15th Anniversary Duet of Dreams Dreams!

How's this for a "Sega Memory"? Cameron Strother, the man that as a young boy sang in the game NiGHTS into Dreams, contacted NiGHTSintodreams.com recently with a rather special gift: a brand new duet of the song "Dreams Dreams" between himself and Jasmine Ann Allen, the other original singer! Jasmine sung this song for the Wii sequel on her own but this is the first time since the original Saturn game that they have sung it together! They were both just kids when they originally did this and as a bonus Cameron sent this message reminiscing about his time working on the game and visiting Sega's headquarters.

I was very young when I first heard and sang this song. I'm not sure how many years ago it was now but it seems like I recorded it a year or two before NiGHTS was released. It was my first paid singing job. I was paid a handsome sum (didn't mean much to a kid) and was given an armful of Sega Saturn games (meant the world). More than the money or even the games though, I remember the special feeling I got when visited the Sega HQ building. Video games were my chocolate so I felt like I was walking around Willy Wonka's factory, witnessing a magical process.

I remember seeing the early plans for a game that was supposed to replace Sonic the Hedgehog as Sega's new flagship series. I was supposed to keep quiet about it but I told all my Japanese school friends about this amazing new game that was coming out and how I had seen the secret last boss. Suffice to say, It was an awesome experience and it holds a very special place in my childhood memories and I was glad to revisit that happy time by singing Dreams Dreams again. I myself am a big NiGHTS fan and I'm still holding out for a proper sequel or at least a good re-release for the current generation of consoles.

Thanks for keeping NiGHTS alive!

-Cameron Strother

You can download the MP3 of this new track over at NiGHTSintodreams.com!

Sonic CD is my life.

Sonic CD is something of a special game to me. game play and level layout wise, it's not my favourite game and not even my favourite Sonic game, but the art style, soundtrack and general tone of the game is by far the one that has stuck with me the most ever since I played it in 1994 when I was 8. Incoming long ramble about Sonic CD inspired moments of my childhood and beyond!

The first Sonic game I played was Sonic 2, although I think it may have actually been both the cartoons and the fleetway comic that first got me into the character. We got a second hand Mega CD out of the local newspaper classified section and it came with a bunch of games including Sonic CD. I have owned this copy of the game ever since, mainly because barring eBay I have never seen another copy for sale since, same case with most of my Mega CD games.

Childhood doodles and my top 20 favorite pieces of music from the game after the jump!

SOS '10 Videos Part 4: Crush 40 Live

So here we are at the last of the four SOS 2010 videos I will be uploading. Here we have some of the best bits from Crush 40's live performance at the end of this years Summer of Sonic. I didn't film the whole thing because I knew many others would be and with better camera and steadier hands, and I was right: just search for crush 40 on Youtube and you can watch the entire thing from more angles than you could possibly ever need.

Mega Drive Musical Madness

Put this together over the last couple of days. The mega Drive in the right hands pumped out some brilliant music, and this video is a sample of some of my personal favorites. I might make another one of these at some point if I get time, or maybe videos of the music from certain games like Decap Attack and Battle Mania 2.

Michael Jackson 1958-2009 - His Contribution to Sega

Michael Jackson has just been confirmed to have passed away tonight in a hospital in L.A. at the young age of 50. No matter what you think of him as a person, he was an incredible talent and for those who were kids during the 80's and 90's: his music was a huge chunk of our childhood.

And as any Sega fan would know, Michael Jackson and Sega got along rather well, collaborating on many projects such as The Moonwalker arcade, Mega Drive and Master System games..

..not to mention his supposed involvement on the Sonic 3 soundtrack.. (click image for the video)

More after the jump..

The I Have a Dreamcast EP

Posting this both here and the Dreamcast Junkyard because it deserves to be heard!

The I Have a Dreamcast guys have released the EP as a free download! They had a live performance of the album, and some more DC playing goodness last night. There are 8 tracks in MP3 format in the download:

The Pianosaurus - Green Hill Drone
Bicycles & Gravel - A Song for the Dreamcast
Gemini Cricket - Dreamcast Vision
Grey Milk - Venice is Dying
Bicycles & Gravel - Curious Console
The South Will Rave Again - I Fell in Love Playing Marvel vs. Capcom
I Have Read Other Books Besides The Catcher in the Rye - To Beat, From Gum
Captain #1 - Bring Sega Back

Oh, I'm so making some Dreamcast videos with these songs in them. Amazing stuff.

The British Sonic Single that couldn't.

I remember there being, back about 1992, two Nintendo related singles that were somehow doing pretty well in the charts (they were in the top 10 for a week or two), one was some odd Tetris remix, and the other was a tune from Super Mario Land on the Game Boy with rapping all over it (ugh). I presume someone at Sega demanded that they jumped onto the band wagon, and not long later a Sonic single popped up out of no where.

The track uses music and samples from the first Mega Drive game, which is nice, but is ruined by some shite lyrical work and naff 90's beats. Unlike the Nintendo tracks this single didn't fare too well, only reaching the No.33 spot. When you hear it you'll pretty much see why. It did somehow manage to stay in the top 40 for six weeks, though. I only know this because when I came across the single at a car boot sale some years after it's release (I didn't even know of it when it came out in 1992) I looked it up in a Record Guide book my dad had. Somehow I managed to find both the CD and Record versions of it, which are still sitting in the loft amongst all the Sonic the Comics and other Sonic junk. Here's a close up of the back, for those who may want to know who made it (yes, both of you). The writer is unknown, apparently. Probably a sign that the guy who did write it isn't too proud of the fact. Now I know you all really want to hear this, so here's a download of it! I did warn you though!

Edit: Found a youtube video of it.