Smooth McGroove

Doujin, Game Music

EDM Meets A Capella in Smooth McGroove Remixed Vol.2

January 20, 2017 | Brenna Wilkes | Comments Off on EDM Meets A Capella in Smooth McGroove Remixed Vol.2 Share this

In terms of mashups between musical genres and styles, I can safely say combining EDM and A Capella was never one I thought about before. However, Youtube VGM vocal star Smooth McGroove teamed up with the people at GameChops and decided “Why the heck not?”. Thus, we have Smooth McGroove Remixed Volume 2.

Remixed by music producers like A_rival, Dj CUTMAN, Grimecraft, and James Landino., the album features licensed EDM remixes of classic videogame music from Super Mario 64, Undertale, Pokemon, Mega Man and many more based on the the a capella talents of Mr. McGroove. The album is available now for purchase on ITunes and Google play, on Spotify for your listening pleasure, or you can just watch the neat music videos like the one above.

I can safely say that an a capella of Castlevania‘s “Vampire Killer” remixed into a danceable electronic music was never something I asked for, but I’m appreciative at the quality put into the production of such a chimera of VGM and can say I give such an effort a thumbs up.
Game Music

Arrangement of the Week: Smooth McGrove Remixed

May 13, 2016 | Michael Hoffmann | Comments Off on Arrangement of the Week: Smooth McGrove Remixed Share this

If you follow game music remixes at all, you’re no doubt familiar with the acapella game music arrangements from artist Smooth McGroove. He’s covered Mega Man, Super Mario, Undertale, Final Fantasy, and many more of our favorite game soundtracks. Last year a group of ten music artists collaborated to create a remix album of some of Smooth’s game arrangements, titled Smooth McGrove Remixed. Yes, it’s game arrangements of game arrangements. Cue the Inception music!

While all of the tracks on this album are worth a listen, I’ll be highlighting the track that put the collection on my radar in the first place. This particular remix comes from Ben Briggs who adapted Smooth McGroove’s cover of the “Super Mario Bros. 2 Overworld Theme.”

While this is a remix by Ben Briggs, McGroove’s vocal performances remain the focal point for a majority of the track. The source tune itself was already upbeat and energetic, but the combination of McGroove’s interpretation and the chiptune sounds and drum beats from Briggs brings up that energy even more. There are some other fun sonic touches like the use of the New Super Mario Bros. vocal pads and Mario voice clips that add to the charm as well.

Ben Briggs brings in some melodic musings of his own to the remix, including references to other Mario games like Paper Mario and the original Super Mario Brothers. As the track progresses the synth instruments start to take over more of the remix, with some instances of the original vocals dropping out completely. It’s a fun mashup of styles and this remix along with the others on the Smooth McGroove Remixed album are worth checking out if you haven’t already.

You can check out the full Smooth McGroove Remixed album on the GameChops page and you can of course find Smooth McGroove’s own acappella arrangements on his YouTube channel and on Loudr. Additionally, you can find more remixes from Ben Briggs on his Bandcamp page.
Featured, Game Music, Reviews

Wish Granted! LittleBIGPlanet 3 Soundtrack Exists! (Review)

April 29, 2015 | Patrick Gann | Comments Off on Wish Granted! LittleBIGPlanet 3 Soundtrack Exists! (Review) Share this

At the tail end of 2014, when we looked back on the year in our annual OSVOSTOTY celebrations, I lamented that the soundtrack to LittleBIGPlanet 3 might not see the light of day. The game was new to the market at the time, and while it was (and still is) suffering from some technical issues, its aesthetics were as brilliant as previous entries in the series. The music was more eclectic than ever, due in large part to the wide array of musicians taken on for the game’s single-player campaign levels.

Lucky for me, a soundtrack did finally arrive. It wasn’t an exhaustive collection of the game’s music, but it was a full 70 minutes of music, on iTunes, for nine bucks. I wasn’t going to pass that up.

After the jump, I’m going to pinpoint, as best as I can, what makes me love this music so much. Hint: much of it is thanks to a wonderful lady whose name starts with a W. (more…)