An hour-long tribute to the creepy, claustrophobic and downright awesome music of the Metroid series, which is 25 years old this year.
Download episode five and instantly feel better about your day
Show notes:
0:00:00 – Menu Select (Metroid Prime)
0:06:41 – Title Screen (Metroid)
0:08:16 – Kraid’s Hideout (Metroid)
0:09:53 – Norfair (Metroid)
0:11:12 – Brinstar (Metroid)
0:15:04 – Title Screen (Zero Mission)
0:16:33 – Kraid’s Hideout (Zero Mission)
0:18:32 – Norfair (Zero Mission)
0:20:49 – Brinstar (Zero Mission)
0:25:01 – SR-388 Surface (Metroid II)
0:34:51 – Title Screen (Super Metroid)
0:36:03 – Main Theme (Super Metroid)
0:38:25 – Brinstar (Super Metroid)
0:43:00 – Red Soil Area (Super Metroid)
0:46:48 – Norfair Ruins Area (Super Metroid)
0:49:05 – Samus Aran Theme (Super Metroid)
0:54:18 – Title Screen (Metroid Fusion)
0:55:41 – Sector 4 (Metroid Fusion)
1:00:16 – Chozo Ruins 2 (Metroid Prime)
1:04:26 – Tallon Overworld (Metroid Prime)
1:08:21 – Phendrana Drifts (Metroid Prime)
1:13:05 – Ending (Metroid II)
1:15:10 – Ending (Metroid)
Many thanks to composers Hip Tanaka, Ryohji Yoshitomi, Kenji Yamamoto, Minako Hamano and Akira Fujiwara for such an amazing body of Metroid songs. The latter two worked on Fusion, and after editing the show I realized the track “Sector 4” reminded me of The Warriors soundtrack. It just has that hoofing-it-across-hostile-territory feel, plus a general ’70s-’80s background music vibe.
If you’re interested in more, the Metroid Prime/Fusion soundtrack CD actually exists, but uh, if you didn’t pick it up 7 or 8 years ago, it’s gonna cost you. Amazon has some here, but be warned – it’s pricey. Additional thanks to Metroid Recon (for a handful of files I didn’t have from Metroid II) and Ivan Flores (for the jaw-dropping Samus art).
This is gonna be a great episode.
The Metroid II ending theme makes me want to high-five everything. Really looking forward to this.
This will be my first one, I haven’t really listened to Podcast lately, due to skyrim but I can’t pass up a Metroid episode. I love the series for what I have played, besides Other M, and the music is amazing!
On a side note, I now relate the band, Trust Company, to Metroid Prime because after playing it for the 3rd time I started to play music over it and I was really into that band in 7th grade.
Awesome!! Can’t wait to give it a listen. I love this show, thanks Brett!
DOWNLOADING NOW!!! Can’t wait for this one! Everything has been awesome, Brett! Love when you guys also just tell stories about the music and memories that come from it as well! Keep ’em coming, man!
-P!
I HIT MY HEAD WITH MY BONEEEEEEER!!!
Thank you so much for this episode Brett!
Can’t wait to give this a listen! 😀 Thx Brett!
Troid! oh fuck yeah! Metroid has some of my all time fav video game music. This is gonna be a good one!
What an awesome episode, listened to it at work and time fucking FLEW.
I love this podcast, can’t wait for some more.
Can’t wait to get home to play some Metroid Prime Trilogy. AGAIN.
OMG Thankyou Brett!!! Metroid is my favourite series of all time, and in my PERSONAL OPINION I believe Super Metroid has the best music on the SNES
I borrowed the first Metroid, with Gradius, from someone back in the early days of the NES when we were happy to play Super Mario Bros over and over and over (and over,) and didn’t have the money for many games. It was a hell of a thing, it was still hard to tell what it was you were supposed to be seeing in a basic looking game, you could wander wherever, and it all seemed very dangerous, especially when it got late at night, and your head started getting funny, and the creepy music was droning away, and there was ABC gum floating between the wall and platforms, and corncobs flying back and forth, and the black backgrounds made everything seem scarier. Good stuff as a ten year old.
at bretts request on laser time..
blow me
Cool, don’t know much about Metriod but the music is quite enjoyable.
this comment is to show there is interest in this show. Shame I couldn’t come up with anything useful to say.
Metroid is one of my favourite series and I’m so glad someone is actually bringing up this anniversary. No one else seems to be.
I will add “Blow me” because Brett asked for it, showing my support the best way I can
I love me some Metroid music, but I feel a Zelda episode may have been more appropriate.
Oh well, this is going to be awesome.
Also,
Cool.
Blow me.
cool
Sweet, can’t wait to give this a listen. Thanks for the links Brett. Dang so I was…like, 1 when the first Metroid came out.
The art of Samus is so sexy.
[…] claustrophobic and downright awesome music of the Metroid series, which is 25 years old this year. LISTEN NOW Posted by C.Ant at 10:54 pm Tagged with: Laser Time presents, Metroid, Metroid music, Nintendo, […]
Nice episode brett, can we have a final fantasy episode next please.
Great episode. I have actually only played Metroid Prime and Metrod Prime 3: Corruption. I skipped Other M but might give it a go one day. The music certainly is moody and very independent of the regular Nintendo happy go lucky mixes.
I am varia ready to listen to this weeks VGMpire.
loving the phoenix that rose from the ashes of VGMOTD.
Oh god a Metroid episode? This is to compete against Zelda right? Or because Other M was an asshole right? Right?
Glorious, bloody glorious. The best one yet.
This is hands down my favorite episode. And will remain that way until otherwise!
Very very nice. I knew Nintendo was known for their soundtracks but these are amazing. Subtle, moody and atmospheric these songs are gold.
This episode had a good flow to it too.
Best episode so far, Mr. Elston. Great job!
im not a huge fan of game music but for some reason i love all metroid music. As a 19 year old college student i never had much exposure to metroid as a kid but i played super metroid and metroid fusion and loved both of those and find the music to be very compelling. ive been a big fan of metroid metal since the tdar interview a couple years back. i am in the exact wrong demographic for this podcast but for some reason i think its great! Keep up the great work.
Metroid Prime and Echoes are on my top 5. The music is in big part responsible for that. Brett, you rock for doing this. iTunes… When?
Do what you wanna do for this, I am loving this no matter how long or short it is. I do believe keeping it to a single game or short series or Era. Like Sonic’s genesis era and later Dreamcast era.Or a trilogy as a episode. If you can’t find a lot of stuff you like then that’s fine just a suggestion. Also really enjoying the radio station feel to this, and I find stories that coincide with music interesting.
Yay, Metroid!!! For whatever reason, I only have the Metroid 1 OST on my computer, and nothing else. Gotta rectify that soon.
By the way, Brett, thanks for the Castlevania IV mention – that was podcast 27, and it was an amazing ending. Chris editied it perfectly; I still go back and listen every now and then.
Fuck yea!!! BTW… BLOW ME!!
red soil swampy area from SM is the absolute BEST!
it’s so atmospheric it just sucks me into it.
such a hauntingly beautiful melody.
dude… loving VGMpire.
keep it coming mang!
hey brett… do yo listen to rainwave radio?
i know you like ocr they have an ocr channel there too.
just wondering. C:
The only thing wrong with this episode is that you couldn’t play the entire soundtracks to these games. Well, except Metroid 2. Had to dust off the Wii and bust out the Prime Collection after listening to this.
Loving the podcast and the songs give me something to get excited for and such on wed.
Nice, I really like this cast Bret, the entire focus on the themes and sound that make up Metroid was a great idea, and the hour plus of music and discussion on the subject was a great fit all the way.
Is there any chance on give ActRaiser the same treatment, it has arguably one of the best sound tracks outside of the FF game on the SNES and was composted by Yuzo Koshiro.
On that note I hope you can make tribute episodes to Yuzo Koshiro, Jeremy Soule, David Wise and Yasunori Mitsuda (just to name a few) in the near future.
I love the Metroid II ending music. Remember hearing the amazing OCremix version at the end of TalkRadar 77, listen to that all the time. Perfect pick me up
Hey Brett,
Just wanted to drop you a note and say I’ve really been enjoying tthe show so far. Your passion for this kind of stuff is one of the things that keeps me from getting complacent in my retail hell job so I can get into my dream gaming job.
Yes, I love that artwork of Samus. It makes her look attrative even with all that armor on. Game on!
By far my this show was for me. Thx!
Don’t know if you guys at VGMpire know about this, but there was a podcast fairly similar to yours that I found to be the best on the subject of video game music:
intothescore.com
Check it out. It’s on iTunes as well. The third episode deals with Metroid music.
The one who did that podcast now has a regular blog at http://kenleykristofferson.com/
Thanks Brett, you have no idea how much I love the music of Metroid. The music served the ambient atmosphere just as much or more than the games just being amazing themselves.
Brett,
I liked your comment about how updating VGM doesn’t necessarily make it better–that some of the charm is it being 8-bit and whatnot. It’s interesting and strangely gratifying to think that’s true because some of the melodies that work really well in games are awesomely cheezy and just wouldn’t cut it “in real life.” However, one could say that it’s equally as gratifying to know that some of the work translates extremely well to orchestration or remixes. I just recently reviewed the 25th Anniversary Zelda CD on my blog, which is one of those latter types.
– Greg
Brett, good episode. Your best so far. I’ve been keeping up with all the shows and while I appreciate hearing new and different music, there is something to be said about hearing classic songs a lot of people grew up with, along with remakes of it. I used to listen to another video game music podcast, but right up front the hosts said that “you will never hear zelda, metroid or mario” and that they want to highlight obscure and unique music. Well, that’s all fine and good, but I like to hear the occasional classic and appreciate that along with some music that evolved from it. Every episode doesn’t have to be Mario or Mega Man, but my advice is to not shy away from them and put them in every few episodes to keep the casual music fans continually interested. This Metroid episode fit that bill perfectly. Thanks for all the hard work you do!
The Fact that there are time stamps and track names is rewarding.
This episode is so good. Keep it up Brett, I love the show so much.