Music to duel by… music to duel by? Of course, and Errol Flynn
would be damned proud. Of course if he ever witnessed the unlikely marriage of
Japanimation to soundtracks, to loops, samples, and clusters of bits, bites, and
body parts that make up the whole, he'd have probably cut his own throat for
fear of interplanetary invasion! My first thoughts on embarking on this Yu-Gi-Oh
journey is bewilderment and wonder; Yes, this will appeal to the kiddies who'll
get their parents to shell for the $15-18 bucks to get their favorite
superheroes of the deck in full digital surround; limited edition comes with
cool sticker sheet-perfect for spiral notes or cute little Stacy over there in
the corner of class with the empty pocket on her pencil case. But just cause
I've never played the game or watched the series, hey, being a kid never stopped
being fun, so damned straight I'm getting every last ounce outta this… Been a
while between cartoon S/T's I gotta admit - that's if you're not counting
Gorillaz which somehow created a genre all to their own. Okay so "Music To
Duel By's" not your average kiss the girl and make her cry sort of
adolescent drama, but it's "drama" that a majority of this fourteen
track audio flight begins and ends.
"Yu-Gi-Oh!" joins hands with the expected kiddie
kulture and musical digi-rat with the futuristic view led by heavy electronica
beats and soundtrack style subtlety with the full range of orchestral interplays
themselves offset, say every other turn here, by drum and bass dynamics, rock
guitar, and fiery atmospherics without overwhelming with Disneyland dust.
Plug Jan Hammer through an up to the minute mutant mixing
console, tweak and trill to exhaustion, and go ga-ga over having "Viced,"
sliced, and diced "Miami" to the point where's left only a feral
freeverse of bits and bytes. And like all good series soundtracks there's the
thematic tie-in of drama, danger and dabbling with the daisy faced choir, you
know, so the bases are covered. "Music To Duel By" is cool unto
itself; there's plenty o' "Blues Clues" type sing alongs for the kids,
not to mention the many RPG alum with a taste for battle, and the state of the
art FX and full bodied legitimacy of the songs make it fair game for most
adolescent grown ups looking for a little more than the Pokemon's portraying.
|
|
