SEGA just went fast on Spotify.

I probably didn’t say it explicitely (oh wait…): but I adore games’ soundtracks. In fact, half -or more- of the music I listen to on a daily basis comes from games.

SEGA announced that all some of their OSTs were now available on Spotify. Ladies and gentlemen: no more countless hours browsing on Youtube for that good version of Skies of Arcadia OST. THAT WAS THE BEST NEWS OF THE WEEK. Well, one of them, at least, but that’s a detail.

Before diving in details. Let’s speak about SEGA (and their OSTs)…

Some of you might remember SEGA for their image in the 90s: a gaming behemoth. Genesis/Megadrive, SEGA Arcade games, Sonic, SEGA-AM2… ~~Saturn~~ Those are words that were synonym of excellence.

SEGA-AM2 (and its former head, Yu Suzuki) have helped shaping the video games industry in the 90s. To name a few: Virtua Fighter, Space Harrier, Daytona USA, Super Hang-On, Out Run, Virtua Cop, Virtua Striker, Virtua Racing – one of the first 3D Racing games on Megadrive! It even required lot of tinkering on SEGA’s end to make it happen, since the Megadrive was too weak to handle 3D Polygons. What all those games had in common? Amazing gameplay, but also crazy good soundtracks. Do you remember driving in Out Run with those marvelous songs? Well, I do.

In any case, I am happy that SEGA decided to put some of those on Spotify. As a lifelong gamer, I am for these kind of things, we can’t allow ourselves and newcomers to forget how beautiful this industry has been for years. I firmly believe that gems from the past can be used for the future.

If I had to stick to 3 4 soundtracks from the Megadrive era :

Street Fighter 2: It’s a multiplatform game, but i’d have felt bad to not mention it. This OST is perfection, nothing less. Made by Yoko Shimomura, a living legend in video games music composition, she is also known for her work on Squaresoft / Square Enix games. Special mention to Smooth McGroove for his covers of Ken’s Theme, Ryu’s Theme and Guile’s Theme. Those three covers make me shiver, every single time. (Note: I’ll probably write an article about Smooth McGroove as I worked with him for DSIII)
Streets of Rage 1: made by the man, the legend, the myth: Yuzo Koshiro. He was one of the few Soundtrack creator to be featured on the main title screen in games. He also lead/created the game/music studio called “Ancient” which is behind one of my favourite games of all time: Story of Thor.
Sonic 3 & Knuckles: My fav Sonic game.
Out Run: see above

Here are some of my favourite ones:

Out Run