User Info: Dark Symphony Dark Symphony 6 years ago #1







Many of the KOF soundtracks that came out during the original SNK days had all sorts of colorful commentary contained within them. I've been, since 1999, always extremely curious as to what these contained as there was a point where I was a bigger fan of the music SNK produced than I was of the games.



In fact that may be true more than ever today.



(I moved all the tidbits about SNK's sound team/release particulars/formats/partners/etc. to the end so people could get to the good stuff quicker).











The King Of Fighters '94 (Original Sound Trax) PCCB-00162. 10/21/1994



Artists of note:



PAPAYA

Brother-Hige

ACKEY

PEARL SHIBAKICHI



Summary



Quick Note: I put "Original Sound Trax" in parenthesis because it's not actually listed in the album's title but I wanted to differentiate the sound track as the original version clearly. The sub heading for the track titles is "Original Version." I was originally only going to do the AST but we did some translations for the OST real quick. However I wasn't able to get all the track titles at this time.



Track Listing



[01] The King Of Fighters '94 "Opening" (Title)

[02] The King Of Fighters '94 "Opening" (MVS Title)

[03] ???

[04] JUNGLE BOUNCER (Brazil Stage)

[05] CLEAR

[06] {Ne!} "Isn't it?" (England Stage)

[07] "Conflict Of A Dragon And A Tiger." (Mexico Stage)

[08] SLUM No.5 (USA STAGE)

[09] NAPOLITAN BLUES (Italy STAGE)

[10] ESAKA (Japan STAGE)

[11] {Urei} "Gloomy" (Korea STAGE)

[12] "Psycho Soldier" K.O.F. Version (China Stage)

[13] R&D???

[14] {Kettou} "Duel" R&D

[15] UM...

[16] {Ketchaku} "Duel" R&D

[17] ???

[18] HAPPY JAH! {arimasenka} "Isn't it happy?"

[19] SUNSET SKY Part4 "PAPAYA Version"

[20] CONTINUE~GAME OVER

[21] ~[31] VOIC & S.E. COLLECTION



There are no track specific commentaries in this (or any OST's as far as I remember). Just general overal comments by the composers.



PAPAYA: Making BGM for the 24 rowdy fellow characters and creating S.E. took a few years of the energy I use for living. Add Brother-Hige, SHIBAKICHI and Ackey and approximately 15 years of my life energy is filled in this CD.



Brother-Hige: Recently I have been able to write music while I'm sleeping.* It's mysterious and I don't know the reason why but before I know it, a song is made. However this doesn't happen all the time. One time I tried sleeping all day but no song was made. The deadline was approaching so I got very anxious.



Ackey: It's summer and too hot. I see people getting tanned and I think I want to get tanned to. But summer is almost over. I made the Japan Stage and Brazil Stage songs. All the songs in K.O.F '94 are made very well, so please enjoy them.



PEARL SHIBAKICHI: Recently I've been thinking about happiness in life. What is my happiness? I made the England Stage and Korea Stage's BGM. The Korean Stage's song is my favorite. My thanks fo to PAPAYA, Brother-Hige and Ackey.





*My goodness this has been happening with me for the longest time as well. Planning on compiling all of this into a web page eventually... Special thanks to Akane Otaka for the assistance. For a frame of reference it took her about 3 - 4 hours of casually working on this to accomplish it between translating and communicating with me.Many of the KOF soundtracks that came out during the original SNK days had all sorts of colorful commentary contained within them. I've been, since 1999, always extremely curious as to what these contained as there was a point where I was a bigger fan of the music SNK produced than I was of the games.In fact that may be true more than ever today.(I moved all the tidbits about SNK's sound team/release particulars/formats/partners/etc. to the end so people could get to the good stuff quicker).

User Info: Dark Symphony Dark Symphony (Topic Creator) 6 years ago #2 The King Of Fighters '94 Arranged Sound Trax PCCB-00165. 11/18/1994



Artists of note:

PAPAYA

Brother-Hige

ACKEY

PEARL SHIBAKICHI



Track Titles



[01] The King of Fighters '94 "Opening." (Title)

[02] Jungle Bouncer (Brazil Stage)

[03] {Ne!} "Isn't it?" (England Stage)

[04] "Conflict Of A Dragon And A Tiger" * (Mexico Stage)

[05] Slum No. 5 (America Stage)

[06] Napolitan Blues (Italy Stage)

[07] Esaka (Japan Stage)

[08] {Urei} "Gloomy" (Korea Stage) **

[09] "Psycho Soldier" K.O.F. Version (China Stage)

[10] {Kettou} "Duel" R&D (Boss Stage 1)

[11] {Ketchaku} "Duel" R&D (Boss Stage 2)***

[12] Happy Jah! {arimasenka} "Isn't it happy?" (Ending 1) ****

[13] Sunset Sky Part4 "PAPAYA Version" (Ending 2)



*The title can be considered a metaphor for a conflict between two highly accomplished or super natural fighters on equal strength.



**The literal translation has a number of meanings including "worry," "anxiety," "sadness," "gloomy," "sorrow," "distress" and "depression." I chose "gloomy" based on the developer's commentary.



***The translator said both words mean the same thing which is the act of fighting or a "duel." The characters look similar but I noticed later that the second character is slightly different. I might inquire on it later but for now I'm going with what I'm told.



****Jah arimasenka is one phrase though they chose to write the "jah" part in english. Literal meaning all together is "isn't it happy?"





Artist Commentary



[01] The King of Fighters '94 "Opening." (Title)

Artist: PAPAYA



Character Dialogue: None



Commentary



PAPAYA: There may be not much of a difference between this track and the one in the actual Neo Geo cart/arcade version but this version is what we had originally envisioned. We are going to be travelling around the world with our music. We wanted to try something new and this album is the result. Please enjoy listening to this album.







[02] Jungle Bouncer (Brazil Stage)



Character Dialogue:



Ralf: "Hey Clark, it's nice to listen "G M" (?) in the depths of the jungle."



Clark: "This Jungle Bouncer track is especially good! The electric guitar makes think of the battlefield in the middle of the dense forests."



Ralf: "Oh, the car stereo stopped! Is the battery dead?"



Heidern: "Storm Bringer!"



Clark: "Hey! Don't suck the energy out of the jeep!"





Commentary



Ackey: There was a trio of strong mercenaries in the Amazon jungle. "JUNGLE BOUCNER" is their theme song. I used a lot of irregular rhythms for this song but as the process went on the rhythm became so irregular that even I, the composer, couldn't keep the beat time. It's crazy but it is my favorite song.

User Info: Dark Symphony Dark Symphony (Topic Creator) 6 years ago #3 [04] "Conflict Of A Dragon And A Tiger" (Mexico Stage)



Character Dialogue:



Robert: "This song songs Mexican and portrays more of the image of "The Art Of Fighting/A Dragon and a Tiger" than the image of us.



Ryo: "It is a very dark and cool image."



Takuma: "It's like a silent fighting spirit... Something that boils blood."



Ryo: "The essence of Extreme Karate! (Kyokugen)."



Commentary



Brother-Hige: This song is made of many different essences, including sections by Ackey and Pearl Shibakichi, and cooked by Brother-Hige. The more you listen the more tasty it gets like "City Konbu (seaweed?)." I dedicate this song to Director A, who added an amazing finishing touch to this piece.









[05] Slum No. 5 (America Stage)



Character Dialogue:



Heavy D!: "This song... makes me think of the slum."



Lucky G: "Suits our bad boy image."



Brian B: "Hey, I'm still in active service."*



Lucky G: "Doesn't make much difference."



Heavy D!: "You're right. The only thing that matters is how good you are."



Brian B: "We'll show the world we are number one with our skills and also this song!"







Commentary



PAPAYA: Sometimes when I make a really good song I feel like I didn't compose it. I feel like perhaps the song already existed in another world and I just brought it in.** I talked about this with Bro.Hige and he sometimes feels the same way. (When we were talking we might have looked like we were yelling at each other because of our limited vocabulary).*** In short, I am very confident in this song.



*This infers that Brian is active in the army during the time of KOF 94.



**Author's note: Simply amazing to read that as I've expressed the same exact thing to someone recently. So strange to read that from someone who I, admittedly, took a bunch of influence from.



*** I wonder if "limited vocabulary" is the correct impression or if he's trying to say they had difficulty putting what they were saying into words...







[06] Napolitan Blues (Italy Stage)



Character Dialogue:



Andrew: "Isn't it a good song? Reminds us of the Italian folk song "canzone.""*



Terrance: "I don't know the particulars but this song does sound Italian. Especially the instruments."



Joseph: "Fits my style perfectly."



Terrance: "Are you serious? You're just hanging out in your underpants."



Commentary



Brother-Hige: I composed this song thinking of an original story. In it a man with a beard has a relationship with an Italian woman. Are you getting the sexy, romantic and passionate image? (If not you probably just need a little more experience with adult romance!) Since I'm a pessimistic person my story doesn't end happily. Andy is a bit more attractive than I am but... damn. Lost a good woman.





*Canzone as found on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NeZozrEiD8

I linked to the one with the best looking singer.

User Info: Dark Symphony Dark Symphony (Topic Creator) 6 years ago #4 [07] Esaka (Japan Stage)



Character Dialogue:



Kyo: "Usually the Japanese songs use traditional instruments like Koto or Shamisen but this kind of song is cool too."



Benimaru: "Litte rough. Ruins my beautiful image. But it's fine for you guys."



Daimon: "It has power. I like it."



Kyo: "The flavor is in the bass and drums. Gets me on fire."





Commentary



Ackey: The heroes from "The King Of Fighters." The Japan Team. Their theme song is "Esaka" which is a place in Osaka.* The introduction has string and a twin guitar solo. I set a high value on the melody when I arranged this song. I think the latter half guitar solo part is really cool.





*Always wondered about this. Years ago... like many... someone mentioned that "Esaka" was just a play on the name "Osaka" and... and I believed them. For a while. From what I could find it seems to be a train station which I guess sort of explains the train graveyard.







[08] {Urei} "Gloomy" (Korea Stage)





Character Dialogue:



Kim: "What an eccentric song. The tone does sound Korean though."



Chang: "It's more like our image."*



Choi: "Haha, it like the atmosphere of the night when I attacked Kim's master. Boils my blood."**



Kim: "You guys haven't introspect. Fine, I will educate you both."





Commentary



PEARL SHIBAKICHI: What do you think of when you hear the word "Urei?"*** The dictionary says it means to worry or have mental sickness, but I think it's more like "Korean Blues." I want you to think of a scene where you here the sound of a string coming from somewhere when it's raining and you can hear people playing instruments together from far away.





*I get the impression that when he says "more like our image" he means it like "more like OUR image" as in it fits Chang and Choi more than it fits Kim.



**Choi attacking Kim's master is a tidbit I didn't know about or forgot about. It's the only reference to Kim's master I've ever seen. It also explains how they came into contact. Commentary on the KOF 10th anniversary site says Chang and Choi started out far more evil and sinister looking. I wonder if these blurbs reflect that. I went and watched their cutscenes and ending again and the characters were far more crass and not nearly as corny as they would end up being as the series progressed.

User Info: Dark Symphony Dark Symphony (Topic Creator) 6 years ago #5 [09] "Psycho Soldier" K.O.F. Version (China Stage)





Character Dialogue:



Athena: "I'm so happy that you can listen to this song again."



Kensou: "It's a nostalgic song. Glad to hear Athena's beautiful voice again."



Athena: "Thanks! I want everyone to memorize this and sing it."



Chin*: (Starts singing and hiccuping like a drunkard).



Athena: "......"







Commentary



PAPAYA: This song was sang by Reiko Fukui** (yay). She visited our studio (where it as all guys) and it was like a spring breeze. She performed her singing in her cute voice. I'm happy I got to arrange this song. I'm happy I was alive. WHen she sang "terashidasu-no"*** in the first part I could see a goddess. And in the second part "kagayakkinokoshi"**** it had a very happy sound to it. Everything was perfect. She made me tea as well. It was great.



*In the booklet the names for the commentary are abbreviated to single letters, double or triple in the cases where two characters shared the same first letters of their names (Ryo was "R," Robert was "RO," Chang was "CHA," Choi was "CHO" for example). Chin's, however, was written as "T." Don't know why. Maybe it stood for typo? Maybe he had a different name earlier in development? I don't know but I am curious.



**Reiko Fukui voiced Athena for the game as well.



***A quick search revealed that I can't find the meaning of that word/phrase.



****A quick search revealed that I can't find the meaning of that word/phrase.









[10] {Kettou} "Fighting" R&D (Boss Stage 1)





Character Dialogue:



Rugal: "Haha, how is my prelude? If you like it then it's my pleasure. But I'm not looking to impress you with just this prelude. It was played when I wasn't showing my true ability. If you can feel my hidden power through this song and be afraid that's good. I can't wait to meet someone who can give me a reason to get serious."



Commentary



Brother-Hige: This song is paired with Papaya's "Ketchaku R&D." The one Papaya made is upbeat and high pace, expressing "movement." On the other hand, I made one with deep tension expressing the "quietness" part. Honorable and strange. Papaya and I would often say to ourselves "A song is not what we make but what falls from the sky." I wish more songs would fall to us.







[11] {Ketchaku} "Fighting" R&D (Boss Stage 2)



Character Dialogue:



Rugal: "Oh, you have forced me to get serious? Good. Get a taste of my ability from this song. More fierce than the song before indeed but do you like it? I tried to be creative by adding a voice to the song.* It's not a song for a gentleman but a song that engraves fear in your heart. What do you think?"



Commentary



PAPAYA: I've been into house style lately. I used to think of a song as an aggregate of sounds but recently I learned of making parts (phrases) seperately and doing a copy-paste to create a song. Just like making a collage. (Hard to explain...) I used this method for this song. How is it? Recently I've become impudent, really feeling the differene between what I like and what society likes. So I'm waiting for your opinion.



*The song samples Kool Chip & Chuck Chillout's "Rhythm Is The Master."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pr19jIAJK4U





User Info: Dark Symphony Dark Symphony (Topic Creator) 6 years ago #6 [12] Happy Jah! {arimasenka} "Isn't it happy?" (Ending 1)



Character Dialogue: None.





Commentary



Brother-Hige: A striking blue sky... bright white clouds... I'm now enjoying a session with cheerful Jamaicans, feeling the carribean wind. I haven't felt this high for a long time. I'm finally off from work. Wait, is the work finished? I haven't finished all the songs... Somehow my eye sight is getting all white...* No! Please don't take me back to reality! This is how songs are made. By escaping from reality. (I also wanna escape from click).**



*A Japanese phrase meaning "losing hope."

**No idea what this means or refers to.







[13] Sunset Sky Part4 "PAPAYA Version" (Ending 2)



Character Dialogue: None.





Commentary



PAPAYA: PAPAYA'S composing method number 5; make my feeling match the atmosphere of the song I'm making. I think I have a monstrous personality (and also look) so it was really tough to seize this type of atmosphere. (Music is an interesting thing. If the music doesn't suit a person's tastes it just sounds like noise to him/her). I might have been causing trouble by emitting quite a weird aura while composing this song.



User Info: Dark Symphony Dark Symphony (Topic Creator) 6 years ago #7 Ok. Here's the part you can skip. I'm as happy as an oyster (reference?) being able to finally read all of these comments. Hopefully I get to do more.



Some of the types of tidbits contained varied from album to album but the one constant was a piece of commentary from who I assumed to be one of the core artists for each track.



Much like many sound teams it seemed that SNK's sound team, known as Shinsenkai Gyakkoku Zatsugidan (or however it's spelled) had a number of artists/composers who all had different areas of expertise. Songs with a certain tone or created for a certain kind of stage often shared composers (like Sha-V for all the relative new age style tracks). Characters or teams would often have the same composer for a number of their songs (Like Yasuo Yamate AKA Tate_Norio for Iori Yagami's team themes).



Perhaps one day I'll take the time to thumb through all the soundtracks I have and compile a list of songs produced by each composer.



EITHER how, a few days ago my friends girlfriend flew in from Japan and was gracious enough to do some rough translating for me so I figured I'd document her efforts since my plan at some point is to get translations for as many SNK sound tracks as I can find as it would be cool to have these out of print commentaries documented instead of lost to time. There are a few sound tracks that I have yet to find but I have more than enough to keep someone busy for a while.



I don't know how many she will be willing to assist with as I'm sure there are more compelling things to do but I'll be honest... I'm going to shoot for as many as I can.



There was a site WAY back in the day... it was amazing. Wish I can remember the name but it had front/back cover scans and track listings for a bunch of SNK sound tracks. I remember emailing the guy a few times but I wish I could remember the site (we are talking late nineties/early 2000's) so I could thank the person as they were instrumental in my being able to get the item numbers for a number of these soundtracks to have them imported. (Keep in mind I acquired a number of these before the EBay/online store hey days).

User Info: Dark Symphony Dark Symphony (Topic Creator) 6 years ago #8 Regarding "OSTs" and "ASTs." It's pretty common for people on the internetz to use these acronyms but I'd figure I'd explain them so people know the difference as I didn't when I bought my first sound tracks.



OST = Original Sound Track

AST = Arranged Sound Track.



SNK often wrote "tracks" as "trax."



ORIGINAL SOUND TRACK albums contained music directly from the games. They also often contained voice and sound effect compilations for all of the characters. At least up until 2001 when Eolith combo broke the practice much to the chagrin of MUGEN developers everywhere. Being directly from the games these tracks sounded... well, like they were from computer games. Fake instruments and synthesizers abound. SNK had particular sounds they would use to represent different instruments so you often could anticipate with glee what a track would sound like arranged.



SNK was also awesome about ensuring that EVERY song and sound just about was included which spoiled me as I've come to find that many video game sound tracks decide to take it upon themselves to determine which songs you'd like and which ones you wouldn't. (Thanks, Sengoku Basara).



OSTs often came out right around the same time as the release of the games. Boss names/names of characters that wouldn't be known at the start of a game often had their names truncated in some way or were referred to as "boss" or something. It's the little details. AST's usually followed about a month or so later.



SNKP has a bad habit of using the old, low quality OST's over the much better ASTs. I think the collection of KOF music that came with KOF XIII pre-orders was all OST stuff which is just... baffling....





ARRANGED SOUND TRACK albums contained themes that were remastered with more traditional and professional sound devices/instruments and quality. They were more than a replacement of instruments as the structure of the songs often changed to more traditional structures found in contemporary music. Sometimes the entire spirit of the song would be altered. In my opinion, usually it would be a lateral (as good as the OST just different) or better. Though there were some critical misses in my opinion (Donchika! Chi! Chi!, Hon-Fu's theme from RBFF2 is one of the more unfortunate changes to happen).



Some arrangements would make severe changes (most often in the form of adding lyrics) which would lead to what I call a "lost" ost track in which the original version never got a direct arrangement. Blue Mary's Blue's or Dear Mai Boy replacing Mai Mai Kyuun (?) in Real Bout Fatal Fury Special are some examples. Or Yamazaki's C62 having two different OST versions and then an AST version that is different in many ways from the OST version.



Arranged sound tracks usually only contained the central themes found in the games. The character/team/stage themes, the opening themes and the credits. Sometimes they'd have some image song of some character(s) singing or whatnot. Boss names were also often included since the arranged tracks came out long after players knew who the bosses were.



The original SNK soundtracks were published (?) by a company called Scitron. Some people may be aware of a few "Scitron 10th anniversary" CDs that came out around 1999 celebrating the company's 10 years of... something. Being in business? Working with SNK? I don't know. I really don't know what exact role Scitron played because of the SGZ SNK sound team producing the music and the involvement of another company called PONY CANYON.



The Item Numbers of many of the sound tracks started with "PC" in a lot of cases. Pretty much every one that Pony Canyon was involved with (also most if not all original SNK music CDs). Sounds like they were a distributor of some sort but someone else might know better.

User Info: Dark Symphony Dark Symphony (Topic Creator) 6 years ago #9 These are super rough translations with the goal being expedience while trying to get the spirit of the translation in place. Between her literal translations and my knowledge of the game content I'd like to think the gist of some of the commentary was captured. There are quite a few bits even about the song titles themselves that I learned and it's nice being able to ask questions instead of seeing some random translation on the internet.



In cases where SNK USA had translated song titles I'll try to display their title (which is the official one) and a literal one if there is a difference. Though I don't think any surface in KOF 94 as there wasn't ever, like, a console release of the game in the west unless ReBout came out here (can't remember, to be honest. I ended up importing that game).