Not What I Needed: you got your Ric Ocasek in my Earthbound edition
The bigger story here: trusted sources tell Starmen.net -- clearinghouse for all things pertaining to SNES cult hit series Earthbound -- that the game's spring 2008 ESRB rating was not a sign it would be hitting the Wii's Virtual Console, but was, literally, "a mistake," and that the game is seemingly inextricably bound in a legal battle because of copious pop culture references and samples Nintendo of Japan is stubbornly refusing to allow Nintendo of America to fix.
(The question unanswered: what about the "time and circumstances" make now the moment for Starmen to let this out of the bag?)
But of more pertinent interest: which references and samples, exactly? To that end, Starmen spinoff blog Earthbound Central has put together a list of some of the most unexpected samples hidden deep within Earthbound's soundtrack.
A sampling: background clicks and synth pads from Ric Ocasek’s 'Keep on Laughin’ show up in the Moonside area theme, 'Jackie’s Cafe' contains warped bits of both the Little Rascals/Our Gang theme, and, of all things, a bent version of the Star-Spangled Banner.
Though EC doesn't overtly say that this is specifically what's causing hand-wringing with Nintendo's lawyers, presumably this is enough of a start.
EarthBound Music Similarities [EarthBound Central]
Previously:
Mother 3: Behind the Music - Offworld
Mother 3 musical toe-dip into Bach, Vivaldi, Satie... Batman ...
Mother 3 translators start Earthbound Central blog - Offworld
Saturn-ine: another Mother/Earthbound treat we can't have - Offworld
Earthbound goods for the rest of us - Offworld
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To answer the question about why tell people this now, there's no real special reason. It's just that the topic of EB on VC comes up regularly on the starmen.net forums and every time it always turned into the same exact arguing and debating and misinformation and whatnot.
I happened to check the latest EB on VC thread the other day and was like, "I wish we could say SOMETHING after all this time", so I talked to reid about it, he talked to his contacts, and then he wrote the stuff up.
The EarthBound Central page of mine that you've linked to actually probably doesn't have much that's legally iffy (since that wasn't the intended purpose of that page), but I think in the next few days I'll put a page together showing stuff that probably DID throw up red flags for the legal guys.
So? Call them techno remixes and you are in the clear.
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