MUSIC TO OUR EARS
Some of the top picks from Richard’s 30-year career
knocked it out of the park. Those are brilliant tunes. Passing Breeze is my favourite.
Let’s talk about your early work at Sega. Almost immediately you created one of the most memorable soundtracks in the Sonic
The Hedgehog series, with Sonic R.
I was in Tokyo having meetings with Yuji Naka and Sonic Team. It was Naka-san’s idea to use female vocals, and at that time, 1995 or 1996, J-pop was massive, so I went to record stores in Shibuya in Tokyo and bought CDS.
Were there any particular inspirations?
One of the big artists in those days was Namie Amuro. Her music was fantastic, and Naka-san gave me that as a reference. There was also a German singer, Jasmin Wagner, who went by the name Blümchen. Very fast music, almost happy house, over 200 beats a minute, and I think Naka wanted to use her but her record label wouldn’t allow it. I wrote Super Sonic Racing and recorded that with TJ Davis, and Naka and Sonic Team said, “We love it. We want all the songs to have vocals.”
Sonic R’s soundtrack is certainly memorable and is discussed often.
It’s one of those projects that I think the fans either love or hate. I’ve made peace with it, but I think because it was only one project out of three-hundred or so that I’ve done, it was a bit frustrating early in my career when people thought that’s the only thing I did. But I was recently giving a keynote speech at a development conference, and I put together a video of cover versions of Can You Feel The Sunshine? and I found over 500. And I just felt very humble that people still like it, that they take time to do remixes in all sorts of genres. So I look back on it more comfortably now, and look back with good memories.
Let’s talk about one of our favourite soundtracks – Metropolis Street Racer.
I had to do literally everything you hear in that game.
That’s amazing, because that soundtrack has so many types of musical styles, voiceacted DJS and radio station adverts.
Yeah, I wrote all the DJ scripts, and I wanted to make each radio station feel like it was aimed at a certain demographic, and I had to do all the car engine sounds, all the sound effects. A lot of work. There’s 27 in-game songs plus some front-end music. We had TJ Davis again, and a few other singers, but for a while people weren’t sure that it was TJ singing because she had to go under the name Helena Davison, due to a record deal. But it was great to have TJ, she’s incredibly versatile. Some of those vocal styles are very different, going from R&B to rock to dance, and she just bloody nailed it.
MSR is the only game, I may be wrong, but I haven’t heard anything since that has real brand advertisements. Games like GTA, they have made up brands, and they’re all really funny, but we had real-life radio ads. We had our marketing department approach some big brands, and we said, “Have you got any 30-second radio ads
F1 CHALLENGE
■ Richard’s very first credit at Sega was for this Formula 1 racer for Sega’s Saturn. The game’s soundtrack has a distinctly Japanese arcade sensibility, up-tempo drums punctuating a synth guitar reminiscent of musical styles that would gain popularity in later Sega games.
SONIC R
■ Super Sonic Racing was the very first song written for the Sonic R soundtrack. The optimistic lyrics and upbeat sounds of Super
Sonic Racing and Can You Feel The Sunshine? have given these songs iconic status in the Sonic The Hedgehog series.
PURSUIT FORCE
■ The Sony PSP action game, Pursuit Force, features a sweeping orchestral score which beautifully accentuates the gameplay. The Pursuit Force series can now be played on PS4 and PS5 through Sony’s online Classics Catalogue.
SONIC & ALLSTARS RACING TRANSFORMED
■ This amazing soundtrack contains a couple of original tracks, as well as reimagined versions of Sega’s most iconic songs from games like Panzer Dragoon, Jet Set Radio, Sonic, The House Of The Dead and many more.
MARVEL’S GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY
■ Richard’s recent work includes the soundtrack for this adventure. For this game, Richard worked very hard to create a soundtrack that would accentuate the narrative and gameplay. It’s among the most reactive and tonally appropriate soundtracks ever composed.