How’s it goin’, cats? Today is Sonic’s birthday! Happy 21st, you sassy, speedy thing! This one’s for you!
I think that if you know Sonic, you definitely know this song, right from the beginning lick. And I’ve gotta say, that lick is very catchy! I love the vocals for this—I think this is one of Crush 40’s best numbers, at least vocally. I love the guitar background for the verses, my ear is drawn to it, and it creates that little bit of depth that I really like. The pre-chorus has the drive to it that brings us to the climax of the chorus, with some nice choral movement. I love the harmonies in the vocals there, in both the pre-chorus and chorus, even though they’re fairly simple. The guitar fills that are thrown in throughout are also very nice; they squeal, but it suits the genre and fits with the mix. I love the main solo, I spent quite a while transcribing it doing my 8-bit arrange of this piece, and I love how it dips and dives, and even the obnoxious meedly-meedly-mee’s at the end sound cool because of the genre. The bridge section right after that mixes it up with the prominence of that that chromatic chord, the flat-IImaj(7), which is very effective. It’s also something your ear isn’t used to in a rock tune like this.
I think my favorite part is the last chorus, because it integrates this background riff in there:
It’s not that complicated, just a syncopated scale rhythm, but it sounds so cool in the back of the mix! Not to mention all the straight eighth guitar rhythms that are in the back during all the choruses. You can say this game is overrated, but this theme is pretty damn cool, if you ask me. This is also a theme where the time given to beat up the final boss in question, good ol’ Finalhazard, is the same length as the song, which is 4:28. I think I did it in 4:29 or something really close, so that the screen was flashing red, and everyone on ARK was screaming at me to HURRY UP. It was good times.
At any rate, you’re all Sonic lovers, so I hope you celebrate his birthday in style! I know the blue blur has been pretty influential to me, in the little over a year that I’ve known him. Keep on keepin’ on!
“But you can hardly swallow, your fears and pain. When you can’t help but follow, it puts you right back where you came.”
