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Topic	Para ranks every classic Mega Man stage theme
Paratroopa1 07/18/21 3:47:50 AM #267:	20. Needle Man (Mega Man 3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDJbOB1h2EU (dusts off list) So! This is the first of the two tracks that Harumi Fujita contributed to Mega Man 3 - and thus, to the series - and considering they BOTH made my top 20, I'd say she really made her mark despite her limited influence. Needle Man is probably Mega Man 3's proggiest track and personally, I think its most underrated - it tends to be forgotten among Mega Man 3's corpus. It's a long track and it's really chock full of cool ideas - lots of changing voices and polymelodic concepts, and a textbook example of how a really creative and involved bassline really ties a song together. This track's got one of my favorite basslines - it moves around a lot and doesn't repeat its own ideas too much and really makes the rest of the track pop. I've always wondered if this was the first track composed for this game, since it doesn't seem to quite have MM3's particular style worked out yet, and the percussion could use a little work in a few places, but I really love this one otherwise. I remember one of my first memories of listening to VGM arrangements online was an OCremix that had like, a jazzy latin take on this track that I really liked. No idea if it holds up today! 19. Charge Man (Mega Man 5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C75Q7bdQAQA Mega Man 5 almost makes me a little mad, because pretty much every melodic idea the game has seems almost impossibly well-considered. That melody hook should be framed in a museum somewhere, it's just a perfect little jam. What really makes it is the stroke of genius in that little low note - every time that part hits I do a tiny little fist pump - fuck yeah! There's that low note again! It's funny how a single note can be such a key setpiece, but its absence really stands out in the GB version of the track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tceS3igTzQY The track is largely the same aside from the production quality being not quite as nice, but that missing low note is really noticeable! It was tying the whole thing together. Also they fucked up the loop which makes me really annoyed. Listening to the inferior GB version again also reminds me of just how good the production in MM5 is - all of the sounds are really crisp and not mushy and everything's exactly as loud and taking up as much space as it should. I especially like that bubbly little Kirby-like instrument at :21. My only complaint about this track is that it's on the repetitive side, but it's a small quibble. 18. Napalm Man (Mega Man 5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLI6FzBY_JA The introduction to this track remains a small mystery to me to this day; I'm PRETTY sure that the whole track is in 4/4 time and never leaves 4/4, but that weird, free-time intro tricks my brain every time into thinking something weirder is going on, and it's a genius little motif that the track uses multiple times later. Everything else is the same sort of genius that goes into every MM5 track - crisp production, brilliant melody hooks, etc etc. I can only find so many ways to talk about all of these! 17. Gyro Man (Mega Man 5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZWDWJNYEhk More praise for Mega Man 5 forthcoming, although I guess at this point I'm actually dissing MM5 because I'm eliminating so many tracks at once? All three of these exist somewhere in the same place for me - favorites but not quite tippy-top favorites. Just another fucking Mari Yamaguchi banger here, folks. One thing that I really like about this one and Charge Man in particular is that they're written in major keys - kind of a rarity for a series that tends to be stuck in Wily-D-minor all the time. At least I think it's major, it might be mixolydian - video game tracks tend to really prefer that dropped 7th - I'm too lazy to really analyze it to check, sue me. 16. Spark Man (Mega Man 3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J5cN87c2yM An undeniable, certified classic of a tune that's only held back by the fact that the loop is actually really short at only 25 seconds - that's Heat Man levels of short, folks. But it makes the most of it with a main hook that is so ungodly cool that I can't believe someone wrote it for a video game in 1990. How did they come up with this shit? I think this one stands out for a lot of people from MM3 and for good reasons because it's instantly memorable and it's just dripping with MM3's sense of style. Yasuaki Fujita, I think, really embodied the idea of rock in Rockman better than any other composer in the series - all of his riffs seem like they're just ready-made to be turned into metal covers. If this one had just a little bit more to it it'd be top 10 easy. <cite>Paratroopa1 posted [p:956201315] in Para ranks... [t:79360411]...</cite> <quote>20. Needle Man (Mega Man 3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDJbOB1h2EU (dusts off list) So! This is the first of the two tracks that Harumi Fujita contributed to Mega Man 3 - and thus, to the series - and considering they BOTH made my top 20, I'd say she really made her mark despite her limited influence. Needle Man is probably Mega Man 3's proggiest track and personally, I think its most underrated - it tends to be forgotten among Mega Man 3's corpus. It's a long track and it's really chock full of cool ideas - lots of changing voices and polymelodic concepts, and a textbook example of how a really creative and involved bassline really ties a song together. This track's got one of my favorite basslines - it moves around a lot and doesn't repeat its own ideas too much and really makes the rest of the track pop. I've always wondered if this was the first track composed for this game, since it doesn't seem to quite have MM3's particular style worked out yet, and the percussion could use a little work in a few places, but I really love this one otherwise. I remember one of my first memories of listening to VGM arrangements online was an OCremix that had like, a jazzy latin take on this track that I really liked. No idea if it holds up today! 19. Charge Man (Mega Man 5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C75Q7bdQAQA Mega Man 5 almost makes me a little mad, because pretty much every melodic idea the game has seems almost impossibly well-considered. That melody hook should be framed in a museum somewhere, it's just a perfect little jam. What really makes it is the stroke of genius in that little low note - every time that part hits I do a tiny little fist pump - fuck yeah! There's that low note again! It's funny how a single note can be such a key setpiece, but its absence really stands out in the GB version of the track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tceS3igTzQY The track is largely the same aside from the production quality being not quite as nice, but that missing low note is really noticeable! It was tying the whole thing together. Also they fucked up the loop which makes me really annoyed. Listening to the inferior GB version again also reminds me of just how good the production in MM5 is - all of the sounds are really crisp and not mushy and everything's exactly as loud and taking up as much space as it should. I especially like that bubbly little Kirby-like instrument at :21. My only complaint about this track is that it's on the repetitive side, but it's a small quibble. 18. Napalm Man (Mega Man 5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLI6FzBY_JA The introduction to this track remains a small mystery to me to this day; I'm PRETTY sure that the whole track is in 4/4 time and never leaves 4/4, but that weird, free-time intro tricks my brain every time into thinking something weirder is going on, and it's a genius little motif that the track uses multiple times later. Everything else is the same sort of genius that goes into every MM5 track - crisp production, brilliant melody hooks, etc etc. I can only find so many ways to talk about all of these! 17. Gyro Man (Mega Man 5) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZWDWJNYEhk More praise for Mega Man 5 forthcoming, although I guess at this point I'm actually dissing MM5 because I'm eliminating so many tracks at once? All three of these exist somewhere in the same place for me - favorites but not quite tippy-top favorites. Just another fucking Mari Yamaguchi banger here, folks. One thing that I really like about this one and Charge Man in particular is that they're written in major keys - kind of a rarity for a series that tends to be stuck in Wily-D-minor all the time. At least I think it's major, it might be mixolydian - video game tracks tend to really prefer that dropped 7th - I'm too lazy to really analyze it to check, sue me. 16. Spark Man (Mega Man 3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J5cN87c2yM An undeniable, certified classic of a tune that's only held back by the fact that the loop is actually really short at only 25 seconds - that's Heat Man levels of short, folks. But it makes the most of it with a main hook that is so ungodly cool that I can't believe someone wrote it for a video game in 1990. How did they come up with this shit? I think this one stands out for a lot of people from MM3 and for good reasons because it's instantly memorable and it's just dripping with MM3's sense of style. Yasuaki Fujita, I think, really embodied the idea of rock in Rockman better than any other composer in the series - all of his riffs seem like they're just ready-made to be turned into metal covers. If this one had just a little bit more to it it'd be top 10 easy. </quote> ... Copied to Clipboard!
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