though through some minimal reasearch have discovered “2MB” to not be part of Naoki’s list of aliases. Instead it is the remix work of Yuiichi Asami, aka “2MB.” Healing Vision was an original done by Naoki, but Yuiichi Asami later had taken it into his own realm, creating a heart pumping and exhilarating mix of exhaustion and chaos that has kept me practicing this song since I had seen its initial madness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OqHL0piwHk
^One of many “Trip Machine’s”, our mix master Naoki hides under the name “De-Sire”, and hands us SP-Trip Machine ~Jungle Mix~. Though I do enjoy most of the other Trip Machine’s, this one stood out with its smooth melodies mixing with the strange essence that Trip Machine is known to posses. Relatively easy steps to dance to, unless you wanted to nail the notorious “cross overs” and even “double cross overs” as a like to call them. All in all a good mix, something I can actually listen to away from the game.
That’s about it, I wanted to keep up on posts of potentially good songs that people may enjoy, and probably never heard. This being one of my favorites in video gaming gives me no choice but to vent onto anybody who might care to read.
-Sources-
. “BEMANI Fan Site.” . Internet Revolution / Konami, 2012. Web. 13 Sep 2012. .
. “Naoki Maeda.” RemyWiki. Wiki, 2012. Web. 13 Sep 2012. <http://vjarmy.com/wiki/index.php/Naoki_Maeda>.
Spicy Jamb 