Sonic Music Artist Roundtable On True Colours Album

I think one of my all time top ten fantasies (after the one where I’m trapped in an elevator with Tia Carerre) would be to sit around a table with some of the musical geniuses who have worked on Sonic music past and present. Well, to commemorate the launch of the second best of Sonic the Hedgehog album “True Colours”, The big names in the Sonic music Universe, namely Tomoya Ohtani, Hataya Hisashi, Jun Senoue and Kenichi Tokoi gathered to reflect on some of their masterpieces from the past….

The four talked about how True Blue was more of a representation of Sonic, or rather a collection of Songs they felt were a representation of Sonic across the board, mostly consisting on title songs and Sonic themes. True Colours is therefore intended to be more of a culmination of the best of character themes shifting the focus slightly from old Blue to the many colours of Sonic’s friends (they liken True Blue to Madonna’s song and True Colours to Cyndi Lauper’s song!)

There’s also a lot of talk about Blaze’s theme from Sonic and the Black Knight, it’s “Flamenco” style, how they felt it represented her fiery personality and elemental nature. They also chat about how at one point they had intended the song to have lyrics!

There’s an interesting transcription of a conversation about the transition from primarily female vocals (Sonic R, Sonic CD, Sonic OVA) to mostly male vocals post Sonic Adventure, and how female vocals were still retained for some tracks (like Tail’s theme) to add more power to the message of the song. Continuing from that, they discuss how each character adopted their own genre of music and how this variety really enriched the Sonic Adventure series; Shadow’s dark electronic themes mirroring his sinister nature, while Rouge’s jazz themes adding mystique and, I quote, “Sex appeal” to the character and her situations!

This progression of genres and themes then moved itself towards the game itself – Sonic Riders with it’s fast dance and techno beats provided exhilaration while blistering around the tracks, to the Middle-Easterned themes of Sonic and the Secret Rings (“slap-bang in the sand” as Hayata refers to it!), which really gave a vibe that signified the passage of time in the game. This has continued up to Sonic World Adventure, with it’s epic theme tune giving a sense of undergoing a grand tour around the globe.

If you want to go check out this extremely intriguing article, head over to the Sonic Channel website (warning though, it’s all in Japanese and Babelfish doesn’t like it!), it’s a very interesting read for those of you mad on your Sonic tunes.

Now Tia, where was I…